Balls and strikes called incorrectly 1 out 5 times

[Riverbrian]

 

First off, I respect your opinion, and am delighted/amazed at the rational discussion herein. But, lol there's always a but! Secondly I don't think umpires tolerate a missed call. They most likely abhor them. I did. As I do driving errors, and misspeeling. But to get to your personal opinion in your first par. I think it should be noted that if you go to robot umpiring, then the gentleman, or woman, behind the plate is not calling balls and strikes. He is no longer a ball and strike umpire, he is a ball and strike announcer. In the area of balls and strikes he is being replaced by automation and his position, while occupied, will be diminished. I would like to see what MLB umpires think of Robo strikes? And I don't mean the sanitized version the league would hand out either.

 

It's not just baseball... According to the news reports I'm seeing. We are about to enter a massive A.I. Revolution. Very few industries will be immune to it. For example... Doctors may have more time for the golf course when patients can just walk into some sort of scanner set up at Walmart next to the automated Starbucks. Beep Beep Beep noise followed by a diagnosis "You have Psoriasis on your ear lobes, laser treatment will begin in 5 seconds". They may not even have to go to Walmart... Amazon will probably figure out how to have the medical treatment done in the privacy and convenience of your own home. 

 

My Kids will have to figure out how to stay employed during this upcoming change and I never miss a chance to say... "I'm glad you'll have to go through it and not me". 

 

Life is gonna get hard while we go the process of making everything easy for everyone. 

 

As for Baseball... I just want the call right. 

 

[Mr. Brooks]

A scoreboard operator has no direct impact on the game or its rules and how they're enforced though. Even the official scorer has no impact on the outcome of a game or how the rules are enforced. That's not even close the same thing. Apples to apples would be the beer vendor selling beer at the incorrect price. Neither has any direct bearing on the outcome of the game. Umpires are directly involved with the game - whether they're robotic or human. We can debate whether that should or should not be the case, which is what we're doing.

 

Again, I'm not here to try to convince anyone how to enjoy the game. I'm simply providing the opposing view point. If you don't like umpires being part of the human element, fine with me. All I ask is that others don't try to tell me how to enjoy the game. You can tell me that broccoli is good until your face turns blue, but that won't make me think it tastes good!

Nobody is telling you how to enjoy the game.

Why are you allowed to respond with your counter opinions, but when others do the same they are telling you how to enjoy the game?

[Riverbrian]

I think some of you folks are crazy but this is a fantastic discussion. 

 

Proud to be part of Twinsdaily!

[wsnydes]

Nobody is telling you how to enjoy the game.

Why are you allowed to respond with your counter opinions, but when others do the same they are telling you how to enjoy the game?

I'd disagree with that, however acknowledge that you are not among those people. My apologies for directing that towards you.

 

I understand the opinion of others, yourself included. I simply don't have an issue with umpires impact on the game. Some don't seem to think that is reasonable or a valid stance. The human element, IMO, includes the human element of the umpires. Others don't. I'm fine with that, others don't seem to be fine with that.

[Platoon]

It's not just baseball... According to the news reports I'm seeing. We are about to enter a massive A.I. Revolution. Very few industries will be immune to it. For example... Doctors may have more time for the golf course when patients can just walk into some sort of scanner set up at Walmart next to the automated Starbucks. Beep Beep Beep noise followed by a diagnosis "You have Psoriasis on your ear lobes, laser treatment will begin in 5 seconds". They may not even have to go to Walmart... Amazon will probably figure out how to have the medical treatment done in the privacy and convenience of your own home. 

 

My Kids will have to figure out how to stay employed during this upcoming change and I never miss a chance to say... "I'm glad you'll have to go through it and not me". 

 

Life is gonna get hard while we go the process of making everything easy for everyone. 

 

As for Baseball... I just want the call right. 

