Scoring changes show how silly scoring is

Remember how Bobby Witt Jr. flirted with a cycle? It didn’t happen.

When is a cycle not a cycle? When the official scorer gets overruled.

MLB issued several official scoring changes to Sunday’s game between the Royals and Orioles, changing the stats for some Royals players. That afternoon, Bobby Witt Jr. hit a single, double, and triple, flirting with the first cycle by a Royals hitter since 1990. Or so we thought. His “triple” was a fly ball to deep centerfield misplayed by Jorge Mateo. This week, we learned that was actually an error.

What was once ruled a hit for him, now counts as a failed at-bat without a hit. Bobby’s batting average falls from .276 to .255 and his slugging percentage falls from .489 to .426 - and he didn’t even do anything!

Other changes this week helped the stats of Royals players, at least Kris Bubic. Yesterday, Bubic had a 0.71 ERA. But now his ERA is a blank slate of 0.00 thanks to another overruling. Ryan Mountcastle sent a flyball to deep right into the corner that Hunter Renfroe couldn’t corral, leading to what we thought at the time was a triple. But today that has been ruled an error by Renfroe, and when Mountcastle scored it was actually an unearned run.

The scoring on a wild pitch by Bubic on Sunday also changed to a passed ball on Freddy Fermin. It doesn’t change other stats, it just assigns the blame to the backstop.

MLB lays out how plays are “scored” at games, and how they are allowed to be overruled later:

The official scorer is permitted to change a judgment call for up to 24 hours after a game concludes or is suspended. A player or team can request that the executive vice president of baseball operations review a call in which said player or team participated. This request must come within 72 hours after the conclusion or suspension of that game, or 72 hours after the official scorer’s call in the event a postgame change is made.

It makes sense to have some review to determine if a player touched a ball to make it an error, or couldn’t get there in time, making it a hit. Although with replay available at the stadium you wonder why reviews the next day would be necessary.

Scoring has generally favored fielders, with scorers loathe to award an error, lest the defensive player object (hey, what about the pitcher that gets his ERA inflated?) Scorers have even been reluctant to give an error to a ball the defensive player did not even touch - even for routine flyballs. Here’s how MLB officially defines “errors”;

A fielder is given an error if, in the judgment of the official scorer, he fails to convert an out on a play that an average fielder should have made.

Generally, MLB revised the appeals process to prevent players from intimidating scorers, but more judgment calls are being called hits than ever before.

These scoring changes also illustrate the ambiguity with all baseball stats. One common complaint about Wins Above Replacement is that there are a lot of value judgments in the formula - Fangraphs and Baseball Reference literally have different formulas based on what they consider to be important. But even old school baseball stats like batting average, Earned Run Average, and RBI have some subjectivity to them. What counts as a “hit” to calculate batting average? In the 19th century, walks used to count. In the 1930s and 40s, sacrifice flies counted against your batting average (they are no longer considered an “at-bat.”) Did Bobby Witt Jr. get a hit or was it an error on the fielder?

Well I know what I saw, and in my mind Bobby Witt Jr. flirted with a cycle. I think.