Off-Topic Forum

Read this earlier today and found it interesting. I wonder if it'd ever be implemented. 

https://ftw.usatoday.com/2019/04/bryce-harper-ejected-robot-umps-do-it-mlb/amp

As much as umpires make me mad with wrong calls, I really hope it doesn't come to this.  All sports have the element of surprise or error, if I wanted perfectly called pitches the  I might as well just have all the umps and players be robots and have robot sports.  Which is pretty much what video games are, and even then video games can glitch.

I'm in the "sometimes life's not fair, so deal with it" camp. I mean, if you only got one strike before you were called out, that's a different story. But come on, you get three strikes. If you can't successfully put the ball in play after three strikes -- whether one or two of those strikes were borderline or not -- you're out. And you should be out.

Same thing with tennis. If the shot from your opponent lands close enough to the line that you're not sure if it's in or out, just play it.

But then again, if pitch-tracking technology is used to call balls and strikes, maybe hitters will swing at more borderline pitches because they won't want to be caught looking and called out by a robot who knows the strike zone better than they do. And swinging at more borderline pitches means more balls put in play, which would make baseball more interesting.

It's been a long time since I have had time to play video games, but even the older baseball games I used to play had an option where you could make the umpires occasionally make errors and different home plate umpires had different strikezones.  That's baseball after all.  

As a long-time watcher of baseball, and seeing the ridiculousness of the umpires, I'm actually all for automating the balls & strikes. This would mean every pitcher, no matter what their tenure in the league, would get the exact same strike zone. Every hitter, no matter their tenure, would get the same strike zone. Why should Miguel Cabrera get "better calls" than some new kid just getting called up? (And I love Miggy, so I'm not against him.)

It would certainly level the playing field for both sides, and I'm all for it. I see ZERO reasons not to use it.

Easy, the MLB uses this data and fires the bottom 10% performing umps after each season. Problem solved. 

There are real people that work for the MLB teams that sit behind home plate at all home games and audit every call that the umpires make. Weather it does any good or not. Who knows. I know one guy that gets paid by the Red Sox to do it. Nice gig too.

I don't have a problem with it. My view is, if you're using replay technology to get calls right or reversed, why not use technology to get more calls right? Ultimately, umps making mistakes doesn't irk me the way it used to, but some calls are awful. If the obvious bad calls are handled appropriately (fines, etc), it would make hitters feel better I'm sure.

I wonder what pitchers like Maddux and Keuchal who love(d) working outside the zone would think about this. 

No need to fire umpires. You'll still have a home plate umpire to call foul/fair, plays at the plate, hit batters, etc.  They just won't be responsible for deciding whether a 100 mph ball coming toward their face was over the plate or slightly off.  I just hope it works fast, if they use it.  Somebody has to look at a screen, see the result, and communicate it to the batter and pitcher.  Where is this person located exactly?  I assume it's a 5th umpire.  I could honestly see it slowing things down even more.