Mark Simon: Hi, and welcome to the Sports Info Solutions Baseball podcast. Our lead guest today is one of the top rookie in baseball this season, Astros, right fielder Cam Smith. Hey Cam.

Cam Smith: Hey Mark. How you doing?

Mark Simon: Good. Let’s get right to it. You have a memory of a favorite defensive play that you made as a kid?

Cam Smith: Yeah.

I can remember in travel ball, I think I was about 15 years old. I was playing shortstop. Obviously, ’cause I’ve always played infield and I made a diving play up the middle, but there was a line drive up the middle and I made a diving play and I thought that was the coolest thing ever ’cause every kid wants to make those diving plays. So I just thought that was really cool.

Mark Simon: How did you prioritize defense when you were a kid?

Cam Smith: Honestly I really just relied on my athletic ability. I really didn’t start paying attention to defense until college, I would say. But I felt I got away with a lot more when I was younger, obviously, but once you get to college and this level, you really have to hone in on those skills.

Mark Simon: Yep. And now, right field, a transition from the infield, as you said, you always played infield. Had you played any right field in the past before this year?

Cam Smith: No, never. Actually. Never. I’ve always wondered how it is. I’ve always wondered how it is to play out there.

First time getting out there, I thought everything was so far away from me. So that was something I had to get used to but now it seems natural for now.

Mark Simon: So what are some of the other things that were your welcome to the major leagues. Welcome to right field.

Cam Smith: Yeah. I think going through scenarios when there’s runners on base, when we’re up by one or there’s a tie game late in the game, seventh, eighth, ninth inning. You, I kind of have to think about the scenarios of: Where the balls hit. If it’s right at me, where should I go with it?

If it’s in the air back by the track, where should I go with it? There’s a lot of things you gotta think about, more than I expected.

Mark Simon: And in Houston, the right field fence is a little closer to you, I would imagine. It’s a shallower right field than it is in most parks. How do you deal with that?

Cam Smith: Honestly I play pretty deep since it is a short fence. I play pretty far back, almost near the track, so I kind of know where the wall is. Before the ball’s hit. I really don’t have to look back. I’m pretty comfortable out there now. At first it was obviously a big adjustment, but now I feel comfortable

Mark Simon: Opening day. There was a ball. You missed a dive on Luis Torrens’ line drive to shallow. Was that your welcome to the big leagues kind of moment?

Cam Smith: Yeah, I guess you could say that. Yeah.

Mark Simon: What were some others that have happened along the way? Are there any other things? Maybe one for the good.

Cam Smith: I know I made the similar slide and catch against the Blue Jays. I had attempted to do the same slide I did in opening day and I ended up catching that one. So that was a similar one. I got to make the play.

Mark Simon: Who had been some of your mentors in terms of helping you make the adjustment?

Cam Smith: Everybody. It’s tough to pinpoint one guy. I think I’ve had conversations with everybody in my clubhouse.

They’re very welcoming. When it comes to a new guy me who hasn’t been through it they’re not , figure it out. They’re helping me all the way.

Mark Simon: So some of the other ballparks that you’ve been, I saw that you were in Coors, that you made a leap and catch against the fence there, there was also a challenging flyball there.

Have you found any particular ballparks, especially challenging?

Cam Smith: Yes. I think the Twins have a hang-over in right field. So the flyballs that I think are routine, they could hit that, that porch up there and bounce way. Close to the infield. So that was, I think that was the trickiest ballpark I played in.

Mark Simon: Have you played Fenway yet?

Cam Smith: No, I haven’t yet. We’ll be there in August and we’ll see how that is.

Mark Simon: So in addition to fielding balls, have you had any moments with a throw that have been particularly memorable yet?

Cam Smith: I haven’t got to throw anybody out, I think.

But I did have an assist from Dubon. Colorado. I think that’s just the one that pops into my head immediately ’cause it was so recent.

Mark Simon: Have you found any guys a little reluctant to run on you?

Cam Smith: Yeah, I think so. I think they’re holding back a little bit. I think they know I can throw it.

Mark Simon: Have you come close to robbing a home run?

Cam Smith: I have. Come close. I Louise Arias when we played the Padres at home, I think that was the closest I’ve gotten to robbing a home run. It was just two feet too high. But yeah I haven’t got many chances, honestly.

Mark Simon: Yep. But you’re gonna have more, ’cause Kyle had a whole bunch, Kyle Tucker had a whole bunch when he was playing right field.

