too much complaining?

Doctor G

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Jan 24, 2007
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is it time for Farrell to tell the veterans on this team to knock off the  bitching complaning and eye rolling over ball strike calls? The Red Sox aren't helping their cause as defending World Series champions by the amount of bitching they do. The umpires are human too and if you complain on every close call they will  see the team as a bunch of entitled prima donnas who don't deserve to get the close calls.
 
There are a lot of younger umpires working this year.
 
These guys look too the veteran umpires for  guidance just like Bradley Bogaerts and  Middlebrooks look to Pedroia Papi  Gomes and Napoli.
This crap never helps. All it does is drive up your pitchers' pitch counts and your hitters called strikes.
It is excuse making in advance and is toxic to a winning mentality like they demonstrated last year. 
 

threecy

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Sep 1, 2006
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I don't enjoy watching players routinely whine about calls in any sport.
That said, I wonder if the Red Sox have done statistical analysis around the way strikes are called on players who complain vs. those who don't?  Perhaps this could be a factor in their league high pitches per plate appearance last year?
 
 

lars10

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Jul 31, 2007
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Doctor G said:
These guys look too the veteran umpires for  guidance just like Bradley Bogaerts and  Middlebrooks look to Pedroia Papi  Gomes and Napoli.
This crap never helps. All it does is drive up your pitchers' pitch counts and your hitters called strikes.
It is excuse making in advance and is toxic to a winning mentality like they demonstrated last year. 
Is there any kind of statistical analysis here to show that this is actually true?
 

DJnVa

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Dec 16, 2010
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Can we taking "bitching" out of the thread title? My work filter is flagging it.
 

MakMan44

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In the interest of making the board more friendly towards everyone, would you mind changing the title and your OP to use "complaining" or some variation?
 

DJnVa

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Dec 16, 2010
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Doctor G said:
is it time for Farrell to tell the veterans on this team to knock off the  bitching complaning and eye rolling over ball strike calls? The Red Sox aren't helping their cause as defending World Series champions by the amount of bitching they do. The umpires are human too and if you complain on every close call they will  see the team as a bunch of entitled prima donnas who don't deserve to get the close calls.
 
 
Do the Red Sox actually complain more than other teams?
 
I know it seems that way but that's because you are watching a hell of a lot more Sox games than other teams.
 
 
EDIT: Thanks for the title change.
 

TheoShmeo

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There are two possible reasons why this would matter in my view.
 
One would be that it gives players an excuse and otherwise makes them perform worse.  Unless the complaining is more severe this year than it was last year, this factor doesn't seem that relevant.  Said otherwise, the 2013 champs did their share of bitching.  And I don't think the 2014 Sox are materially different than the 2013 Sox in this regard...with the obvious difference being around the nascent replay system.
 
Two would be if it impacts them on subsequent calls.  This is tough to measure but it seems to me that they have not been on the receiving of many "vindictive" calls this year.  At the very least, I can't remember any.  I don't watch every inning of every game, so I could be missing some.     
 
M

MentalDisabldLst

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SoxInTheMist said:
I'm guessing you'll see a lot less complaining when they start winning again.  Frustration leads to these kinds of things.  
 
They just took a series from the best team in the AL.  I think they're no more or less frustrated than they have been at other times.  In the instant after a call, I don't think any player's level of general happiness with the team's yearlong performance is affecting how he reacts to a call.  That's pretty much an instinct, or a learned habit.
 
We all remember unfortunate moments where Ortiz got thrown out of a game once or twice for arguing balls and strikes.  Given that that is always a risk for a sufficiently demonstrative or repeated showing-up of an umpire, I'd say it's worth changing their attitude for that reason alone.
 
Whether it affects the frequency of unfavorable calls, I have no idea - we'd need some consolidated data on "complaints about ball/strike calls" before we could match that up with PitchFX, and I doubt such a data source exists.  Other than anecdotally in all our minds, based on whose reactions we remember and label obnoxious.
 

Doctor G

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TheoShmeo said:
There are two possible reasons why this would matter in my view.
 
One would be that it gives players an excuse and otherwise makes them perform worse.  Unless the complaining is more severe this year than it was last year, this factor doesn't seem that relevant.  Said otherwise, the 2013 champs did their share of bitching.  And I don't think the 2014 Sox are materially different than the 2013 Sox in this regard...with the obvious difference being around the nascent replay system.
 
Two would be if it impacts them on subsequent calls.  This is tough to measure but it seems to me that they have not been on the receiving of many "vindictive" calls this year.  At the very least, I can't remember any.  I don't watch every inning of every game, so I could be missing some.     
Some of it is probably the product of the  time of year. Both umpires and hitters  are trying to hone their pitch recognition.

My main concern is with the affect this has on the rookies both now and to come. Being scrappy is good as long as  being whiny isn't part of the package.
Sorry for any inconvenience caused by the original thread title.
 

WenZink

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Apr 23, 2010
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Rightly or wrongly, Ortiz feels he has "earned" the benefit of the doubt on the close ones.  That's fine.  I just don't want Jackie Bradley thinking he should get the same K zone.  A 2-2 pitch just off the outside of the plate is more likely going to be a called 3rd strike.  Ortiz gets upset when they expand the zone on him early in the at-bat, but then, begrudgingly, adjusts and then complains about it, if the at bat ends up poorly.  I just want Bradley to pick up "the adjust" part of the process.
 

O Captain! My Captain!

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Part of what was so "likeable" for lack of a better term about the 2013 team was how obviously into baseball they all seemed to be--hyper-hypercompetitive, gym rat, go out to dinner and talk about tomorrow's opposing pitcher, grind every at bat, never give up till the last out, etc. This is just the flip side of that. Asking this group not to complain about strike zone calls is like asking Pedroia not to field grounders in a walking cast: maybe it's objectively correct, but it's not in their nature--a nature which is largely responsible for their success at this level.
 

Doctor G

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WenZink said:
Rightly or wrongly, Ortiz feels he has "earned" the benefit of the doubt on the close ones.  That's fine.  I just don't want Jackie Bradley thinking he should get the same K zone.  A 2-2 pitch just off the outside of the plate is more likely going to be a called 3rd strike.  Ortiz gets upset when they expand the zone on him early in the at-bat, but then, begrudgingly, adjusts and then complains about it, if the at bat ends up poorly.  I just want Bradley to pick up "the adjust" part of the process.
JBJ is  very reminiscent of JD Drew in his hitting approach as well as his temperament.  I think he will develope into a similar hitter without the same HR numbers.
They are very similar players, and I consider that a good thing.
 

ookami7m

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It seems like we have this thread, or this conversation in some set of threads, every year lately. I watch a ton of non-Red Sox baseball and I don't think that the Sox complain more or less than anyone else out there, and I don't think that there's much of an effect on the game in either direction short of a "Joe West on a bad day" umpire. 
 
This topic ranks up there with "mental state" in things that are nearly impossible to correlate to actual wins/losses/hits/outcomes