San-Flip: I saw the Langerhans ring-up ... and want to say as an unbiased (as much as any person can be unbiased) party -- that was one of the single most egregious blown strike calls I've seen in 40 years of watching baseball on TV.
That said ... here's the difficult reality. As noted by others ... rookies in *ALL* sports do not get credit. Veterans get the calls, rookies get hosed. It's not just in MLB.
The problem in Seattle TODAY is the basic problem squared. Part of what allows rookies to move from getting screwed to being allowed to voice their displeasure is by making it thru the systemic 'hazing' of bad calls. You pay a season of dues while keeping your mouth shut, THEN you've demonstrated "reasonableness" (sic). So, in year 2 and beyond, complaints can be viewed as more than simply whining from brats.
............
Chop: 1) This is definitely logical. 2) This is also true with respect to the 2009 M's, and with respect to Wakamatsu.
3) Teams that are fighting for the pennat get a thumb on the scale, because umps figure if they cheat a tailender, baseball history wasn't affected ... whereas if they cost a contender a game, it could go down in history.
4) There's also a deeper problem.
The players who are getting hosed the worst in 2009 are the M's superstars.
The most amazing game-long hose job of 2009 was James Shields vs Felix Hernandez. If the Toronto Blue Jays are being diss'ed by the umps in 2009 -- whoever is their manage -- Roy Halladay is exempt from this. Felix isn't.
... Ichiro, time and again, gets a strike zone in 2009 that is noticeably worse than the one that he got in 2006-08.
Johjima, who has been working his relationships with AL umps for several years now, was the man who got ripped off on the worst base-call the M's have gotten this year.
When Lou Piniella takes over a lousy team -- as the first year he had the Mariners -- nobody put a thumb on the scale against his rookies. When Earl Weaver took over the Orioles, nobody put him through rookie hazing.
.................
Yes, rookies go through rookie hazing, including rookie managers. But in 35 years of watching baseball, I have never seen umps routinely hawk loogies into one dugout the way they do the 2009 M's.
I'm serious. I saw what the umps did to Maury Wills, to the 1980's M's, to the 2005 Seahawks :- ) but the 2009 M's, this is just weird.
Wakamatsu's reply is, he's trying to "teach self-discipline," he wants studious, focused players who aren't visibly emotional, so he can't be the first one thrown out of a game.
The fact is that Wakamatsu is getting pushed around on an epic level of magnitude. He believes it will pay off long-term. We'll see.
Good stuff.
.
Matt-flip: ... place shiny target dots on their uniforms at the outside edge of the knees (just below the kneecap) and under the crook of their arms (right about where the top of the zone should be) and triangulate them the same way you triangulate the ball, giving you a dynamic strikezone height that locks in when the pitcher comes set.
Chop: Very cool.
Somebody bring me up to speed. Is there anybody other than umps, who is opposed to the idea of automating the strike zone?
With Matt's idea, above, the home plate ump could check the dots, like a ref checking a boxer's gear before the fight.
Then the ump could get a tone in his ear from the tracker -- whistle for strike, low tone for ball. He would be free to overrule the tracker, but would have to give account later.
Presto. No more using the ball-strike calls to reward your friends and punish your enemies.
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I've got a question maybe you guys could answer for me.
Is there something I'm missing here? Is there some latent reason for not automating the strike zone?
I can't imagine that the umpires themselves would -now- have the power to stop it. Not with the trackers having embarrassed them on TV for several years in a row.
It's like the players getting slimed with the release of all the roids names. The public embarrassment destroys their ability to fight on that particular issue. The umps couldn't possibly have a lot of ability left to fight automated strike zones.
Cheers,
Dr D
...so no...I don't see the umps having much say in the strike zone. But during game threads at MC, I find just as many fans who, to my incredulous bafflement, refuse to budge one iota in their belief that computerizing the strikezone is the moral equivalent of having the game played by androids or a computer simulator.
I suspect that backwards and logically false comparison dominates among the good ole boyz that rule baseball even today.
Ever since Andy Serkis (sp?) played Gollum in The Two Towers it has been clear that we have the technology to automate the strike zone. All that is needed is a strong enough will to overcome the entrenched interests that stand in the way. And in baseball, entrenched interests are very, very, VERY stubborn. Combine that political inertia with the likes of Bud Selig in the commissioner's office, and...good luck seeing it happen any time soon.
The same arguments vs. were used against instant replay in football, yet years after its implementation it is instant replay that is entrenched as a tradition. We can't imagine ever going back. Give revolution time, it becomes institutionalized. You just have to have strong leaders willing to pay the price and persist in the effort.
MLB needs this. If it's happening to the Mariners, it's happening to other teams that aren't St. Louis, or Philadelphia, or New York, or Boston, or Chicago. The traditional "baseball towns" have enough of a competitive advantage anyway, it's criminal to add institutional bias towards the Pharisees and against the "'am ha aretz."
'Course the same thing is happening in the general business world.
That first line did make me smile...
Absolutely -- now that IR is here in football, we can't imagine going back. The same will be true with the automated zone.
But who is it that's opposed, DaddyO?
The established and entrenched veterans of baseball administration.
And foolishly sentimental fans.
would the established and entrenched veterans of baseball administration want Darryl Cousins to call strikes and balls?
The same idiotic attitude that I run into in game threads at MC...the "that's part of the game and if you computerize the zone, you might as well have the game played by robots or on a stratomatic board" BS...that's not something that's come by randomly. That same attitude is shared by long time baseball men. They imagine that technology is the enemy of the golden age of baseball...a computerized strike zone is the moral equivalent of steroids, instant replay (another thing they hate although on HR calls maybe they can live with it...LOL) and the proliferation of blogs (non-progressive baseball men like Bill Bavasi hate you, Doc...isn't that awesome!...seriously...they think that baseball analysis that occurs in the blogosphere is evil).
The basic problem is...for the entrenched and the old at heart, baseball was a club. No girls allowed, and you gain admission through hazing and spouting cliches to the right friends in high places. It was exclusive, intoxicating, and it made them feel important. Now a thousand bloggers analyze the game with just as much precision as they could with the same input data, several dozen of them landed jobs in progressive front offices through *gasp* MERIT!!! not connections!!!...and they can feel their iron grip on their traditional exclusive superiority over baseball slipping away. Hence the confrontational anti-progressive bias on anything that is not like how the game was played in 1950.
like an anti-DH argument, I guess.
The fact is that the DH improves the hitting (duh), the pitching (who here enjoys watching the pitch get pulled after 5 innings because his team is in a rally in the top of the 6th? Didn't think so), and the fielding (glove first guys at third or left field can happen if you can stick your slug at DH. :) )
But most SABR members hate the DH...and the argument usually boils down to "everybody should have to field a position gosh darnit!!!!"
