WS umpires announced

[dumbdumb]

just in case you did not know a little after 3 from New York

https://www.mlb.com/press-release/press-release-umpires-for-the-2025-world-series-presented-by-capital-one-announced?msockid=1a97cbea85ee625b0460dd6484fe633a

where is Tumpane man on this forum. know he is happy. it was worth the wait. if by chance their is a sweep going on in the process, guess who will have game 4. Yep, Mr. Tumpane.

@834k3r might be Tumpane man.

[johnnyg08]

[dumbdumb]

PU stats from the divisional series from lowest to highest score--strictly total accuracy, not by most impactful, courtesy of ump scorecards.

we know every single stinking pitch is impactful to start with for every game ever played, because it changes the whole dynamics of every single at bat, and therefor the dynamics of that game. From pitch one, any missed pitch totally ruins that game because of a, what if scenario, for every batter/pitcher, and either the pitcher or batter will be scarred for life. Do we even need analytics to tell us this, since the founding of baseball many many years ago. Should have made things even on the pitchers/batters to start with, ie 3 balls is a walk or 3 strikes is an out. Why give the pitcher 7 pitches to throw and get 3 strikes instead of 6 if you love seeing the batter hit the ball, and hitting the baseball is the toughest thing in all of sports (so it is written/they say). oh well.

Just remember for next year, baseball did have the option of having all pitches called by ABS, rather than the challenge system and umpires agreed to this. So, if they want to belly ache, with the challenge system, go cry to management and commissioner who wants the challenge system, don't take it out on the umpires. Tell boone to get on the horn to the commissioner rather than umps (especially call up umpires),  If he uses his challenges unwisely, or uses them up entirely and then wants to go argue later. I bet that phone in the dugout will go to commissioner's office 1-800-commissioner. of course it adds a little strategy on when to use the challenge system, just like there are other baseball strategies used as the game progresses.

DS wegner---137/149---91.95-------WS---279/291--95.88

DS baker-----141/148----95.27------WS---189/202--93.56

DS porter-----219/228---96.05------WS---155/159--97.48

DS little-------162/168----96.43-----WS---162/170--95.29

DS johnson---141/146----96.58------WS---105/113--92.92

DS tumpane--148/152-----97.37-----WS---131/140--93.57

DS hamari----157/161------97.52-----WS---137/144--95.83

[beerguy55]

Too bad Wegner SH*# the bed on Monday.  He had some really bad misses...several pitches four+ inches out of the zone called strikes, plus a few pitches entirely in the zone called ball.  I think most people can live with the 50/50 calls...unfortunately, conservatively/generously, there were at least half a dozen head scratchers that you would expect an amateur to get right most of the time.

So, forgive me if I don't celebrate his 95.88% score - the extra nine innings gave him 150 additional no brainer calls.  His ALDS score (especially as compared to the others) is probably closer to the truth.  If the World Series is supposed to reflect best performers, I wonder what they're assessing, because it looks like half a dozen umpires outperformed Wegner in the LDS, across any number of metrics, who instead got to watch Wegner's gem on television. Rehak gets to see it from the replay booth.  I wonder if those roles should have been reversed.

ABS challenges can't come soon enough.

Kudos to the crew for taking the bad call/delay/miscommunication fiasco as a teachable moment.  Tumpane was really loud and intentional Tuesday night.  It resulted in an out that time...it could easily have gone the other way, with Bichette strolling safely to second base before anyone realized what really happened.

I'm looking forward to Alan Porter sticking the landing tonight.

[BLWizzRanger]

38 minutes ago, beerguy55 said:

I'm looking forward to Alan Porter sticking the landing tonight.

FWIW, I noticed, when I saw a game in person, how low Porter gets behind his plate.  If I am not mistaken, his head is as low as the F2's head.  I started trying to emulate him and I did think it helped my zone, maybe not my quads and back, but my zone.  

[SeeingEyeDog]

With Hoberg on the shelf, I shifted my enthusiasms to Tumpane this season and was therefore extremely pleased to see him get a WS slot. Last night he was saying, "No." on his ball calls. Has he always done that or were we just more aware of it last night because he was miked up?

~Dawg

[grayhawk]

3 hours ago, beerguy55 said:

Kudos to the crew for taking the bad call/delay/miscommunication fiasco as a teachable moment.  Tumpane was really loud and intentional Tuesday night.

I'm so tired of reading that Wegner's call was delayed. He called that strike exactly how he called every other strike in the game. Suddenly, proper timing is now a "delay"? Also, Tumpane was loud because Tumpane IS loud. I can guarantee that he didn't change a thing with respect to his voice, timing or anything else he did as the plate umpire last night.