Do you have a favorite play that you’ve made so far?

Cam Smith: Honestly, I would say that assist in Colorado. ’cause I think it was a close game and Dubon had thrown the runner out from third to home. That was a big play, I think that kept us in there. So that was probably my favorite play.

Mark Simon: How do you use data when it comes to positioning?

Cam Smith: So our outfield coach, Jason Bell, he has a card that we look at for every hitter and it matches up with every pitcher we have. So the positioning’s already on the carD. So I just really just had to look at it and find that spot in the outfield.

Mark Simon: Have you had any good conversations with your fellow outfielders about what it takes to play the outfield?

Cam Smith: Jake Myers is my coach on the field. He is the best center fielder in the game and obviously I can’t ask my coaches to come out to the field and run me through situations. So Jake Myers the veteran, He’s my coach on the field and I heavily rely on him.

Mark Simon: What’s an example of something he did that helped you out?

Cam Smith: Going through scenarios. When we make a pitching change. I get a chance to go over to center field and talk to him about, okay there’s runners on first and second we’re up by two. Do I need to worry about this guy at second or can I just make sure the guy on first doesn’t get the third? Just simple things like that.

Mark Simon: Let’s close with this. If a kid wanted to play you, right field in particular, what would you tell him He needs to know?

Cam Smith: Honestly just keep asking questions and just be a dog out there playing fetch.

Mark Simon: What’s the best question that you’ve asked so far? The question that you’ve gotten the best answer on?

Cam Smith: I would say how to throw the ball. Obviously it’s a different arm slot from the infield to the outfield. So I talked with Jason Bell and Dave Clark about how am I supposed to throw?

I’ve never done it, but they’ve worked with me a few days in a row and I think I picked it up pretty good. You just released at that high slot.

Mark Simon: It is extremely impressive that you have basically learned the position on the fly and at the time that we’re talking you’re third in the majors in Defensive Runs Saved in right field. Cam Smith, thanks for taking the time to join us. Best of luck the rest of the year.

Cam Smith: Yeah. Thank you, mark.

Mark Simon: I just got back from the Society for American Baseball Research National Convention just outside Dallas, where there were so many good presentations This year, a real diverse group.

We learned about the integration of minor league baseball in Texas. Heard from Pudge Rodriguez, Elvis Andrus Hall of Famer, Ferguson Jenkins. Many others. Just to share one presentation, we’re joined briefly by Adam Darowski, the Executive Director of Design at Sports Reference. Adam, you presented it on the 4,000 Hit Club, but you expanded the club.

Explain all the leagues that this encompasses.

Adam Darowski: Oh yeah. So the 4,000 Professional Hits includes not only the major leagues, the AL and NL and the Negro Leagues, but also the US Minor leagues. Postseason, but then we branch out outside of the USA, we’re looking in Mexico, Mexican Summer League, Mexican Winter League, Mexican Minor Leagues, Japan, KBO, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Venezuela.

We even had a little bit of a representation from Italy. And then on top of that we added some international tournaments. Kind of thinking of it as a Club and country type of feel you hear in soccer. So included the WBC, the Caribbean series, and also the Inter-American series, which took the place of the Caribbean series for a few years.

Mark Simon: Pete Rose remains at the top, but then the players that came after him provide a good education on baseball globally. Can you run through one or two of those?

Adam Darowski: Yeah, I guess everybody knows Ty Cobb is number two, but then on this list there were several players between Rose and Cobb and we had Hector Espino of Mexico.

We had Ichiro, if you include his Japanese stats, but also he had a season in something called the Hawaiian Winter League, which I learned about as part of this process. The most surprising guy for me was Mattias Carillo, who was with the Marlins when they kicked off in 93 and 94. Who knew he had over 4,500 professional hits.

And then Minnie Minoso and Julio Franco are two names that we both know that stand just ahead of Cobb

Mark Simon: Also making the list, Tony Perez, which was kind of a neat thing to see.

Adam Darowski: Yeah, there, there are definitely some names that people know, Tony Perez and Hank Aaron and Cesar Tovar, Vic Davalillo, but then also some other ones that people don’t know.

I mentioned, Carillo and then Jesus Sommers had 3000 hits in the Mexican summer league and 4,300 overall tail. Teolindo Acosta is a guy from Venezuela who made the list that I’ve become very interested in since then.

Mark Simon: What was the coolest thing about putting this list together?

