![]() Veteran Laz Diaz worked 30 games behind the plate, but 25 at first base. For example, in 2016 relatively new umpire Gabe Morales had 37 games at first base, but only 29 at home plate. There are exceptions to this statistical rule: most just random fluctuations, but some with margins wide enough to make one suspect intent. Umpiring assignments are rotated to generally give umpires equal time at each base. UMPIRE EJECTIONS BY BASE ASSIGNMENT, 2012-2016 Year First base comes in a distant second place, with third and second bases bringing up the rear. Home plate umpires make the great majority of ejections, including thumbs for balls and strikes and for pitchers throwing at batters. Where the two sources disagreed, I made deeper searches into the games in question to settle which one was more likely correct.Ī discovery I made quite early in my data gathering, one that will be little surprise to any serious observer of baseball, is that the base the umpire is covering has a huge effect on the chances he’ll be tossing somebody. It tracks ejections throughout the season, and made for an excellent check on Retrosheet’s data. The other was a more obscure site, though one I’ve used before, called the Umpire Ejection Fantasy League, which is pretty much what the name implies. The first was Retrosheet, for easy ordering of umpires, base assignments, and so forth. I combined two sources for collecting data on umpire ejections. Along the way, I also found a couple extra questions. I took an extensive look at ejections over the last five seasons, 2012 to 2016, to find some answers. Certain umpires work on a hair-trigger others strive to still troubled waters.ĭo these personality traits evolve with age and experience? Does getting a couple thousand games under your belt make you better able to defuse a clash, or make you obstinate and quicker to flex your ultimate authority? Does advancing age dim your argumentative fires, the way it does with managers, or from the opposite side of the confrontation does it have the opposite effect? Umpires’ personalities can contribute to the confrontations that lead to managers, or others, being banished from a game. It takes two people to make an ejection, and I came to wonder about the other side of the equation. Long-serving managers almost always suffered fewer ejections as their careers proceeded, with the historically volatile Bobby Cox being the highest-profile exception. One of the strongest correlations I found was that, as managers age, they tend to be thrown out of games less often. ![]() (via Keith Allison)Ī few years ago, I did an extended dive into the statistics of manager ejections in the major leagues. ![]() ![]() No one ever said being an MLB umpire was easy. ![]()
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