Listing of All Umpiring Crews and the Parks They Officiate in MLB 12 The Show

[Steve_OS]

Kotaku's Owen Good has put together a complete list of umpiring crews and the parks they officiate in MLB 12 The Show.

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As is well known, the officiating in MLB 12 The Show can be set to a variable quality of accuracy. You can either have it perfect, or home plate umpires can have personal strike zones and tendencies, blow close plays and refuse to ring up hitters on a checked swing. Those who frequently play MLB The Show, which has included umpiring "personalities" as far back as 2007, can even develop expectations of what a particular umpire will and won't call for a strike at the edges of the standard strike zone. It leads to some pretty humorous complaining, very much like what you hear from managers, pitchers and booth analysts in real life. One thing you can't do, however, is pick your umpire. If Porter Callahan gives the outside strike to right handers (I'm making that up, I have no idea if he does) you can't select him to go behind home plate. Or can you?

These Are All of the Umpiring Crews—and the Parks They Work—in MLB 12 The Show (Kotaku)

[Spring Rubber]

Perhaps the best thing to say here is that one item on the MLB 13 wishlist should be to randomize the umpires in Exhibition mode.

[sydrogerdavid]

This would explain why I always had the same crew in every exhibition game I played.

[Curahee]

Which is the Umpire with the emphatic Strike Two.... "Ieeek Whoooo!"

[Rawdeal28]

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Luckily, that blind dickbag Wally Hughes is behind the plate only in Baltimore.

*DEAD*

[derelictojama]

I've noticed umpires having tendencies before, but just had a game where the ump showed a tendency early in the game that I was able to exploit, figured I'd post it here.

Umpire: Ricky Holliday
Game: Cubs (me) at Yankees , 2014 World Series Game 5
Pitchers: Matt Garza vs. Hiroki Kuroda
Top first, Kuroda busts out the curveball, and hits a spot just far enough below the strike zone to actually have space between the ball and the zone on the pitch track--that is, it's REALLY not a strike, but ol' Ricky calls it consistently, three times, once to my 3 hitter to get him looking, and 2 to my cleanup hitter to get him down 0-2. Fortunately, he hangs one on 0-2, and I get a hit and score a run. So, when I get out there with Garza, I decide to pound it low, and man, does it work. I play around with the top of the zone, but when I need it I just throw it right at the bottom of the strike zone, and sure enough, either Ricky will ring 'em up, or they'll beat it into the ground. Garza is dominating the Yankees.

Meanwhile, Kuroda apparently doesn't notice this, and drops the curve (I guess hanging one that my cleanup guy lined right past his head dropped his confidence in it), and proceeds to try to work me up in the zone (mistake, I love high pitches) and then work the corners, but ol' Ricky, he don't like no corners, so Kuroda gets all flustered and walks me and gets in hitters counts and I drive up his count and he's gone after 5 having given up 5 runs.

Back to Garza, I'm working that bottom of the zone hard, and getting it consistently, and then I notice as I'm going along that Ricky's giving me some corners, and giving me some leeway up top, too, calling some of the high fastballs I intend to be show pitches as high strikes. The Yankees are looking at him, the announcers are mentioning the generous strike zone, it's all working for me.

Cut back to the Cubs at bat, bullpen comes in (don't remember who...a starter, but the Yankees pile up so many of them) and Ricky squeezes him unmercifully. Can't get a break. I work the count, get a few hits, score another couple over the next few innings, Ricky helping me all along the way.

And Garza... if he had a bit more stamina, I might have thrown a shutout with him, but I eventually had to bring in the bullpen, and Ricky seemed to like what they were throwing, too. Ended up winning 7-0, mainly because the ump seemed to not like the Yankees much.

No, the point is, it does seem that in certain situations you really can work an umpire like you used to be able to work guys like Eric Gregg back in the day, and like Glavine and Maddux used to do, gradually expanding the zone until it's like 40 inches by 40 inches. Good? Bad? I don't know, it was fun being on the good end of it, but if I'd been the Yankees, I bet I'd be posting this in the bugs thread.