Adam Darowski: I think it’s gotta be discovering the new names.

The feedback I got at SABR, a couple people independently said, it’s rare that you come to a conference this and you hear names of players you’ve never heard before, and I think that was just the coolest thing that I heard the whole time.

Mark Simon: Is there anything within this that you’d to eventually add to at someday?

Adam Darowski: We’ve already started talking about different types of clubs, 400 wins, 600 home runs. Those lists also have a lot of players on there that, some that you may have heard of but didn’t know got 400 wins. Juan Pizarro is a pitcher from Puerto Rico. I have, I’ve done a lot of research on, and he’s over 420 wins so far.

But then there’s also gonna be some players you’ve likely never heard of as well, and that’s fun about those lists.

Mark Simon: Adam Darowski remaking the old time lists. Who helped you with this project?

Adam Darowski: So there were a couple people that helped out with this. It’s really building on research from Scott Simkus starting back in 2013.

You might know Scott from his book Outsider Baseball or from the Seamheads Negro Leagues database. He published a list back in 2013 that really kind of kicked off the 4,000 hit club. It was just nine players back then. And then an independent researcher named Von Spalding has done a lot of research, deep in the Mexican Pacific League and Venezuelan leagues.

And he came to us and we joined forces and he doubled the size of the list just by himself. And we’ve kind of been flushing it out since then. So the two of them have been indispensable in this work. I’m just kind of the presentation layer on top of their awesome work.

Mark Simon: I love that it’s a Spalding that helped you expand the list. If you go back through baseball history, the name Spalding, certainly very important. Adam Darowski, as I said, remaking the baseball record books. Thank you for taking the time to join us. Thank you.

I always bring on one of my colleagues to close out the program.

Today we’re joined by our video scout associate Ben Schneider. Ben is one of the people that helps me out a couple of projects here, and he wants to talk about something that I like to talk about. Home plate umpires. Hey Ben, how are you?

Ben Schneider: Good, how are you? Thanks for having me.

Mark Simon: So what we wanted to do was explain something that SIS provides to a number of different broadcast crews.

If you watch an A’s game or a White Sox game, or a Yankees game, or a Mets game last year, the Cubs were part of this as well, and the Giants factor into this too. You might hear scouting reports given on the home plate umpire. Those come from data that we provide those broadcast crews, and Ben is part of the group that helps with that.

And we wanted to talk a little bit about umpire tendencies because I think people know, they know Angel Hernandez, but they don’t necessarily know how certain umpires call a game and how if you’re watching a game. It may tip in one direction in terms of ball and strike calls, and there are a few guys out there that run interesting, I guess would be the easiest way to put it.

Let’s start with this. Let’s start with guys. The most common pitch that’s taken is an outside pitch. Who are the umpires that call outside pitches as strikes more often than their colleagues and who are the ones that do it less often?

Ben Schneider: Sure. So I find this to be an interesting topic because everyone complains about home plate umpires.

Oh they suck this game. That’s not exactly a fair way of looking at baseball. What I find interesting is that home plate umpires effectively have two zones, that they basically have a zone for when there is a righty up and there’s a zone for a lefty up, and that’s not necessarily the same person within the same game.

If we’re talking about away strikes, there are some of the more common umpires you might hear about longer tenured ones. Doug Eddings calls the most strikes a way to left-handed batters, but that’s not the case with right-handed batters. Rob Drake and Bruce Dreckman, also some longer tenured umpires. The three of them call more than 15% more strikes on pitches away, for Doug Eddings, that’s left-hand batters.

Rob Drake, also lefties and Bruce Dreckman, that’s for right-handed batters. That’s not their combined zone of overall, but that is a very noticeable trend. The ones who call the fewest – James Jean is a fill-in, a relatively new umpire. Manny Gonzalez and Lance Barksdale are certainly longtime tenured umpires.

They call 11% fewer strikes away for Manny Gonzalez. That’s a left-handed batter. Lance Barksdale, right-handed batters. And again, that’s not necessarily the case when there’s someone else on the other side of the plate.

Mark Simon: And let me interrupt just to say, that, that when you think about this, if you think about it as the idea of a pitch and you see that pitch, and it’s a 50% strike pitch, half the time it’s a strike, half the time it’s a ball.

This isn’t exact. But essentially, if we’re saying that a guy is 11 percentage points less than the average, that means that the typical 50% strike for that umpire is a 40% strike. So over time, you’re going to see that guy call fewer strikes in that area. In some games that may impact 3, 4, 5 pitches in a big way, and that can turn a game.

