Official Scorer - Analysis and Proposed Changes

Analysis and Proposed Changes

Baseball players, managers, and writers have speculated about bias by the official scorer for decades, but this subject has been objectively studied only recently. In 2006, the rate at which errors have been recorded in MLB by the official scorer was investigated under many situations. The rate at which errors are called "is higher when the quality of fielding is suspect" and is "lower when playing conditions are better", but these factors "do not fully explain variations in error rate". After other known factors are accounted for, evidence was found that official scorers are biased toward the home team, but that this bias was reduced after the end of the writer-scorer era in 1979. Further, errors are significantly more likely to be called in the National League than in the American League.

Changes have been proposed over the years to reduce possible inconsistencies between scorers and possible mistakes made by the official scorer, especially as the end of the writer-scorer era began to seem likely in the late 1970s. The BBWAA and professional baseball umpires have suggested the creation of a "fifth umpire". Four-man umpire crews rotate officiating responsibilities after each game, and travel to several stadiums per year. This new fifth umpire would travel with the umpiring crew to score games and take his turn on the bases, but MLB has been reluctant to incur the increased cost. More recently, there have been suggestions to move the official scorer out of the press box and closer to the field behind the plate to get the best view of the game. MLB has conceded that this could be a good idea, but it is not currently feasible because of the design of most stadiums in the league.