Do You Support A Technology-Assisted Strike Zone?

[Scrat1]

I would argue the primary point is consistency. We have seen, over the years, the strikezone vary by width and height and between leagues. Recall the 3 extra inches routinely given Maddox and Glavine?

Something can be done about this, so why not do it?

The only argument against is tradition. Which is not enough in my opinion.

I added to my post. It's an aesthetic argument.

And consistency sounds an awful lot like "boring" to me.

[El Gordo]

Yeah, except it's not. It's just a rehash of the original argument. First off, you (and Buck) are providing a false dichotomy. It would only be a relevant example if the teams sat in the dugouts and then the umps went out and flipped a coin to decide who wins. Obviously that's not the case. The players are still "deciding" the game. Game by game, the players are still the primary agents of a game's outcome. Sometimes an ump blows it in such a bad way that it affects the outcome of a game. But then the team that unfairly won it will probably get some calls and games that go unfairly their way. Over the course of 162 games, the odds of the umpire being a significant factor to whether or not your team made the playoffs are not very good. It happens, of course, and the stakes are higher in the playoffs, but Buck's assertion that umpires are "deciding" the games is ridiculous, even if he's just making a rhetorical point.

And all that just goes back to my original point: Buck's comment is about wins and losses. Of course technology is going to lead to greater accuracy. That's obvious. My point is the sport will become less interesting as a whole because it loses a large chunk of the human dynamics that make the sport interesting in the first place. I don't watch baseball just because I want to see the best team win.

It's an aesthetic thing. Sure, Moby Dick would be a sleeker book if Melville had edited out some of his ramblings on whale anatomy, but would it be a better book? No.

Baloney. Angel Hernandez didn't blow the HR call the other night. He had a grudge against MElvin and since he made the initial call on the ball, he didn't want to reverse himself. That's not human error, that's arrogance. There's too much of it in the game right now from the umps. I'm not paying to see them.

[DrungoHazewood]

And all that just goes back to my original point: Buck's comment is about wins and losses. Of course technology is going to lead to greater accuracy. That's obvious. My point is the sport will become less interesting as a whole because it loses a large chunk of the human dynamics that make the sport interesting in the first place. I don't watch baseball just because I want to see the best team win.

The best team will mostly certainly not win all of the time if we have technology assisting umpires. In fact, that shouldn't change at all, or maybe favor the worse teams. If umpire mistakes are randomly distributed there should be zero shift in wins to better teams. If they're slightly in favor of better teams (i.e. the Jeter and Atlanta Pitcher strikezones) then more wins should be distributed to lesser teams.

It's an aesthetic thing. Sure, Moby Dick would be a sleeker book if Melville had edited out some of his ramblings on whale anatomy, but would it be a better book? No.

Sorry, I'm just not a fan of rationalization of error by saying it's a not a bug but a feature.

What level of BS makes a thing perfect? If Moby Dick had been 2500 pages, mostly of ramblings on whale anatomy, would it have been better? Would baseball be better with a 19th-century setup where there's just one ump standing out by the mound trying to take in the whole game at once? That would lead to more human dynamics, and more interest, correct?

[DrungoHazewood]

I added to my post. It's an aesthetic argument.

And consistency sounds an awful lot like "boring" to me.

That's insane. You're essentially saying that hits and runs and doubles and diving catches and strikeouts and triples would be boring if not for umpires blowing calls. I couldn't disagree more.

[better]

I haven't had time to read through this whole thread, so forgive me if someone has mentioned a similar idea: I would like to see something that resembles the "challenge" they have in Tennis. Umpires could have a review monitor or some other technology that they could consult upon the manager's request. Each team would get a certainamount of "challenges" per game. This wouldn't take the human element out of umpiring, but it would give teams the chance to hold umpires accountable for blown calls and it might even add an interesting new tactical aspect to the game.

[Scrat1]

Sorry, I'm just not a fan of rationalization of error by saying it's a not a bug but a feature.

What level of BS makes a thing perfect? If Moby Dick had been 2500 pages, mostly of ramblings on whale anatomy, would it have been better? Would baseball be better with a 19th-century setup where there's just one ump standing out by the mound trying to take in the whole game at once? That would lead to more human dynamics, and more interest, correct?

This is sort of a ridiculous line of argument. This is like me saying, "well if you have technology assisted strike zones then you may as well have robots playing." But of course I'm not saying that. Nor did I say Moby Dick would be better with more rambling about whale anatomy or that baseball would be better with one ump. I said I think Melville got the balance just right, just like I love baseball's current balance.

I'm guessing by your "rationalization of error" comment we're probably not on the same wavelength about this and never will be. The bug is definitely a feature. Just like the fact that Ed Hopper wasn't much of a painter, but was a great artist, partly because of his lack of technical skill. Same with Grandma Moses and pretty much all folk art. And a great deal of punk rock too--The Misfits and The Ramones. I think baseball as a whole is enhanced by the fact that the umpires are fallible humans. As Voltaire said: Perfection is the enemy of the good.

