Benchwarmer: Joe West

Joe West is an umpire for Major League Baseball. MLB has an umpiring problem (remember the 2009 Twins/Yankees ALDS?). West is part of the problem.

Yesterday he “spoke out” on how long it took to play the Red Sox/Yankees games that opened the season.

“They’re the two clubs that don’t try to pick up the pace,” said West, chief of the umpiring crew that worked the three-game series in Boston. He was the home plate umpire Sunday. “They’re two of the best teams in baseball. Why are they playing the slowest? It’s pathetic and embarrassing. They take too long to play.”

West’s comments are extraordinarily unprofessional and show a lack of understanding about how the game works as well as a lack of understanding about what fans want. The umpiring union is a fraternity of men who are arrogant, resistant to positive change, and as comments like West’s show, often seem to want the game to be about them instead of the players.

Here’s a rough list of things that slow down the game:
-Commercials between innings.
-Pitching changes.
-Batters who see a lot of pitches.
-Hits and walks, since the only clock in the game is the 27 outs allotted to each team.
-Mound conferences between the pitcher and catcher, pitcher and pitching coach, pitcher and infielders, pitcher and that guy who heckles everyone at Tampa games, etc.
-Batters calling timeout.
-Pitchers taking a long time between pitches.
-Streakers running across the field.

As I see it, all the things besides the first and last items on this list are related to higher offense levels. From what I can tell, the casual fan likes more exciting games with a lot of scoring—call this “chicks dig the long ball” syndrome. Or at least that’s what Bud Selig wants us to believe, as personally, I find a tight pitchers’ duel to be much more exciting than an 8-5 slugfest. But if you have more scoring, you’re going to have more hits and walks. You’re going to have guys who see a lot of pitches, so they can either walk or get the right pitch to drive. You’re going to have lots of pitching changes as managers run through their bullpen trying to play match-ups or find the guy who can get anyone out on that day. You’re going to have pitchers walking around the mound trying to calm themselves down, and you’re going to have batters calling timeout to try to throw off the pitchers’ timing. And you’re going to have myriad mound meetings as teams discuss things they should have discussed before the game (isn’t that why they have signs?). You may even have more streakers as the fans will have longer and longer to get drunk…well maybe that’s a stretch.

The point is that all these things are related to offense and generally to winning baseball. The Red Sox and Yankees have long games not because they are slow or waste any more time than any other team. They have long games because everyone in each lineup is a great hitter who can work a count and isn’t going to get themselves out. Both teams understand that the only clock in baseball is the 27 outs they’re given, and they don’t want the game to ever end when they are hitting. That’s why West’s comment about the Red Sox and Yankees being the “best” teams—and that this somehow means they should play a faster game—is completely misguided.

Here are some things that could speed up the game:
-Fewer commercials. Just one fewer commercial per break would shave ten minutes off the game, and provide a better experience for pretty much everyone. Obviously this won’t happen since we need to see the same W.B. Mason or Foxwoods ad 18 times a game.
-Umps calling the strike zone as it is in the rulebook. If you’re not familiar with this site (run by username “Jnai” on sonsofsamhorn.net), check it out. Particularly interesting are the plots of all called strikes and balls and how they compare to the rulebook strike zone. In West’s case on Sunday night, the answer is “not well.” Had he called a more consistent and larger zone, there would be fewer walks and probably fewer foul balls as the players would know that a pitch out of the strike zone, you know, wouldn’t be called a strike.
-Fewer mound conferences. Again, this is a product of more offense, but it’s unnecessary. Particularly annoying is the sequence when a manager will essentially delay the game to try to get his pitcher warming (as happened Sunday night when Girardi wanted Marte to be ready). If the manager doesn’t have the foresight to get a guy ready for an upcoming hitter, he should have to stick with the pitcher in the game.

Finally, even if West has a point, he really could have done without the hyperbole and calling the two most popular teams in the league a “disgrace.” If he were an NBA or NFL player, he would have gotten a hefty fine, and it would be deserved. He is paid to help MLB create the best product they can, and when he decries the best two teams in MLB because he doesn’t want to work for four hours instead of three, well, that’s “pathetic and embarrassing.”