An Illustrated Guide of Missed Strike Calls

The FanGraphs Newsletter, January, 6, 2022 [READ IN BROWSER]( January 6, 2022 Note: During the offseason, we will publish every Tuesday/Thursday [An Illustrated Guide of Missed Strike Calls]( by Ben Clemens I’ve had a bit of free time, and I spent it the way that anyone would: watching an absurd number of videos of pitches in the strike zone that were called balls. What’s that? You’d do something else with your time? I did some cooking and such too, but seriously: plenty of videos of balls called strikes. Why? I wanted to write an article about them, and when your free time stretches out infinitely, you might as well get a firm grasp of the genre first. Anyway! I’ve found what I would consider to be an exhaustive account of the ways that pitches very clearly in the strike zone get called balls. I’m going to use the worst missed calls of the 2021 season to show the ways a perfectly placed pitch can turn into a ball. 👉 [READ MORE]( JHAREL COTTON: Coming off of a disappointing last-place finish in the AL Central, the Twins made it clear that they [were looking to compete]( in 2022. That would seemingly require them to rebuild their starting rotation after [trading away]( [José Berríos]( last season, losing [Kenta Maeda]( to Tommy John surgery, and the departure of [Michael Pineda]( via free agency. But as the rest of the baseball world was gobbling up free agents with a fervor that can only happen when Thanksgiving and an impending lockout collide, they were seldom heard from and hardly involved on some of the top arms. Maybe this should’ve been expected given their [lack of history]( spending on pitchers, but their inaction has understandably [drawn some criticism](. But while they may not have made a big splash so far this offseason, they did make one smaller move that I find quite intriguing: adding right-handed pitcher [Jharel Cotton](. 👉 [The Twins Place a Small Bet on a Potentially Resurgent Jharel Cotton, by Luke Hooper]( [The American League Resumed Interleague Play Dominance in 2021]( by Ben Clemens [JAWS and the 2022 Hall of Fame Ballot: Justin Morneau]( by Jay Jaffe [2022 ZiPS Projections: Toronto Blue Jays]( by Dan Szymborski [2022 ZiPS Projections: San Diego Padres]( by Dan Szymborski 📌 [Job Posting: New York Yankees Full-Stack Software Engineer]( 📌 [Job Posting: TrackMan Baseball Data Operations Intern]( 🎧 [Effectively Wild Episode 1793: Measuring the Unmeasurable]( New for the holidays is the Mug in white! [ORDER HERE]( [New US Mint coins honor Negro Leagues]( by Bill Ladson, MLB.com [Former New York Mets acting GM Zack Scott acquitted of DUI charges]( via ESPN [Four pitchers due for bounce-back seasons in 2022]( by Eno Sarris, The Athletic ($) [Who is headed to the Hall of Fame? There's no mystery anymore, and that's not good for baseball]( by Buster Olney, ESPN [Zack Wheeler is Basically Becoming Jacob deGrom]( by Brian Menéndez, Baseball Prospectus ($) [@fangraphs]( [FanGraphs]( [FanGraphs]( [RSS]( [FORWARD]( [SUBSCRIBE]( Copyright © 2022 FanGraphs Inc, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you subscribed to the FanGraphs Newsletter. Our mailing address is: FanGraphs Inc 1200 N Hartford St. Apt 312Arlington, Va 22201 [Add us to your address book]( Want to change how you receive these emails? You can [update your preferences]( or [unsubscribe from this list](