What I'm talking about you won't know you miss it until it's gone. Just like when CDs came along, a lot of people realized they missed the crack and hiss of vinyl. The imperfections added to the experience.

That's insane. You're essentially saying that hits and runs and doubles and diving catches and strikeouts and triples would be boring if not for umpires blowing calls. I couldn't disagree more.

Actually I didn't say that at all. Hits/runs/doubles etc. would all be just as entertaining either way. What I said was that the game of baseball as a whole would be a little less interesting. I'd still watch, of course, but something would definitely be lost.

[DrungoHazewood]

This is sort of a ridiculous line of argument. This is like me saying, "well if you have technology assisted strike zones then you may as well have robots playing." But of course I'm not saying that. Nor did I say Moby Dick would be better with more rambling about whale anatomy or that baseball would be better with one ump. I said I think Melville got the balance just right, just like I love baseball's current balance.

I'm guessing by your "rationalization of error" comment we're probably not on the same wavelength about this and never will be. The bug is definitely a feature. Just like the fact that Ed Hopper wasn't much of a painter, but was a great artist, partly because of his lack of technical skill. Same with Grandma Moses and pretty much all folk art. And a great deal of punk rock too--The Misfits and The Ramones. I think baseball as a whole is enhanced by the fact that the umpires are fallible humans. As Voltaire said: Perfection is the enemy of the good.

What I'm talking about you won't know you miss it until it's gone. Just like when CDs came along, a lot of people realized they missed the crack and hiss of vinyl. The imperfections added to the experience.

Actually I didn't say that at all. Hits/runs/doubles etc. would all be just as entertaining either way. What I said was that the game of baseball as a whole would be a little less interesting. I'd still watch, of course, but something would definitely be lost.

I think we're just going to disagree. I think the recent vinyl nostalgia is kind of silly, too.

[SteveA]

I have always been in favor of any technology that will help make better calls. And, I probably still am.

But to play devil's advocate, when I ask the question: has the introduction of replay reviews improved the quality of game in the NFL? I have to answer NO.

Note that I said quality of games, not necessarily percentage of correct calls.

In the NFL, here is how I sum the plusses and minuses:

PLUS: a higher percentage of correct calls, by the letter of the rule, are made. No doubt about that.

MINUS: delays negatively affect the enjoyment of the game. The thrill of seeing your team's guy cross the goal line and the ref putting up his hands, once a moment that brought you absolute joy...now sometimes must wait until a replay review is conducted. Are you as excited and thrilled to high five your friends 3 minutes after when the ref confirms it was a TD? Relieved maybe but some of the joy has been taken out of it.

MINUS: a lot of NFL refs now are much more tentative about making calls. They make the easiest call and let the replay be the final arbiter. What was originally intended to be a mechanism to turn over obvious injustices has now in fact become part of the normal refereeing of the game.

So while I have no doubt that there is a higher % of correct calls in the NFL than there was before replay...I would contend that the overall game experience is NOT better. And that should be the primary goal.

Would that happen in baseball too? I don't know. But I feel that whatever mechanism is employed to improve umpiring should have IMPROVING THE OVERALL GAME EXPERIENCE as its primary goal, not simply "getting a higher % of calls right".

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[SteveA]

And just as an addendum, I will note that the other thing that irks me about technological aid to refs in other sports is a silly insistence on perfection only some of the time. Perhaps this would not apply in baseball. But here are two examples:

Football: 1st & 10...pass incomplete. 2nd & 10 about a 7 yard gain. As usual the ref eyeballs it and spots the ball. Maybe he is perfect, maybe he is off by a foot one way or another. 3rd & 3...a 3 yard play very close to a first down. Suddenly we are first bringing out a chain to measure down to the millimeter whether the spotted ball is a first down or not. Then after that determination is made we MIGHT have a replay review to determine if the spot was good,,,exactly where was the tip of ball in space the moment the runner's knee contacted the ball. Even if you assume this process is perfect in determining where the spot should be...the spot on the second down play could EASILY have been off by 18 inches. So is it THAT important we go to all that trouble to get the third down play perfect to the nearest inch? The team may just have been given a first down after gaining 9 yards and 25 inches but by golly we got that 3rd down call right even if it meant delaying the game. The process rules!

Or basketball: team A scores to take a 1 point lead with about 4 seconds left. Clock says 0:03.7. A replay review is held that shows the ball went thru the net with 4.2 seconds left. The clock is set to 4.2 so that team B has a little longer for their posession. Once again, technology has allowed us to make a perfect call. But wait...that human timekeeper stopping the clock after baskets or other plays many other times during the second half has always had a built in delay of human reaction time. It might all add up to an extra 7 seconds that really should be left. But no one cares about those times, yet we feel it is so important to get it right on the last play that we will delay the flow of the game to do the replay review.

