MLB leaderboards, with the nulls attached

The one gated signal failed. Catcher, platoon and umpire leaderboards are descriptive. The umpire-tendency signal for game totals was gated against a planted null and did not pass.

REJECTn = 103 umpires in the gate; 113 qualified catchersno intervalgenerated 2026-07-24mlb_descriptive_leaderboards.jsongenerated 2026-07-24descriptive_only

quoted on 2 pages

Findings are exploratory unless a pre-registration file, date and hash are shown on the page.

How it was tested

Gate: leak-free expanding gate with a planted null (shuffled umpire assignment) for the totals signal; leaderboards ungated
Corpora: Statcast 2022_2023
Folds: 3 walk-forward folds

Replication

single corpus

Inspector

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Descriptive MLB Statcast-derived leaderboards (catcher/umpire out-of-zone strike rate, platoon on-base splits) for a fixed 2022-2023 corpus slice, shown beside two honest nulls -- an unstable park-factor read and a REJECTed umpire-totals gate -- with no predictive or advantage claim anywhere.

Window: 2022-2023 Statcast slice (statcast_fuller_v1) — a fixed 2022-2023 Statcast slice, not the current season.

Catcher out-of-zone strike rate

Out-of-zone called/swung-strike rate -- a DESCRIPTIVE catcher stat, cruder than model-based framing; NOT a called-strike or framing rate, NOT predictive.

floor: n_ooz_called>=500 · n_qualified 113

Top 15

Name	OOZ strike rate	n
René Pinto	0.315	3,448
Austin Barnes	0.305	6,707
Alejandro Kirk	0.305	10,963
Patrick Bailey	0.304	5,657
Roberto Pérez	0.302	1,637
Sandy León	0.302	2,537
Travis d'Arnaud	0.299	11,281
Cal Raleigh	0.299	14,504
Curt Casali	0.299	5,068
Jacob Stallings	0.298	12,090
Austin Wells	0.298	1,276
Manny Piña	0.298	541
Danny Jansen	0.297	8,461
Meibrys Viloria	0.297	1,543
Tom Murphy	0.297	3,167

Scroll horizontally for all columns.

Bottom 15

Name	OOZ strike rate	n
Logan O'Hoppe	0.255	3,921
Tyler Stephenson	0.254	8,674
Carlos Pérez	0.253	2,234
David Fry	0.253	882
Andrew Knizner	0.253	9,652
Shea Langeliers	0.252	9,839
Brett Sullivan	0.251	1,708
Korey Lee	0.250	2,159
Riley Adams	0.250	5,437
P.J. Higgins	0.250	1,946
Elias Díaz	0.250	14,540
Robinson Chirinos	0.246	3,989
Carlos Pérez	0.239	1,277
Cooper Hummel	0.218	914
Drew Millas	0.212	585

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Platoon splits

Raw on-base-rate gap vs LHP minus vs RHP -- not park/quality adjusted, descriptive only.

floor: pa_vs_l>=50 and pa_vs_r>=50 · n_qualified 394

Batter	vs LHP	vs RHP	Delta	PA (L/R)
Mitch Garver	0.453	0.300	0.152	148 / 413
Robbie Grossman	0.427	0.276	0.151	286 / 613
Cristian Pache	0.315	0.191	0.124	146 / 209
Bobby Dalbec	0.358	0.243	0.116	134 / 272
Sam Haggerty	0.396	0.288	0.108	154 / 156
William Contreras	0.437	0.329	0.107	293 / 695
Kevin Smith	0.279	0.175	0.104	104 / 194
Rob Refsnyder	0.420	0.317	0.103	219 / 202
Kevin Newman	0.374	0.273	0.101	214 / 348
Albert Pujols	0.405	0.308	0.097	131 / 221
TJ Friedl	0.417	0.321	0.096	132 / 682
José Caballero	0.395	0.301	0.094	124 / 156
Patrick Bailey	0.345	0.254	0.091	113 / 240
Jose Trevino	0.345	0.254	0.090	119 / 405
Harold Ramírez	0.411	0.322	0.088	246 / 624

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Umpire out-of-zone strike rate

Out-of-zone called/swung-strike rate -- a DESCRIPTIVE umpire-zone stat, cruder than model-based framing; NOT a called-strike or framing rate, NOT predictive.

n_qualified 102

Top 15

Name	OOZ strike rate	n
Randy Rosenberg	0.314	506
Bill Miller	0.308	8,815
Laz Diaz	0.302	7,197
Doug Eddings	0.302	8,181
Andy Fletcher	0.300	8,328
Lance Barrett	0.299	8,184
Gabe Morales	0.299	8,409
Jacob Metz	0.299	1,735
Marty Foster	0.298	1,492
Brian Walsh	0.298	1,960
Jerry Meals	0.297	3,759
CB Bucknor	0.297	7,915
Phil Cuzzi	0.297	8,086
Chris Conroy	0.295	4,251
Greg Gibson	0.295	1,308

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Bottom 15

Name	OOZ strike rate	n
Jansen Visconti	0.272	8,248
Alan Porter	0.271	8,451
Adrian Johnson	0.270	8,422
Shane Livensparger	0.270	8,920
Paul Emmel	0.270	5,062
Jordan Baker	0.270	8,319
Nate Tomlinson	0.269	7,223
Tripp Gibson	0.268	8,399
Alex Tosi	0.268	7,715
John Bacon	0.267	2,933
Pat Hoberg	0.266	8,269
Mark Wegner	0.263	6,755
Carlos Torres	0.260	8,472
David Arrieta	0.259	754
Derek Thomas	0.252	2,608

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Park factor — the published null

asof_park.parquet's park_factor is mostly NaN in this corpus -- too unstable/sparse to publish as a ranking, so we report the null instead. 0 of 29 rows had a finite park factor (29 NaN). This is not published as a ranking — verdict: too unstable/sparse to publish as a ranking.

Umpire-totals gate — the sharp angle we tested and failed

REJECT

Hypothesis

home-plate umpire out-of-zone strike-rate tendency (expanding, as-of within this gate) predicts game total runs beyond an internal league+park baseline

Why it failed

planted null (shuffled umpire assignment) shows an equal-or-larger RMSE improvement than the real assignment -- added-flexibility artifact, not umpire signal

N umpires

103

Fold RMSE deltas (real vs. planted-null assignment)

-0.000407, -0.001334, -0.000491

Reading

ump identity did not move game totals -- a REJECT, published honestly

Confounds

OOZ strike rate is cruder than mixed-model framing and is NOT a called-strike/framing rate.
2022-2023 fixed window; not current-season.
platoon delta is raw on-base rate difference, not park/quality adjusted.
these are DESCRIPTIVE leaderboards; no predictive or advantage claim is made.

Descriptive only, from a fixed 2022-2023 window. The tables report observed Statcast splits rather than a forecast.

Limitations

Sample and independence: pitches cluster within games and umpires; the leaderboards carry no intervals.
Scope: one Statcast window; the park-factor ranking was too sparse to publish.
Does not establish any umpire or catcher effect on game outcomes; the gated totals signal failed.

Verdict history

2026-07-24: current: REJECT

Findings