[beerguy55]

59 minutes ago, grayhawk said:

I'm so tired of reading that Wegner's call was delayed. He called that strike exactly how he called every other strike in the game. Suddenly, proper timing is now a "delay"? Also, Tumpane was loud because Tumpane IS loud. I can guarantee that he didn't change a thing with respect to his voice, timing or anything else he did as the plate umpire last night.

OK - then kudos to the crew for not giving a SH*# because they never do anything wrong.

[Richvee]

5 hours ago, beerguy55 said:

Too bad Wegner SH*# the bed on Monday.  He had some really bad misses...several pitches four+ inches out of the zone called strikes, plus a few pitches entirely in the zone called ball. 

I'm looking for those several pitches that missed by 4+ inches. Yeah, he called a bad high strike early...and one in the 16th. none 4+ inches off...I'm also looking for those ball calls on pitches entirely in the strike zone. 

[dumbdumb]

dang--looked like a hitters umpire to me---13 strikes called balls versus 7 balls called strikes.

I am use to seeing that the other way around. why is that all through the season. why not have a 2 to 1 favor of missed strikes called balls. why do umpires miss the other way usually.

calling 13 balls strikes and 7 strikes balls. what's been going on for years and years. imagine this is the same at all levels. give the hitters a break. the pitchers already get an extra pitch before walking a batter. why do they need extra help. doesn't it take the ball being hit to have the maximum amount of action in a game.

 

and just let the best umpire work all 7 games behind the plate every day just like Klem did. and if you want to be nice 2 best umpires working every other day. this would include the college world series.

[beerguy55]

1 hour ago, Richvee said:

I'm looking for those several pitches that missed by 4+ inches. Yeah, he called a bad high strike early....I'm also looking for those ball calls on pitches entirely in the strike zone.

Is this the zone, or the zone +margin of error?

But fine, OK, ignoring that I'm sorry I exaggerated by an inch or so...I'm a man.  And, yup, I'll grant "entirely" in the zone as slightly off base...6, 7 and 8 are pretty damned close, and really are, for all intents and purposes, no brainer strikes...not 50/50 pitches.

Even by this chart there were nine missed calls that were more than half a ball (one of them more than a full ball) from the edge.  It's not good.

3 hours ago, grayhawk said:

He called that strike exactly how he called every other strike in the game.

That MIGHT be relevant if he had made a dozen strike calls by this point.  

I've played and/or coached in front of hundreds of umpires...from Little League to NAIA - some really awesome, some not so really awesome.  I'm pretty comfortable to say that Wegner's verbal, and his visual, speed for called strikes is in the bottom ten percentile.  Right or wrong, it's noticeably slow.

For the players to gauge what is consistent, to know exactly how he calls every strike, there's a bit of a learning curve to develop a frame of reference. To that point in the game there had only been two called strikes. It's one thing to tell a batter that "that has been a strike all game" in the 8th inning...it's another to apply it retroactively to a player in the first inning. At that point there's nothing to go by except for years of experience, which would tell almost all ball players that not seeing a strike mechanic well after a full second means it's a ball.  I'm sure by the fourth or fifth inning the players would have figured it out.

In a scenario where it's difficult to hear the umpire, that 1.5 seconds before you get the visual from Wegner is a lifetime.  If he took five seconds every pitch, would we be OK with that, because it's consistent?  I know we all love "consistency" and I admire an intentional beat to process/validate what you saw...but it looks exponentially worse when you get it wrong. 

So, yeah, when a baserunner sees a pitch that by all reasonable metrics should be ruled a ball, and with the crowd noise you can't necessarily hear the umpire (even the batter wasn't sure what he heard), it's not unreasonable for him to start to the next base, after what, with most umpires they've had in their careers, is a typical amount of time to get an explicit strike call/mechanic...regardless to what this particular umpire's SOP may be. 

I keep hearing this mantra that the players are responsible to know the game situation and act accordingly...ignoring the fact that players need to know the umpire's judgment in order to know the game situation, to know how to act, because you just can't assume the umpire's judgment will be the same as yours.  This is true whether it's an infield fly (or not), or ball four/strike three, or a catch/no catch. But umpires seem content to tell the players to act to what they see in one breath and then tell them they can't make assumptions in the next. It's a cop out. With the pace of play requirements for said baserunners and the next batter, there is incentive/reason to start advancing immediately on ball four.

