CHW 4, MIN 3: Donaldson Ejection Steals the Show, White Sox Take Series

They need an umpire on the field anyway for other calls, and also as backup in case the automated system fails to function. And given his proximity to the action, and the fact that players are already trained to listen for his call while they follow the action on the field, it makes sense to have him signal the call as he currently does.

 

I know folks have been frustrated by human umpires, but we've been dealing with that frustration since the dawn of (baseball) time. It's relatively easy to wait a little longer for the automated system. Don't worry, it's coming -- I don't think MLB would have sponsored the system in the Atlantic League and Arizona Fall League if they didn't have an intention of bringing to the majors once it was ready. But MLB teams and players aren't willing to be guinea pigs like indy leaguers or minor leaguers either.

I will agree the failure of the system will be the biggest risk of it.  What happens if it fails during a game?  Assume we just go with the home plate ump doing his thing, but will they be trained like before?  I doubt many umps will train their craft of pitch calling if they will only need to do it when the system fails.  That is the only thing that I worry about when they shift to it.  I know they will shift to it, the writing is on the walls.  Once broadcast media put that box up, it was certain to happen.  It only has led to more arguments about umps.  Now the viewer can see they blew the call.  

I read an article a few years ago, cannot find a link now, that showed the big human element of the calling of pitches.  It found that on boarder line pitches umps were about 50/50.  So when advocates point to percent right, they were no better than a coinflip on boarder line pitches. The bigger problem was even more of a human bias, was history of called pitches. 

What that is, an umpire was more likely to call a strike on borderline pitch on a 3-0 count.  Torii pointed this out when he used to broadcast.  Then, they were more likely to call a ball on 0-2 count.  So they were biased to lean towards the call that does not end the at-bat, because most likely they did not want to be the reason for it to end and take the pressure off.  Further more, they were less likely to call a strike after calling one.  So imagine if it is 0-1 count, then a called strike to make 0-2.  This even further reduced the chance of a called third strike.  I think mainly, the umps did not want to get yelled at by the side that felt it was wrong.  So now, they are 50/50 generally, keeping in mind that has the biased calls just mentioned, but now you have 0-2 pitch that is borderline will be even less likely so less than a 50/50 call.  

The study clearly showed how flawed the human ump is.  It is a very difficult job, watched a sports science on it, and do not envy the umps that do it.  However, we can get it right, so lets hope it happens sooner than later.  I personally think you will get more fans back.  I think some fans see how bad the calls are and get annoyed.  I also think you will get less walks.  You will get more offense though.  

After a while pitchers will learn to hit the zone more.  Right now, it is part of the catchers duties to steal strikes.  So the pitcher will try to throw a pitch outside of the zone in hopes they get the call.  Well when that goes away they will just go into the zone more.  This will lead to more swings I think, could be wrong, maybe more hitters will take knowing it is more likely to be the right call.  I mean, do we keep track of negative framing for catchers, when a pitch should have been strike but called a ball?  I do not know but never heard of it.  

It is my understanding that, during the trials in the Atlantic League and Arizona Fall League, the home plate ump provided backup for the automated system. So if some pitch didn't communicate a signal to him right away, whether it's a measurement or delivery error, the ump could call it himself. I don't know how frequently that happened or what the official criteria would be, but it seems like a reasonable framework. I don't know to what degree umpire strikezone skills would erode under that setup, but as long as they're not Frank Drebin and such instances are infrequent, I can't imagine it being a big deal. Maybe they'd have some kind of overrule/challenge system for pitches too, although like I said, you'd want to do that carefully so players and teams aren't constantly trying to appeal to that process.

 

I read that same article about umpire accuracy/bias too. It was interesting, but I was disappointed that they completely ignored the margin of error. Some number of those "mistakes" were probably imperceptible to the human eye -- maybe millimeters from the box on TV -- and while that doesn't mean the ump is necessary right and the machine is wrong (unless it's within the machine's measurement margin of error), that would be more interesting to me than a flat error rate. Could explain some of the bias too.

Yes, the article did not address that issue, which most likely meant why it is more of a coin flip, because of that exact thing.  The bigger issue in the article was the history bias, meaning zone would change based on court and passed called pitch.  Meaning, you could throw the exact same pitch if you could repeat it perfectly, and if on boarder, the pitch would be called differently.  The article addressed the non-boarderline calls were much more accurate and would get worse as you went outward, which makes sense.  The article did not address it, but I think it gets brought up a lot on how catcher movement of glove affects the call too.  You see some where the pitch was well in the zone, but well off of target so pitch gets called ball, but when cater sets up out of zone and hits the mit pitch is called a strike.  So that is accuracy biased I would say too. 

Thanks for info on the test leagues, as I have not read anything about them. 

That's sort of understandable -- those edge cases are hard to distinguish either way. So it's probably not a conscious bias, like "I've given this batter a 3-0 start, I better be generous to the pitcher on the next one" -- but rather, unconsciously your mind kind of expects a strike given the circumstances, which influences how you perceive those edge cases, even if you don't realize it.

 

It's not necessarily a problem -- the game has been played under these conditions for its entire existence so far, so while it is some uncertainty, the players are mostly familiar with its parameters -- but I understand that it might be interesting to see how individual batters and pitchers would adapt without it. (That's been one of the points I've read about the robo-ump trials too, that is has been calling some strikes that no one expected -- likely pitches that just clip the front or back of the three-dimensional zone.)

Yes, the adjustment period may take time, so they may start in minor leagues and spring training for a few years to get the MLB players more used to what to expect.  I could see some catchers setting up on one side, expecting the pitch to be on the other, even more so when runner on second, to try and get hitter thinking it will be on one side of plate then when the miss comes they will not swing and get a called strike.  It will take time, but eventually, players will adjust and accept it.