Ben Schneider: Definitely. And of course these are tendencies. They’re not absolutes. Someone who calls fewer strikes still might call a pitch out of the zone sometimes, but you know, pitchers can pick up on this. If you notice you’re getting a couple inches off the plate, keep feeding that corner. I noticed Sunday’s White Sox Giants game, the home plate umpire was calling more strikes on inside and outside and fewer strikes above and below the zone. And that benefited Adrian Houser, a sinker baller on the mound. And it hurt Robbie Ray who has a vertical four-seam, curve ball attack. This definitely affects real baseball.

That might just be a couple pitches, but those couple pitches could turn at bats and at bats can turn games.

Mark Simon: So I’m looking at the list of umpires with regards to low pitches, and we were talking about Doug Eddings before, and Doug Eddings shows up on this list, but it’s not for left-handed hitters. Doug Eddings, when a right-handed hitters up at low pitch, he’s ringing you up.

Ben Schneider: Right. That’s for Eddings. He calls 12% more strikes down in the zone for right-handed batters. And again, this is really what. I think fans might miss if you just turn one game on and you say, oh, the I’m having a tough day. That might only be for certain batters.

It’s not they’re calling the same pitch over and over again in every situation, which is kind of easy to miss.

Mark Simon: And you look at the other umpires, bottom of the zone, Mike Estabrook to Stu Scheurwater, Ramon DeJesus Nestor Ceja. Those are the guys that are calling a lot of strikes.

I want to just tell a quick story. We were talking to SNY Mets Broadcast Group about six years ago, and I had said to them, Lance Barrett, is your home plate umpire for your game tonight? You’re gonna wanna watch the right-handed hitters in the outside corner. And in the fifth inning of the broadcast, they showed a rip of six times that Lance Barrett called a strike on a pitch that was off the plate, at least to our eyes.

That was off the outside corner that he called a strike because his tendency was to call that pitch a strike.

In terms of looking at umpires on low pitches, Scott Barry, Mark Wegner are two guys that squeezed the plate a little bit at the bottom of the zone, both for right-handed hitters, David Arrieta, David Rackley as well.

Are there any other observations you had on with regards to low pitches?

Ben Schneider: I think it is worth mentioning Pat Hoberg is also towards the bottom and he famously was considered one of the best umpires. He called a perfect game during the World Series, but now was effectively fired due to a connection to a betting scandal.

So I think it is interesting that he’s in there as well.

Mark Simon: Yeah,

Ben Schneider: It only takes a few dozen games to recognize a clear trends with home plate umpires.

Mark Simon: For sure, and my favorite one, and he doesn’t necessarily make any of these lists, is C.B. Buckner.

C.B. Buckner, how he umpires for left-handed batters is completely the opposite of how he umpires for right-handed batters. And it’s just these, this bizarre set of tendencies for him that I think confuses just about anyone that watches a game. C.B Buckner a major league umpire. I’m not saying that I could do better. I’m not saying right or wrong on calls either. I’m just articulating how often a guy calls a strike compared to his peers.

Is there anything else you wanted to say about umpires and umpiring? Have you ever done it?

Ben Schneider: I can’t say I’ve done it in a formal setting. I would say back when I played baseball in little league during practice, sometimes as the catcher, they’d let me be, the home played umpire at the same time.

So I, I can’t say that I have any formal experience, but you know, it is a very thankless job that you have to judge where a ball crosses a space, an imaginary space in the air moving 90 plus miles an hour, or if it’s less than that, then with extreme movement at 82 miles an hour. And it is a really hard job and it is frustrating when they get it wrong.

But that is kind of part of what we accept when we watch a sport with judgment involved.

Mark Simon: And we may have a robot umps in the future.

Ben Schneider: Bring em on.

Mark Simon Ben Schneider, thanks for taking the time to join us. We our umpire information. If anyone is interested in purchasing it, mark@ww2.sportsinfosolutions.com.

Thanks, Ben.

And that wraps up this episode. Three good conversations in less than 30 minutes. You can find our content at sportsinfosolutions.com and fieldingbible.com. Follow us on social media, on Twitter, Bluesky and Instagram. Just search for our company name, Sports Info Solutions. We’re also active on Reddit under my handle, MarkSimon1975. I’m Mark Simon. Thank you for listening to the Sports Info Solutions Baseball podcast.