I ultimately don't care if this caused the runner to get out or caused him to get a free pass to second base, it's not ALL on the players.  Wegner shares responsibility here and shouldn't get a free pass.

[jimurrayalterego]

1 hour ago, beerguy55 said:

So, yeah, when a baserunner sees a pitch that by all reasonable metrics should be ruled a ball, and with the crowd noise you can't necessarily hear the umpire (even the batter wasn't sure what he heard), it's not unreasonable for him to start to the next base,

I heard "HIKE". I'm guilty of not marrying verbal and visual (can't change old habit) and have never had a problem but perhaps the separation can cause a problem if MLB batters have not been exposed to it. I only know of one other MLB ump that I noticed doesn't marry and I can't remember his name. If an MLB batter hears something while the ump is still down he's probably thinking what was said was "no", "up", or "ball". 

[Richvee]

OK. I’ve officially entered bizzaro world, where people I thought knew more about umpiring and umpires are commenting like they’re run of the mill ignorant Facebook posters. 
 

2 hours ago, dumbdumb said:

and just let the best umpire work all 7 games behind the plate every day just like Klem did. and if you want to be nice 2 best umpires working every other day. this would include the college world series

 

2 hours ago, beerguy55 said:

Even by this chart there were nine missed calls that were more than half a ball (one of them more than a full ball) from the edge.  It's not good

 

5 hours ago, beerguy55 said:

- then kudos to the crew for not giving a SH*# because they never do anything wrong

Ill see myself out. 

[grayhawk]

2 hours ago, beerguy55 said:

ignoring the fact that players need to know the umpire's judgment in order to know the game situation, to know how to act, because you just can't assume the umpire's judgment will be the same as yours.  This is true whether it's an infield fly (or not), or ball four/strike three, or a catch/no catch.

IFF? Yes
Catch/no catch? Definitely
Ball 4/Strike TWO? Definitely not
 

2 hours ago, beerguy55 said:

With the pace of play requirements for said baserunners and the next batter, there is incentive/reason to start advancing immediately on ball four.

This is complete and utter BS. He has THIRTY seconds to trot 90 feet. Let's say it takes the umpire five whole seconds to give his strike mechanic (it took Wegner 1.5), he still has forever and a day to get to 2B. I'll hold Wegner responsible all day for missing that pitch. It was 3.42 inches above the top. Not a good miss for an MLB umpire. But all the rest is on Bichette, Varsho and the 1B coach. There is simply no hurry. Stay focused, be certain of the call and act accordingly. 

[jimurrayalterego]

49 minutes ago, grayhawk said:

IFF? Yes
Catch/no catch? Definitely
Ball 4/Strike TWO? Definitely not
 

This is complete and utter BS. He has THIRTY seconds to trot 90 feet. Let's say it takes the umpire five whole seconds to give his strike mechanic (it took Wegner 1.5),

Uh, he and I say "Hike" in less than 1 second and then do the physical mechanic which the batter is not looking at most of the time. I think the problem is with me and him not marrying the signal, me never having a problem but in this case the batter hearing something thinks it's a grunt with the umpire down which they always know is a ball, except for me, Wegner and some other MLB ump

[grayhawk]

2 hours ago, jimurrayalterego said:

Uh, he and I say "Hike" in less than 1 second and then do the physical mechanic which the batter is not looking at most of the time. I think the problem is with me and him not marrying the signal, me never having a problem but in this case the batter hearing something thinks it's a grunt with the umpire down which they always know is a ball, except for me, Wegner and some other MLB ump

I was more talking about R1 who may not be able to hear the verbal but can certainly see the physical mechanic. Since he's the one the put himself in jeopardy, he's the one that needs to be vigilant.

[dumbdumb]

10 hours ago, Richvee said:

OK. I’ve officially entered bizzaro world, where people I thought knew more about umpiring and umpires are commenting like they’re run of the mill ignorant Facebook posters. 
 

 

 

Ill see myself out. 

ya liked that one, did you. well, everyon oops many here (umpire empire) talk about getting the best umpires to get the best results, so just thought i would propose a solution. and umps did work like that at one time.

and treat it like a called infield fly that everyone lets drop. you dont have to go anywhere, but if you do you put yourself in jeopardy.

and why do a lot want to bust on the pros. it is the level of play. lets have people on here show their 3-5 inch misses and goofy play with a video. where are they. and our scorecards. and that pitch review percentage of overturns for pitchers catchers and batters requests looks awful to me, not even 70%.

and so why did everyone let this graph below fly, from 10-13 pass. what??? you get a pass, one off, based on the score (living with the angels).

