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Hey Bill

Baseball is about the strike zone, Dept.

This was amazing to me, because it's been precisely my idea for a long time:

Now that baseball has finally crossed the Rubicon and begun embracing replay technology, can automating ball-and-strike calls be far behind? The umpires, despite knowing they’re under close scrutiny, continue missing one-seventh of these calls, as attested by yesterday’s article (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/30/opinion/sunday/what-umpires-get-wrong....) and by anyone watching the center-field zoom cameras. It’s beyond aggravating, often infuriating! Do you believe this will ever happen? If it is ever attempted, no doubt first it would be in the minors experimentally. What method(s) would likely be employed? What problems need to be overcome? Regardless what technology is used, I’d certainly favor retaining the home-plate umpire. Let an audible beep or gong signal a ball in the strike zone, with the ump handling all other duties. Your thoughts, please?

Asked by: DanDanDodgerFan

Answered: 4/3/2014

Right. . .that's what I have advocated for 20 years: an audible beep that only the home plate umpire hears, telling him whether the ball was or was not in the zone. He can ignore the beep if he chooses to do so; there might be cases where the technology doesn't work, and a ball bouncing off the catcher's shinguards will beep to signal a strike. Anything can happen. But in practice, umpires are going to learn to just go along with the beep 99.99% of the time. The game LOOKS the same; it's the same from the seats. The only difference is, the calls are right.

Man, I love that last line, don't you?

........

... anyway. I hate, hate, HATE blown strike zone calls. Of all calls in sports, I think these bother me the most. And they can utterly set the tone of a game. Remember James Paxton's strike zone in spring training?

Even if all the calls are right, I hate individual umpire strike zones. By their very nature, they are going to give a big advantage to one pitcher over the other.

.....

Here's a fun read on Mike Zunino, from a rotisserie geek in New York.

......

During the game last night, ROOT Sports put up charts that showed how effective Mike Zunino has been in "framing" pitches. It showed three things, one of which was a cognitive dissonance for Dr. D. The three things were:

Every recent Mariner catcher had been ripped off, badly, by the umps - until Zunino
Mike Zunino is treated better than average on pitches in the zone (+)
Mike Zunino is still treated worse than average on pitches outside the zone (-)

In other words, the umps are now very, very careful not to take away a strike from Zunino. But! They are still sourly refusing to give him extra strikes that are close to the zone, like they do for other teams.

They're careful not to be unfair to him, but they're not eager to be generous with him. I'm not exactly sure what to make of that, from a relationship standpoint. That's the way you treat a foster child, right?

Just kidding,

Jeff

Blog:

Dr's R/X

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Technology

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New York

Seattle Sports Insider

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