Your take on AI is spot on. Two years ago out of nowhere my libertarian, conservative, pull your self up by the bootstraps son in law, out of nowhere, opined "what are we going to do with all the people without jobs"? How will they be able to live? I know it's a discussion for another day, but it's coming. As for balls and strikes, you're not wrong or right. But neither am I, it's simply personal preference. Possibly age and baseball background associated.

[Riverbrian]

 

Your take on AI is spot on. Two years ago out of nowhere my libertarian, conservative, pull your self up by the bootstraps son in law, out of nowhere, opined "what are we going to do with all the people without jobs"? How will they be able to live? I know it's a discussion for another day, but it's coming. As for balls and strikes, you're not wrong or right. But neither am I, it's simply personal preference. Possibly age and baseball background associated.

 

Umpires, Financial Analysts, Lawyers and Insurance Underwriters will be the first to go. 

[wsnydes]

Umpires, Financial Analysts, Lawyers and Insurance Underwriters will be the first to go.

Can we figure out a way to fit politicians into that somehow?

[h2oface]

 

Worth noting that players don't learn the game or train based on the Statcast strike zone. So taking a Statcast ball, that the ump calls a strike, isn't really an unexpected or unjust outcome, if they've seen it regularly called a strike their entire lives.

If anything, switching to a strict Statcast zone could be an unwelcome adjustment for most players! You'd more be rewarding those players who could adapt to the new Statcast zone, than you would be rewarding any kind of "natural" baseball skill.

 

Adjusting? Seriously? Like batters and pitchers don't have to adjust daily to a new made up or interpretation of the actual strike zone by each individual umpire? The strike zone that is the same if tech is used, but only an interpretation that varies if not? And then, more often than not, even adjust to that changing during the game as the umpires become inconsistent with their personal made up strike zone. You think it would be harder to adjust once and then it is the same daily, weekly, yearly and pitcher to pitcher? I sure don't.

 

Again...... you keep throwing out your opinions (which you are welcome to keep without accepting new evidence in the future, even), but what are you basing that on? You are determining whether it was a right or wrong call by using pitch f/x or statcast or some tech! You don't get to have it both ways, do you? If that is your standard for the basis of your studies.... it is the correctness czar. Now it seems you are just talking in circles.

 

None of this discussion is about telling someone how to enjoy the game. It is a discussion on how to get the rules it is played with, and the spirit of the rule, correct as often as possible in as little time as possible and not make mistakes or accept mistakes that don't have to be made if there is a better tool to implement them.

 

[Nine of twelve]

 

None of this discussion is about telling someone how to enjoy the game. It is a discussion on how to get the rules it is played with, and the spirit of the rule, correct as often as possible in as little time as possible and not make mistakes or accept mistakes that don't have to be made if there is a better tool to implement them.

This is it. The game should be played according to the rules and the rules should be enforced as accurately as possible. If automated pitch calling enforces the rules better than humans, which I believe is the case, then it should be implemented.

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

Adjusting? Seriously? Like batters and pitchers don't have to adjust daily to a new made up or interpretation of the actual strike zone by each individual umpire? The strike zone that is the same if tech is used, but only an interpretation that varies if not? And even adjust during the game as the umpires become inconsistent with their personal made up strike zone. You think it would be harder to adjust once and then it is the same daily, weekly, yearly and pitcher to pitcher? Give me a break.

 

Again...... you keep throwing out your opinions, but what are you basing that on? You are determining whether it was a right or wrong call by using pitch f/x or statcast or some tech! You don't get it both ways. If that is your standard for the basis of your studies.... it is the correctness czar. Now you are just talking in circles.

Actually, umpires have ton of overlap in their strike zones, even in their blind spots / biases. So it's really not a whole new zone each night. At worst, maybe you shift the percentage odds on the corner or something for a certain ump, but evidence suggests even that is becoming more consistent.

