Here's what the 2023 World Series umpires could mean for betting odds and trends
The 2023 World Series between the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks starts Friday, and the umpires for the series were announced Thursday morning. The head chief will be Bill Miller. Miller is in his 25th season as an MLB umpire. This will be his fifth World Series and second as crew chief (2020).
Miller’s crew will include regular season crew chief Alfonso Marquez, Vic Carapazza, Brian Knight, David Rackley, DJ Reyburn, and Quinn Wolcott. This is the first World Series for Carapazza, Knight, Rackley, Reyburn, and Wolcott.
With those names in mind, the question needs to be asked: "How will these umpires effect the outcome of the World Series?"
How each World Series umpire fared during the regular season
The website Umpire Scorecards keeps an extensive list of stats from umpires around the league. The best all-encompassing statistic for determining how good an umpire has been in a given year is Accuracy Above Expected (AAx). This stat details how much better an umpire was at determining balls and strikes than what was expected of them given the pitches, their proximity to the plate, and how good the catchers in front of them were at framing pitches.
With that in mind, here's where each of the scheduled home plate umpires ranked, among the 86 umpires with at least 10 games umpired and 1,000 ball/strike calls made in 2023, in that statistic.
Game 1:
Home plate umpire: DJ Reyburn
2023 AAx: 0.02
2023 AAx Rank: 62nd of 86
Game 2:
Home plate umpire: Quinn Wolcott
2023 AAx: 2.22
2023 AAx Rank: 1st
Game 3:
Home plate umpire: Alfonso Marquez
2023 AAx: -0.04
2023 AAx Rank: 66th
Game 4:
Home plate umpire: David Rackley
2023 AAx: 0.26
2023 AAx Rank: 52nd
Game 5:
Home plate umpire: Brian Knight
2023 AAx: 0.34
2023 AAx Rank: 48th
Game 6:
Home plate umpire: Vic Carapazza
2023 AAx: -0.14
2023 AAx Rank: 69th
Game 7:
Home plate umpire: Bill Miller
2023 AAx: 0.49
2023 AAx Rank: 42nd
How will this effect scoring in each game?
In order to understand this, we need to look at a totally different statistic.
The best number we can find is Average Total Run Impact (avgTRI), defined as "the absolute value of the run impact of each missed call by the umpire," across all games they umpired, divided by the number of games they umpired. Essentially, how many more. or fewer. runs were scored on average in each game because of this umpire.
Unfortunately though, this statistic does not tell us whether or not they kept runs from scoring or allowed more runs to score. We'll get to that in a moment. This biggest impact of any ump scheduled to be behind home plate was Vic Carapazza, with a 1.5 avgTRI.
In Carapazza's last 10 games calling balls and strikes, the average number of total runs scored was 6.5. The average number of runs scored in an MLB game this season was 9.1, so with that in mind, it's likely that Carapazza has a wider strike zone, allowing for more strike calls against hitters and therefore, allowing fewer runs. Obviously, there are other factors at stake when determining why a game had so many or so few runs, but for simplicity's sake, we'll just be looking at these numbers.
From now on, we'll refer to this statistic I just made up as Runs Above Average (RAA). Carapazza would have a -2.6 RAA, meaning you'd probably want to take the under for Game 6, if the series gets that far.
Here's how every other umpire stacks up in these statistics.
DJ Reyburn: 1.3 avgTRI; 1 RAA
Quinn Wolcott: 0.8 avgTRI; 1.7 RAA
Alfonso Marquez: 1.3 avgTRI; 2.3 RAA
David Rackley: 1.3 avgTRI; -0.1 RAA
Brian Knight: 1.2 avgTRI; -1.5 RAA
Vic Carapazza: 1.5 avgTRI; -2.6 RAA
Bill Miller: 1.1 avgTRI; 0.3 RAA
As you can see, games umpired by Rackley and Miller tend to score relatively close to the entirety of MLB this year.
If you're looking for good over/under bets, taking the under in Game 6 with Carapazza behind home plate or taking the over in Game 3 with Alfonso Marquez calling strikes would probably be the way to go.
2023 World Series odds
Per BetMGM, the Texas Rangers are favorites to win the 2023 World Series. They currently sit at -175 odds, while the Arizona Diamondbacks have +145 odds. At the start of the season, the Rangers had +5000 odds to win the World Series. The Diamondbacks had +6600 odds.
How to watch the World Series:
Game 1 of the World Series is scheduled for tomorrow at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas. First pitch will be at 8:03 pm ET/5:03 pm PT. You can find the game on FOX, or stream the game on Fubo TV.
Watch the game: Catch World Series action with Fubo
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How the 2023 World Series umpires could impact betting odds and trends
