Thought Exercise: How to Improve Strike Calling W/O Robo Ump

[Tony-OH]

51 minutes ago, Otter said:

I'm as upset as anyone that Angel Hernandez, CB Bucknor, and Laz Diaz still have jobs, but I don't really believe this is the worst season in memory for terrible calls.  I think it just appears that way because of the data fans have access to now and the fact that social media has really focused on the issue this year.  I'm certain that the majority of umps now are incredibly more accurate on balls/strikes than the umps back in the 80s/90s.  Do you remember Eric Gregg and Ken Kaiser and Garcia, and many more of the incredibly arrogant and incompetent umps back then??  They would hold grudges and change the zone from game to game or even inning to inning.  Again, I'm not excusing the terrible strike zones from certain current umps, and I denounce the fact that terrible umps have no consequences for their incompetence....just wanted to remind people that it's still much better than it used to be.

This is a good point. Umpiring is under the microscope and having that little box on the TV screen that is not 100% accurate doesn't helps either.

Plus, you have pitches regularly coming in at 95 MPH and higher and breaking pitches and changeups that move upwards of 60 inches at times. That's a tough gig. Then you miss a call that is one inch off the plate, and the fans are screaming that you need to lose your job.

I've seen multiple times this year and strike being called that looks low on the TV box, but when I went into statcast that uses the actual strike zone for the player, it was a strike. 

I agree though with the folks that say the bottom tier of umpires should be placed on probation" and if they miss too many, that they either need to go back to AAA or they need to be "released," just like when a player can no longer perform at that level.

 

[DrungoHazewood]

16 hours ago, Jagwar said:

Just for the sake of this thread's topic, suppose Robo Ump is completely off the table, for whatever reason. How do you improve the balls/strikes calling in MLB?

1. Have MLB use the grading system available to us online to evaluate umps when they are behind the plate.
2. Pay umpires a per game bonus when they are behind the plate.
3. Use the grading system to set thresholds on correct called balls/strikes that umpires have to achieve. If they fall below a certain level, they get penalized
   1. First offense is a warning
   2. Second offense they get skipped on the next rotation, missing out on the per game bonus
   3. Third offense they miss out on home plate for a month

Just spitballing. How could they improve strike calling if the Robo Ump is a no go?

 

15 hours ago, Aristotelian said:

I don't think financial incentives would really help. I believe the umpires are trying to be good, they are just human beings and we are worse than robots. I think the system they are using now in the minors is great. Let the humans call it but give the batters a chance to challenge egregious calls a few times per game. 

Right. For an incentive system to work we have to assume that most umpires are not doing as well as they could be, but if offered more money they'd try harder. I don't know that there is any evidence that's the case.

Also, if you get rid of more under-performing umps they have to be replaced by someone else. That will be minor league umps. Who under the current system haven't been good enough to be promoted to the Majors. More turnover might eliminate some low performers and replace them with slightly better umps, but I don't think this is going to meaningfully change the overall performance metrics.

The obvious solution is an automated strike zone aide.

[DrungoHazewood]

1 hour ago, Otter said:

I'm as upset as anyone that Angel Hernandez, CB Bucknor, and Laz Diaz still have jobs, but I don't really believe this is the worst season in memory for terrible calls.  I think it just appears that way because of the data fans have access to now and the fact that social media has really focused on the issue this year.  I'm certain that the majority of umps now are incredibly more accurate on balls/strikes than the umps back in the 80s/90s.  Do you remember Eric Gregg and Ken Kaiser and Garcia, and many more of the incredibly arrogant and incompetent umps back then??  They would hold grudges and change the zone from game to game or even inning to inning.  Again, I'm not excusing the terrible strike zones from certain current umps, and I denounce the fact that terrible umps have no consequences for their incompetence....just wanted to remind people that it's still much better than it used to be.

Prior to the 1990s resignation purge it was commonplace for umps to say things like "the strike zone is what I say it is". They'd start arguments. They'd follow players or managers around prolonging incidents. They had the temerity to resign en masse, and expected that to cause the league to cave to all of their demands because they were The Major League Freakin' Umpires, and nobody could touch them.

But in the 25 years since we've gotten HD and 4K TV and universal replays and 46 camera angles and automated strike zone indicators and everyone knows when a call is missed a few seconds after it happens. That just wasn't the case with bare-bones HTS low-def broadcasts. It's not that long ago that sometimes you wouldn't get highlights from a game because it wasn't broadcast anywhere. Did Ken Kaiser miss that call to spite Earl? Who knows, there's no record of it!

[Rbiggs2525]

My main thought on the subject is there is no consequences to calling a bad game. Tony Kemp has 3 bad weeks of baseball, he is cut. An umpire can continue to have bad games and nothing will change. I would implement the challenge system done extremely fast with consequences. If the umpire gets 3 consecutive challenges wrong he is replaced at the end of inning. If you are replaced a certain number of times then you are placed on probation. 

[Malike]

It just seems stupid when you have the means (technology) to make something more accurate that you have to deal with this type of game calling. Even if you don't want full robo umps, there should be a challenge situation.