 

It seems like you have a vision of Eric Greggs all around the league, arbitrarily just deciding to call a really wide zone, or a really tall zone, etc. on random nights or even random innings, thwarting batters and pitchers in their efforts to consistently identify pitches. If that was the case, I'd probably agree that robo-umps were warranted, but I really don't see that kind of egregious variation.

 

Are there a lot of players, or more likely former players, advocating for robo-umps? If not, it seems like it's mostly a solution in search of a problem on the field. Off the field, it would just be a matter of fan preference, and I acknowledge that not everyone would share my preference.

 

And I don't think there is anything contradictory about Statcast and human umps co-existing. It's been that way for awhile now. A pro-human-umpire opinion isn't invalid simply because it acknowledges tools to better train and grade human umps.

[TheLeviathan]

 

Actually, umpires have ton of overlap in their strike zones, even in their blind spots / biases. So it's really not a whole new zone each night. At worst, maybe you shift the percentage odds on the corner or something for a certain ump, but evidence suggests even that is becoming more consistent.

 

 

You argued players would have to adjust to this new, uniform strike zone.  Yeah, once.  If that. 

 

The counter point, which is 100% spot on from h2o, is that players have to adjust to different zones within games sometimes, much less from game to game.  And no matter what you want to argue "more consistent" means it is going to be less than the 100% the robo strike zone would be.  Every day.  Without fail.  Every inning.  To every batter. 

 

It shouldn't be controversial to say your point just doesn't have any merit.  I don't know how many times I've heard a broadcaster say "You have to find out if the ump is going to give you that corner"  As if the corner is theirs to give or not give.  Or, if you're Tom Glavine, by sheer stubborness force an entire era of umpires to change their zone.  I'll say it again - whatever consistency currently exists within the umpiring world will, with absolute certainty, be less than the robo-umpires.  And since the robo umpires will be the same day in and day out, I don't know how there can be some huge headache of players adjusting.  That's a terribly weak argument.

 

 This is one of the things that would, over a very short period of time, be eliminated out of baseball.  Now, if your personal preference is to have less consistency, I won't tell you that you have to like that.  I understand people like a certain degree of error involved. However, this argument is silly.  This will not be a "problem" for batters.  Certainly not any more of a problem than it is now with a much shorter, one-time learning curve.

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

You argued players would have to adjust to this new, uniform strike zone.  Yeah, once.  If that. 

All I said was "switching to a strict Statcast zone could be an unwelcome adjustment for most players"

 

That seems like a fair observation. Nobody has ever played a baseball game with a Statcast strike zone (well, outside of that Eric Byrnes thing someone mentioned). And as far as I know, there aren't many (any?) players or former players advocating for a switch to robo-umps.

 

I wasn't arguing this adjustment as a reason not to implement robo-umps.

[h2oface]

 

You argued players would have to adjust to this new, uniform strike zone.  Yeah, once.  If that. 

 

The counter point, which is 100% spot on from h2o, is that players have to adjust to different zones within games sometimes, much less from game to game.  And no matter what you want to argue "more consistent" means it is going to be less than the 100% the robo strike zone would be.  Every day.  Without fail.  Every inning.  To every batter. 

 

It shouldn't be controversial to say your point just doesn't have any merit.  I don't know how many times I've heard a broadcaster say "You have to find out if the ump is going to give you that corner"  As if the corner is theirs to give or not give.  Or, if you're Tom Glavine, by sheer stubborness force an entire era of umpires to change their zone.  I'll say it again - whatever consistency currently exists within the umpiring world will, with absolute certainty, be less than the robo-umpires.  And since the robo umpires will be the same day in and day out, I don't know how there can be some huge headache of players adjusting.  That's a terribly weak argument.

 

 This is one of the things that would, over a very short period of time, be eliminated out of baseball.  Now, if your personal preference is to have less consistency, I won't tell you that you have to like that.  I understand people like a certain degree of error involved. However, this argument is silly.  This will not be a "problem" for batters.  Certainly not any more of a problem than it is now with a much shorter, one-time learning curve.