 

[jimurrayalterego]

9 hours ago, grayhawk said:

I was more talking about R1 who may not be able to hear the verbal but can certainly see the physical mechanic. Since he's the one the put himself in jeopardy, he's the one that needs to be vigilant.

That makes sense. He starts to turn away just as the signal is being made.

[beerguy55]

9 hours ago, grayhawk said:

I was more talking about R1 who may not be able to hear the verbal but can certainly see the physical mechanic. Since he's the one the put himself in jeopardy, he's the one that needs to be vigilant.

I don't disagree.  He should be vigilant, within reason...and I've always told my players that the definition of a foul ball is when an umpire says, "foul ball".

I'm simply saying on a pitch that is significantly outside the strike zone, that by all metrics is a ball, with no reason to think an ump could miss that call, especially a pro crew chief, the runner hears "something", with no visual mechanic to (immediately) go with it, it's completely reasonable to conclude it's ball four, and just advance as you're conditioned to do so - right or wrong you go on auto-pilot.  Especially if this mechanic is fundamentally different than most...and there hasn't been enough similar calls to gauge what is SOP.

Vigilance yes...and I hold my players to a higher standard than most coaches, but I'm not going to lay all the blame on anyone who is simply acting as he has acted thousands of times before, since he was a kid...even if there isn't a reason for him not to wait a few seconds to be sure - you get conditioned to it when the call is apparent to you and virtually everyone else, and assume the same judgment will come from the only person on the field who matters - we don't wait for an umpire to call "out" on a can of corn for the third out - we jog off the field and don't worry about the baserunners who were running on contact...we don't throw the ball in to make tags "just in case" the umpire screwed up a call Stevie Wonder would get right.   Imagine, with bases loaded, F8 makes an easy catch near the warning track for the third out and immediately turns to toss the ball to a kid in the stands, only to find out that the umpire has ruled it a no catch. (maybe from his angle it looked like it hit the wall)  How vigilant are we supposed to be?  Are we really putting ALL (or even half) the responsibility on F8?

I know those are extreme extreme examples to what should be "obvious", but I'm just illustrating a point to how players habitually and reasonably act in "obvious" situations - and they're not far from actual scenarios I've seen - the most egregious ones I can think of (all different umpires) are

A) ruling fair on a ball that landed just beyond the infield dirt, at least, three feet foul,

B) ruling foul on a homerun that hit a tree just behind the wall...a tree that was entirely, including all its branches, inside the foul pole

C) ruling fair on a ground ball that rolled through the coach's box as it passed third base, and

D) ruling force out on second base where F6 was five feet in front of second base.   

If a human can screw those up, then I'm not sure there's really a ceiling to human error.  Is blame shared here if a player runs into an out, or the defense gives up a run...yes.  But the catalyst is the missed call, and that's where bulk of the blame lies, most of the time.  The teachable moment is figuring out why you missed the call, and working to improve that...it's not telling players to uncondition years of behavior, especially when it can actually be detrimental the 99.99% of the time the umpire gets the call right.

In football we're taught to "play to the whistle"...but when you see a running back step six inches out of bounds, and take three more strides out of bounds, you're not tackling him...you're letting up, and letting him run on by you...all the way to the endzone.  It's then a little infuriating when the line judge tells you he never blew the whistle, it's your own fault, so be more vigilant.  And then you get flagged for 15 when you do tackle him the next quarter, because you're supposed to be aware he's out of bounds.  That's what absolution of culpability looks like.

Sure, trust but verify - I work in cybersecurity - that is my life.  But imagine if we truly did that for every action?  We don't slow down to 5 mph at a green light to verify cross traffic has truly stopped...we trust other motorists to see the red light and follow the law.  And that is a life and death scenario...not safe/out in a children's game.

 

I apologize for the rambling...I have the utmost respect for the umpires here and out there...I pride myself on knowing the rules better than other coaches and players (and sometimes umpires) but I could never call balls/strikes, nor administer/manage a game as well as any of you, and I'd probably toss more coaches than imaginably appropriate.  You have a thankless job, and I know it often looks like I don't know that.  I do.  I just get a little off kilter when I perceive (right or wrong) umpires who wash their hands of the mistakes they make.  

[grayhawk]

 

1 hour ago, beerguy55 said:

I'm simply saying on a pitch that is significantly outside the strike zone, that by all metrics is a ball, with no reason to think an ump could miss that call, especially a pro crew chief, the runner hears "something", with no visual mechanic to (immediately) go with it, it's completely reasonable to conclude it's ball four, and just advance as you're conditioned to do so - right or wrong you go on auto-pilot. 

