When choosing a lineup in fantasy baseball, every little edge can mean the difference between winning and losing. If you're deciding between Odalis Perez and Joe Blanton for your fifth starter, you'll want to know who is calling those balls and strikes behind the plate. If the umpire for today's game has a small strike zone, you might want to sit that mediocre starting pitcher.
Keep in mind that an umpire's statistics can be swayed by ballpark, league, quality of offense and pitching, and other factors. Here are some meaningful 2006 stats for the umps who called a minimum of 20 games (courtesy of Baseball Prospectus):
Highest K/BB Ratios:
Doug Eddings 3.1
Charlie Reliford 2.69
John Hirshbeck 2.67
Brian Gorman 2.49
Bill Miller 2.42
Lowest K/BB Ratios:
Andy Fletcher 1.52
Ed Montague 1.54
Randy Marsh 1.6
Sam Holbrook 1.62
Greg Gibson 1.64
Lowest ERA:
Doug Eddings 3.64
John Hirschbeck 3.82
Tom Hallion 3.93
Bruce Froemming 3.98
Mark Carlson 4.01
Highest ERA:
Jerry Crawford 5.90
Mike Everitt 5.25
Marty Foster 5.20
Ed Montague 5.18
Larry Poncino 5.07
Lowest Batting Avg:
Doug Eddings .249
Paul Nauert .252
Jim Reynolds .253
Brian Gorman .258
Laz Diaz .258
Highest Batting Avg:
Jerry Crawford .296
Brian O'Nora .292
Rob Drake .288
Bruce Dreckman .288
Marty Foster .288
Thus, you can see that Doug Eddings and John Hirschbeck are consistently favorable to pitchers, while Jerry Crawford and Marty Foster tend to promote more offense.
You can find a wide range of umpire stats at Baseball Prospectus, including stats for 2007 and past years.
2 comments:
Hey Scott,
That's a fantastic movie of the 1986 World Series. What video game did they use to make it?
-Don
Hey Don,
The video game is RBI Baseball (Nintendo, I think). They did a great job with the re-creation, with the exception of the winning play. Buckner boots the grounder instead of having it go through his legs.
oh well, someone's got too much free time on their hands...
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