 

Thank you! Amen. 

 

I don't get the "Statcast Zone" adjustment, anyway. THAT is what the zone is supposed to be...... BY RULE! Why would that be an adjustment?

[Otto von Ballpark]

 

I don't get the "Statcast Zone" adjustment, anyway. THAT is what the zone is supposed to be...... BY RULE! Why would that be an adjustment?

Nobody has ever played a game with a Statcast zone before (aside from that Eric Byrnes demonstration mentioned upthread?). No one will play with them before they get to pro ball for a long time either. Again, it's not any kind of disqualifying factor for robo-umps or anything. It was just an observation.

 

Yes, players have been adjusting to strike zones since the dawn of baseball, although in a bit different form.

 

The primary point of the post, from which that stray observation was drawn, was that it's not as if players are being unwittingly cheated out of Statcast strikes right now. They've never had Statcast strikes. They've played their entire careers under the parameters of human umpires, for better or for worse.

[TheLeviathan]

I wasn't arguing this adjustment as a reason not to implement robo-umps.

Your post absolutely implies that. And even if It didnt, that observation is still meaningless as a difference. It would be no different than adjusting to a newly hired umpire. Which happens. And players adjust.

 

Except this happens once and you never have to adjust again. Ever. So I'm not sure why your observation matter unless you mean it as a criticism. No one has to be cheated to recognize that improvement can be made.

[h2oface]

 

Nobody has ever played a game with a Statcast zone before (aside from that Eric Byrnes demonstration mentioned upthread?). No one will play with them before they get to pro ball for a long time either. Again, it's not any kind of disqualifying factor for robo-umps or anything. It was just an observation.

 

Yes, players have been adjusting to strike zones since the dawn of baseball, although in a bit different form.

 

The primary point of the post, from which that stray observation was drawn, was that it's not as if players are being unwittingly cheated out of Statcast strikes right now. They've never had Statcast strikes. They've played their entire careers under the parameters of human umpires, for better or for worse.

 

I guess I just don't understand what you mean by a "Statcast zone". There is one zone by rule. Either umpires call it to the best of their guessing, or the tech is set to measure it, and it could be used to call it as well, to the very same parameters. As always. So if you mean that the demonstration you speak of was robo called, and you call that the "Statcast zone", which is just the strike zone as we know it called by machines during the game......... I fail to see how nobody has ever had "Statcast strikes", which would be virtually pitches in the same locations in the same zone they have always navigated, and umpires have been calling accurately enough, as you say, with little variation. Is that what you mean?

[Platoon]

Umpires, Financial Analysts, Lawyers and Insurance Underwriters will be the first to go. 

Been called a lot of things when I umped, but never a lawyer! That's an automatic thumb, just like the F word!

[Otto von Ballpark]

I guess I just don't understand what you mean by a "Statcast zone". There is one zone by rule. Either umpires call it to the best of their guessing, or the tech is set to measure it, and it could be used to call it as well, to the very same parameters. As always. So if you mean that the demonstration you speak of was robo called, and you call that the "Statcast zone", which is just the strike zone as we know it called by machines during the game......... I fail to see how nobody has ever had "Statcast strikes", which would be virtually pitches in the same locations in the same zone they have always navigated, and umpires have been calling accurately enough, as you say, with little variation. Is that what you mean?

All human umpires tend to have consistent blind spots / biases among them. (You can read the study link for more details.) The rule book used to say the top of the zone was the letters, but every player knew that pitches at the letters weren't called strikes very often -- in part because it was an ump blind spot (it's hard to judge varying tops of the zone, with different batter heights/stances), but also because batters didn't like those pitches and, over time, had taken enough of them to communicate that. Eventually the rule book zone was amended to reflect this.

