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Originally Posted by Cannon Shell
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/unfiltered/?p=1331
I do know is that Hirschbeck has absolutely no incentive to act with the intent suggested by Cohen. Umpires are constantly reviewed, and it would be bad enough for Hirschbeck that he missed these calls, period, let alone that he purposely missed them in an attempt to send a message. Actions like that tend to result in fines and discipline, not high praise.
The PITCHf/x data further confirms the outside location of this controversial pitch. While serving as home plate umpire this season, with right handed hitters up to bat, Hirschbeck has had to make a call (IE - ball wasn’t fouled off, whiffed at, or put in play) on 373 different pitches with similar horizontal location to the Manny pitch. He called strikes on 32 of these pitches, several of which were further outside than the slider to Ramirez. Hirschbeck hasn’t missed calls on pitches like this that often but the Ramirez call certainly wasn’t an isolated incident.
Does he harbor ill will towards Ramirez? I don’t know. I doubt Gary Cohen knows either. If Yuniesky Betancourt or some other hacktastic hitter with a poor eye were called out on a pitch like this, everyone would question the call for thirty-four seconds and then move on with their lives. Since it is Manny we’re talking about here, the same pitch suddenly balloons into a potential conspiracy with umpires “fixing” at bats to shun a player whose actions they look down on. It’s possible, no doubt, but it seems like a far reach that better fits person opinions on what should happen rather than what actually happened.
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If this umpire called strikes on 32 pitches that were even further outside than the pitch in question, then this umpire is consistently bad and he needs to tighten his strike-zone. That was pretty much my point, that some of these umpires are calling strikes on pitches that are way outside.