Obsession with getting closer to perfection in refereeing should not come at the expense of common sense, nor should it detract more from fan enjoyment of the game than it adds. Improvement in the % of "correct" calls is a desirable goal but it is not an end-all, there is usually a tradeoff that must be examined and considered.

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[Scrat1]

I have always been in favor of any technology that will help make better calls. And, I probably still am.

But to play devil's advocate, when I ask the question: has the introduction of replay reviews improved the quality of game in the NFL? I have to answer NO.

Note that I said quality of games, not necessarily percentage of correct calls.

In the NFL, here is how I sum the plusses and minuses:

PLUS: a higher percentage of correct calls, by the letter of the rule, are made. No doubt about that.

MINUS: delays negatively affect the enjoyment of the game. The thrill of seeing your team's guy cross the goal line and the ref putting up his hands, once a moment that brought you absolute joy...now sometimes must wait until a replay review is conducted. Are you as excited and thrilled to high five your friends 3 minutes after when the ref confirms it was a TD? Relieved maybe but some of the joy has been taken out of it.

MINUS: a lot of NFL refs now are much more tentative about making calls. They make the easiest call and let the replay be the final arbiter. What was originally intended to be a mechanism to turn over obvious injustices has now in fact become part of the normal refereeing of the game.

So while I have no doubt that there is a higher % of correct calls in the NFL than there was before replay...I would contend that the overall game experience is NOT better. And that should be the primary goal.

Would that happen in baseball too? I don't know. But I feel that whatever mechanism is employed to improve umpiring should have IMPROVING THE OVERALL GAME EXPERIENCE as its primary goal, not simply "getting a higher % of calls right".

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I actually thought about bringing this up as well. I like football, but for a game that already has so many starts and stops, the constant reviewing of plays is incredibly obnoxious.

I think the tech crowd is losing sight of the forest for the trees. Very little will be added to the overall experience of watching baseball and that addition will come at the expense of part of the soul of the game. But once you introduce the technology it will be pretty much impossible to go back.

[incubus]

I think we're just going to disagree. I think the recent vinyl nostalgia is kind of silly, too.

Truth of the matter is, most people don't know why they actually like vinyl. Vinyl is capable of greater dynamic range (or "more depth") than a CD. In that way, it is a superior product, so it's not really a good metaphor at all for this discussion of computer vs human umpiring.

Let me put my 2 cents in though and say, the game is supposed to be about the human players, not the human umpires.

What if they had sensors that sent a signal to a receiver on the umpires belt that vibrated when a strike was thrown. Thant way, the umpire still makes the call.

[crowmst3k!]

Umpiring was one of my first jobs as a teenager. I made mistakes with the strikezone, sure. Parents yelled at me, sure...but it's part of the game. I'd strongly dislike a TAS

[Scrat1]

Truth of the matter is, most people don't know why they actually like vinyl. Vinyl is capable of greater dynamic range (or "more depth") than a CD. In that way, it is a superior product, so it's not really a good metaphor at all for this discussion of computer vs human umpiring.

Fair enough, but there's a thousand other examples available, like all the lo-fi bands. Guided by Voices, Built to Spill, pretty much all garage rock. They chose a lower quality recording because they liked the sound better. This stuff happens all the time. I just don't buy into the equation that in baseball Greater Accuracy automatically equals Good.

Let me put my 2 cents in though and say, the game is supposed to be about the human players, not the human umpires.

What if they had sensors that sent a signal to a receiver on the umpires belt that vibrated when a strike was thrown. Thant way, the umpire still makes the call.

I would hate this.

[Can_of_corn]

I would hate this.

I agree. I would prefer some sort of WALDO where the Ump's arm jerked up outside of their power to stop it to signal strikes. With the Buzzer system you would have Ump's trying to override what the system is telling him. "Oh I didn't feel the buzz so I figured it was broke and called that pitch a strike."

[DrungoHazewood]

Truth of the matter is, most people don't know why they actually like vinyl. Vinyl is capable of greater dynamic range (or "more depth") than a CD. In that way, it is a superior product, so it's not really a good metaphor at all for this discussion of computer vs human umpiring.

But the human ear is only capable of hearing the frequencies that can be captured by a CD (see the Nyquist sampling theory), so I'm convinced that the added depth people think they hear in vinyl is either placebo, or poorly transferred CDs. You also have the other issues inherent to an analog system, like the fact that the slightest degredation is unfixable (hence the pops and static almost inherent to records), while in the digital domain it's unnoticable or completely corrected out with EDAC and the like.