 

Player training and decision making is based on this kind of reality, rather than strictly the rule book. If it wasn't, I agree it would be a serious problem -- there would likely be chaos in the game! But there never really has been, and to the extent that there ever was, the Eric Gregg game was 22 years ago. Tom Glavine retired 10 years ago. I rarely see any ejections over balls and strikes. Most excesses of the umpire-player relationship have been curbed. They don't always agree, of course, and players wouldn't always agree with Statcast/robo-umps either, but the game is stable.

 

I think it helps that players are dealing with the same kind of human limitations as the umpires. Joey Votto has a great eye, but even he probably couldn't call a zone with an error rate significantly less than 9% or whatever, as compared to Statcast. Fortunately, he doesn't have to, to be successful. His eye can provide the 9% zone, his brain can quickly judge the risks/rewards based on factors like the count, and his reflexes and muscle memory regularly allow him to hit the ball well too. I guess he could follow the same basic formula under robo-umps, but at the same time, I don't get the sense that any of that formula is really being compromised under human umps.

[Nine of twelve]

 

I rarely see any ejections over balls and strikes. 

That doesn't mean the umpires aren't making incorrect calls. It means that benches are suppressing their urges to point out the mistakes.

[Nine of twelve]

 

All human umpires tend to have consistent blind spots / biases among them. (You can read the study link for more details.) The rule book used to say the top of the zone was the letters, but every player knew that pitches at the letters weren't called strikes very often -- in part because it was an ump blind spot (it's hard to judge varying tops of the zone, with different batter heights/stances), but also because batters didn't like those pitches and, over time, had taken enough of them to communicate that. Eventually the rule book zone was amended to reflect this.

Player training and decision making is based on this kind of reality, rather than strictly the rule book. If it wasn't, I agree it would be a serious problem -- there would likely be chaos in the game! But there never really has been, and to the extent that there ever was, the Eric Gregg game was 22 years ago. Tom Glavine retired 10 years ago. I rarely see any ejections over balls and strikes. Most excesses of the umpire-player relationship have been curbed. They don't always agree, of course, and players wouldn't always agree with Statcast/robo-umps either, but the game is stable.

I think it helps that players are dealing with the same kind of human limitations as the umpires. Joey Votto has a great eye, but even he probably couldn't call a zone with an error rate significantly less than 9% or whatever, as compared to Statcast. Fortunately, he doesn't have to, to be successful. His eye can provide the 9% zone, his brain can quickly judge the risks/rewards based on factors like the count, and his reflexes and muscle memory regularly allow him to hit the ball well too. I guess he could follow the same basic formula under robo-umps, but at the same time, I don't get the sense that any of that formula is really being compromised under human umps.

As has been the case with many posts in this thread, there is nothing here that justifies the support of allowing incorrect calls that can be eliminated with technology.

[Otto von Ballpark]

That doesn't mean the umpires aren't making incorrect calls. It means that benches are suppressing their urges to point out the mistakes.

Well, the poster I was responding to had previously said that he didn't like to see arguments, dirt-kicking, etc. at ball games. That was the context under which I made this observation. It was just meant to say, we don't really see that at ball games.

 

Maybe some of you notice a lot of suppressed rage in the dugouts, and you don't like to see that at ballgames. I guess I see some not-so-suppressed rage in the game threads sometimes.

[Nine of twelve]

 

As has been the case with many posts in this thread, there is nothing here that justifies the support of allowing incorrect calls that can be eliminated with technology.

I guess I should take a half-step back from this comment. I suppose there are people who watch baseball in part because they enjoy it when players and teams are unfairly penalized as the result of umpires making incorrect calls. And I suppose that's their right. I just fail to understand why someone would feel that way.

[Riverbrian]

 

Been called a lot of things when I umped, but never a lawyer! That's an automatic thumb, just like the F word!

 

This is what my experience was like:

 

Riverbrian: Ball

Catcher: Where was that?

Riverbrian: Outside

Catcher: It was dead center middle of the plate

Riverbrian: You could be right

 

 

[Riverbrian]

I watched the Angels/Rangers highlights this morning from last night. Justin Bour got rung up on a pitch well outside the zone in the ninth inning down by a run with the bases loaded.