Players play. Umpires umpire. When players try to umpire, bad things happen. This wasn't a ball that hit the dirt and called a strike. It was one ball up. Certainly not something an R1 from 90 feet away should just assume will be called a ball, turn his back and ignore the strike mechanic.

[beerguy55]

4 hours ago, grayhawk said:

Players play. Umpires umpire. When players try to umpire, bad things happen

This goes back to the standard/instruction that "players are expected to understand the situation and act accordingly", which implicitly expects the player to anticipate the umpire's judgment in order to respond appropriately and then rebukes them for trying to umpire when it goes wrong.

4 hours ago, grayhawk said:

It was one ball up. Certainly not something an R1 from 90 feet away should just assume will be called a ball, turn his back and ignore the strike mechanic.

When the verbal and visual aren't concurrent, and you don't know to wait for a subsequent action (unlike almost, if not all, other MLB umpires) then "ignore" is not the appropriate word - if he saw the visual mechanic and still proceeded under the belief it was a ball, that would be ignoring it, and would place 100% of accountability in his lap...if he had seen more than two called strikes in the game to know this particular ump's SOP, that could be ignoring it...."missed", "failed to notice", even "overlooked" would be more accurate terms.  Yes, his decision to turn, look at his coach, and advance caused him to miss the visual mechanic that followed the verbal call.  

As far as what drove that decision - he didn't "assume" it would be called a ball...he deduced that it was already called a ball, based on the location of the pitch in conjunction with the umpire's verbal sans visual mechanic; the batter's action reinforced what was already a reasonable conclusion.

 

btw - Porter was pretty F*#King great last night...just a few weird/surprising ball calls.

[grayhawk]

1 hour ago, beerguy55 said:

This goes back to the standard/instruction that "players are expected to understand the situation and act accordingly", which implicitly expects the player to anticipate the umpire's judgment in order to respond appropriately and then rebukes them for trying to umpire when it goes wrong.

Yup. Stuff happens. It's an imperfect game. Sometimes you benefit, and sometimes the other team does.

 

1 hour ago, beerguy55 said:

When the verbal and visual aren't concurrent, and you don't know to wait for a subsequent action (unlike almost, if not all, other MLB umpires)

So many have said R1 couldn't hear the verbal anyway, so it not being concurrent seems irrelevant. And whether he ignored, missed, failed to notice, or even overlooked the strike mechanic, there is simply no excuse for not staying at 1B until he was certain he could advance. He was clearly confused, so be confused on the bag, not 20 feet off of it.

[Velho]

On 10/30/2025 at 4:49 PM, grayhawk said:

So many have said R1 couldn't hear the verbal anyway

The argument I heard was that the batter couldn't hear the verbal strike call. I think Varsho tossing his bat is what gave R1 the impression it was a walk. I have no really understanding of why he did that. By initially stopping he obviously heard a verbal strike call.

Said with no sarcasm since I appreciate @beerguy55's recents posts: imo, the problem lies in the fact that anyone other than F2, PU, and often but not always the batter are thinking they know the call on a pitch within a few inches of the zone - an imaginary 3D shape that moves every pitch and, on a non swing, is not relative to the batter's position at the moment the ball crosses the plate. Ass-U-Me and all that.

As a humble bird lawyer, personally, I don't like the two part call. His physical movements on both ball/strike are the same until the last moment when he points the strike. There is a reason this isn't the standard taught mechanic.

Is it a valid argument that it contributed - sure. Is it causal and thus absolve the runner of responsibility? Not in the least - because of the above (in addition, softball seems to survive just fine with this order of operations).

[SeeingEyeDog]

Did anyone see the play (I think it was the third inning)...there was a ball down the LF line, I do not know 6-man but, I presume U5's coverage area is anything beyond U3, yes? Tumpane (U5) came into the frame looking like he was going to point it fair and then stopped and had an awkward look on his face. The frame of the shot was too tight to see what U3 was doing but, my speculation is that U3 forgot they were in 6-man, the ball goes by U3 down the line and he turns with it to take it as he would in 4-man forgetting Tumpane was out there. Finally something clicked...and Tumpane took the call, called it correctly and there was nothing further. Despite being down the line, it was not that close and they absolutely got the call correct. Was there anything else that happened on this that would have caused Tumpane to dry fire and then grab it as he should have anyway? Just curious what you guys might have seen...not looking to fry anyone over this...

~Dawg

[orangebird]

Yesterday was also a big day for OBR 5.06(b)(4)(F) lol