 

[DrungoHazewood]

6 minutes ago, Rbiggs2525 said:

My main thought on the subject is there is no consequences to calling a bad game. Tony Kemp has 3 bad weeks of baseball, he is cut. An umpire can continue to have bad games and nothing will change. I would implement the challenge system done extremely fast with consequences. If the umpire gets 3 consecutive challenges wrong he is replaced at the end of inning. If you are replaced a certain number of times then you are placed on probation. 

So you're proposing to have an extra ump on hand at every game in case someone needs to be replaced for missing three challenges? How often does an ump miss three straight challenges? Maybe once or twice a season? How often are those actually performance-related, and not something like the ump was screened from seeing a tag, or nobody had the right angle for a trap/catch call?

There's probably about 40 umpiring crews to account for leave and rest, add one person each at roughly $500k loaded man-rate a year, so about $20M to have a kind of half-solution to something that might happen a few times a year?

[DrungoHazewood]

4 minutes ago, Malike said:

It just seems stupid when you have the means (technology) to make something more accurate that you have to deal with this type of game calling. Even if you don't want full robo umps, there should be a challenge situation.

 

Or instead of challenges, where you'll inevitably run out of challenges in a key spot, you just have the home plate ump with a little hand buzzer that tells him if a pitch was a ball or strike in near-real time?

[Malike]

1 minute ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Or instead of challenges, where you'll inevitably run out of challenges in a key spot, you just have the home plate ump with a little hand buzzer that tells him if a pitch was a ball or strike in near-real time?

Personally, I'm for full robo umps, I know some people like the "human element" they bring to the game and was trying to appeal to the "purists". I'm not convinced that it's a great thing that kids in the MiL are learning the true strike zone as defined by the robots, then they come up here and a ball in the MiL is now a strike every 2nd day in the ML.

[RVAOsFan]

I think the solution to this whole issue is going to some what hybrid model.

Keep an umpire behind home plate with an ear piece in telling him whether to call a ball or a strike.  All he does is repeat what the computer tells him.  Other than that he calls the rest of the game on his own.

This seems so simple to me I really can't understand why any side would not be in favor.

[DrungoHazewood]

10 minutes ago, Malike said:

Personally, I'm for full robo umps, I know some people like the "human element" they bring to the game and was trying to appeal to the "purists". I'm not convinced that it's a great thing that kids in the MiL are learning the true strike zone as defined by the robots, then they come up here and a ball in the MiL is now a strike every 2nd day in the ML.

I'm convinced it's a bad thing that minor leaguers know balls 3" off the plate are balls, except that when you get to the Majors and then youneverknow.

[DrungoHazewood]

4 minutes ago, RVAOsFan said:

I think the solution to this whole issue is going to some what hybrid model.

Keep an umpire behind home plate with an ear piece in telling him whether to call a ball or a strike.  All he does is repeat what the computer tells him.  Other than that he calls the rest of the game on his own.

This seems so simple to me I really can't understand why any side would not be in favor.

Right. Ear piece, buzzer, whatever. And the ump is there for the inevitable but rare occurrence where the system fails or calls a ball 9' off the plate a strike because a pigeon flew by at just the right moment. Why would they not do this, instead of some complicated challenge system where you have to guess when they're wrong in a second or two and hope you don't run out of challenges in the most key moments of the game?

Have a challenge system long enough and there will be a very important game decided by an ump calling a ball 6" off the plate a strike and nobody has any challenges left.

Edited May 8 by DrungoHazewood

[Malike]

Just now, DrungoHazewood said:

I'm convinced it's a bad thing that minor leaguers know balls 3" off the plate are balls, except that when you get to the Majors and then youneverknow.

MLB is not helping the transition to the ML by using the MiL as a testing ground. Train the kids, then bring them up and everything they've been taught turns out to be a lie. Doesn't make sense from where I'm sitting and I hope they fix it sooner than later.

[DrungoHazewood]

1 minute ago, Malike said:

MLB is not helping the transition to the ML by using the MiL as a testing ground. Train the kids, then bring them up and everything they've been taught turns out to be a lie. Doesn't make sense from where I'm sitting and I hope they fix it sooner than later.

I like the try it in the minors approach. Nobody really cares at all how minor league games end up, so you have a perfect testing ground for new ideas. Far better than the old method, which was to pretend nothing is ever wrong with baseball and they never fixed anything.

But at some point you have to flip the switch and use it in the games that matter.

[Explosivo]

16 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

Kill the Union and get rid of under performing umps.

Ding ding ding. The union is the problem. It is the impediment to incentivized behavior in the sense that if you don’t do well at your job, you get fired.

[Malike]

1 minute ago, DrungoHazewood said:

I like the try it in the minors approach. Nobody really cares at all how minor league games end up, so you have a perfect testing ground for new ideas. Far better than the old method, which was to pretend nothing is ever wrong with baseball and they never fixed anything.

But at some point you have to flip the switch and use it in the games that matter.

Right, they've been using it since 2021 in some variation in the minors, it's time to bring it up to the majors.