 

Who knows what would have happened if the call was made correctly. But... it was a big missed call that eventually ended up in a Rangers victory.

[pbrezeasap]

 

I guess I should take a half-step back from this comment. I suppose there are people who watch baseball in part because they enjoy it when players and teams are unfairly penalized as the result of umpires making incorrect calls. And I suppose that's their right. I just fail to understand why someone would feel that way.

 

In last nights game I think it was Polanco batting and the catcher set up down and away and the pitcher missed down and in with a breaking pitch and the catcher has to reach across the plate and grab the ball with his mitt on the ground. The box on the tv shows it grazed that bottom corner of the strike zone but it was called a ball. Do you really think the pitcher should be rewarded with a strike call in that situation?

 

Also, the last strike called to end the game against Tellez looked to be inside according to the box on the tv, but when I pull up the chart on Baseball Savant it shows the ball split the line on the inside of the plate. That makes me further question the accuracy of the technology.

[yarnivek1972]

In last nights game I think it was Polanco batting and the catcher set up down and away and the pitcher missed down and in with a breaking pitch and the catcher has to reach across the plate and grab the ball with his mitt on the ground. The box on the tv shows it grazed that bottom corner of the strike zone but it was called a ball. Do you really think the pitcher should be rewarded with a strike call in that situation?

 

Also, the last strike called to end the game against Tellez looked to be inside according to the box on the tv, but when I pull up the chart on Baseball Savant it shows the ball split the line on the inside of the plate. That makes me further question the accuracy of the technology.

I wouldn't judge the accuracy of available technology based on what you can see on TV or on your computer. If it gets to the point of "replacing" human umpires, I would guess accuracy will be within one centimeter.

[ashbury]

In last nights game I think it was Polanco batting and the catcher set up down and away and the pitcher missed down and in with a breaking pitch and the catcher has to reach across the plate and grab the ball with his mitt on the ground. The box on the tv shows it grazed that bottom corner of the strike zone but it was called a ball. Do you really think the pitcher should be rewarded with a strike call in that situation?

Certainly. Baseball rules define the strike zone to specify what is and isn't a fair offering to expect the batter to try to hit. It's not to record whether the pitcher achieved what he tried to do.

 

The strike zone is all about the batter, not the pitcher. It's even defined in terms specific to the batter, so that Jose Altuve's is different than Aaron Judge's. By contrast the strike zone doesn't depend whatsoever on whether it's Jon Rauch or Johnny Cueto pitching.

 

Not everything about the competition has to be symmetric.

[TheLeviathan]

There is one downside to the robo-umps.....so much of my life watching baseball has been consumed with former players talking about how they "just want the umpires to call it consistently" and about "feeling out the umpire's zone".

 

Whatever will we do with all that dead air?

[h2oface]

 

Certainly. Baseball rules define the strike zone to specify what is and isn't a fair offering to expect the batter to try to hit. It's not to record whether the pitcher achieved what he tried to do.

 

The strike zone is all about the batter, not the pitcher. It's even defined in terms specific to the batter, so that Jose Altuve's is different than Aaron Judge's. By contrast the strike zone doesn't depend whatsoever on whether it's Jon Rauch or Johnny Cueto pitching.

 

Not everything about the competition has to be symmetric.

 

Beat me to it. Absolutely. It doesn't matter. A pitch the crosses the plate and passes through any part of the strike zone is a strike, no matter how much or how long it was in the zone, and regardless of where the catcher wanted the pitcher to throw it, or were the catcher had to move his glove to catch it.

 

If the ball goes in the basket...... no matter how it got heaved up there...... it counts. Same thing.

[h2oface]

 

No mystery, really. We're obviously just not true fans of the sport, like you are. It's the only explanation!

And with that, I will bow out of this thread. Good luck preaching your gospel of robo-umps to more unwashed fans!