Automated Strike Zone for MLB.. Your Thoughts?

I love Brett Gardner.

I hate Joe West.

I still remember my first year of playing Little League in the championship game and getting punched out on a bad third strike call and thinking "I'll never let that happen again." I shortened my swing and learned to foul off close pitches. Its part of the game and served me well after that. You win some and you lose some, but the greats learn how to make adjustments. (Not that I was a great, just giving an example.)

 

Talk about Charlie Hustle. Gardner has started for a decade in the Yankee outfield based on sheer heart and legs (never a power threat or high BA guy). But he has one of the ugliest swings in the MLB.

 

Part of the problem is that there are iffy-but-just-credible-enough reasons to keep some of these time-saving changes from being done (not talking about automated calls here--general pace of play changes). Why does a pitching change take so long? You could easily put a clock here—a hard and fast amount of time to make a pitching change. Relievers shouldn’t need 18 pitches (or whatever the number is these days) once they’re out on the mound when they've just been in a pen throwing for a good length of time. But because this is presented as a safety issue—the pitcher has to be able to take his time and get loose or he’ll drop dead or his arm will spontaneously combust—it’s not going to change.

Some people are claiming this is in agreement with the game's traditions. And with respect, this is where I really disagree. Taking this kind of time in game is foreign to baseball. I’m highly attuned to the whole baseball-as-pastoral-game stuff. I’m downright nostalgic about it. I like the generally methodical pace of baseball. But the waiting around has gone way too far, and (to get to my point) it’s nothing to do with the traditions of the game. Keep in mind that baseball games used to routinely be done in half the time they take today. Were those games somehow inauthentic? Baseball in previous generations wasn’t “real baseball”? What nonsense. The "inauthentic" change is the time wasting. It’s the bloat that’s new to the game, and the game would be better off if it was done away with.

At the end of the day, there’s really no good reason why viewers should have to sit through an extra three minutes of warmup once a pitcher is announced into the game. This after a commercial break, no less! That’s just nuts. But it happens over and over again and in every single game. It doesn't matter whether it's going to make the kids come running. That’s the stuff that kills even the die-hards, and MLB should absolutely take action on it.

 

No. Not yet. Let the umpires do it. Forcing machine tolerances on a game that is already at the edge of human capabilities of throwing, hitting and running, will make the game too frustrating to play or watch.

 

Yep

 

Automate, stops both arguments and BS, and they would still need an ump for making calls at home plate. If you think an ump hasn't purposely tilted a call, you are naive. AND that might be the reason it will always stay. Control.

 

So, do away with the replay rules that exist now?

 

The replay rule is awkward and weird, and probably should just be done by the on-site umpires, but...it doesn't affect every single pitch.

 

Baseball is a thinking game. One of strategic contemplation, placement, and execution. It is what it is on purpose, not by accident.

To remove the human factor will destroy the element of surprise and unpredictability. It would, I submit, ruin the game.

 

Do you like to see the rectangular strike zone box on tv?

 

Heck no.
Actually only in the replay.
Otherwise it's just obscuring the view.

 

Fair enough. Just so you know, what I am proposing shouldn't lag behind the results of the box. Like I said, the umpire still makes the call so it can be recorded what they thought the call was. The actual count is kept by the computer and scorekeeper. With any luck the computer will only overrule the ump by less than 5% or so.

 

It's important for me to have MY opinion. Was it a strike ? We can look at the different angles and decide, adter the fact, but I want my chance to have my own opinion in the moment, whether or not it's a strike or a man is safe. Otherwise what's the point ?
It's supposed to be entertaining. If they are just telling me, and I can't engage with it, I'll watch a man changing a tire.

 

I know this is a quixotic and indefensible position, but I'm pretty much against new technological gizmos of any kind now, especially those that supplant humans. I draw my line after the invention of television. Baseball can do without things like this.

 

Tough question for someone like me who played baseball through college and coached five sons for about 20 years after that.

To me it seems that major league umpires are less accurate at calling balls and strikes than the weathermen. A missed call can change an at bat, a game, or even a World Series outcome.

The strike zone is specified in the rule book. It is not arbitrary. No where does it say that the strike zone is up to the umpire to decide what it is to be that day.

They say that the umps are reviewed. If that is so then what are the consequences for doing a poor job? I never see them sent back to the minor or fired. Players poor performance can get them sent to the minors or designated for assignment (released). Why not the umpires?

So if it is just too difficult for the umps to get right then I would be glad to see the automated strike zone.

I would also like to see the pitch clock implimated, and enforced. Would also like to see them put some restrictions ion how many times and how long a batter can step out of the batter's box. I see many that step out for long periods of time after every pitch and many retighten their batting gloves after every pitch, many times even after they never even moved their bat on the previous pitch.

 

Some calls can make a difference in an entire season. It's not that an occasional call is world ending normally, but calls like the Pass Interference non call (LA Rams VS NO Saints during the playoffs) effect an entire team and an entire season. NO had an amazing season and it was ended by that call. Football uses the "Booth" or "New York" to look at certain plays. They should look at those also when they are super important. These teams make billions of dollars, the leagues can afford it. It also makes the watchers they try so hard to keep watching get disillusioned with even watching.

 

Keep the behind-the-plate ump, but get them some help. Calling balls and strikes is a difficult thing and they get it wrong way to often.

I also think we can get rid of the chain gang in the NFL and Division 1 College football. The 'painted' lines the network is using is way more accurate than those chains.

 

Replay is killing live sports all the way around.

 

The best umps are only around 90% accuracy with strike calls. I don't give a squat about "tradition" when they're that inaccurate.

Yes, I'm for the robots. It's 2019.