Interesting comment on working the count

[RShack]

I think that they've already "fixed" about 85-90 percent of the problem and the remainder is more or less intractable.

Now, why in the world would you say that? You've seen the ball/strike calling improve by a whole bunch, have you? I don't know who's games you're watching, but they must be different games than I watch...

You've seen the bad calls reduced by 85-90%? Really?

[Migrant Redbird]

No, the problem is that umpires can't line up with the ball, but they still manage to get 85-90 percent of the calls right.

You seem to think the problem of parallax eror is trivial. You must have forgotten your high school science classes, where the importance of lining up with the measurement was emphasized as a critical elementary principle. And that was when measuring something that wasn't moving 60-98 mph.

[RShack]

No, the problem is that umpires can't line up with the ball, but they still manage to get 85-90 percent of the calls right.

You seem to think the problem of parallax eror is trivial. You must have forgotten your high school science classes, where the importance of lining up with the measurement was emphasized as a critical elementary principle. And that was when measuring something that wasn't moving 60-98 mph.

No, I don't seem to think it's trivial.

I think dealing with it effectively requires training, supervision, and ongoing feedback. In this respect, it is similar to other domains of human perception: the problems inherent in the task can be readily understood and can be overcome if appropriate measures are taken. You cannot make everybody good at it, but a significant subset of the population can achieve reliable judgments that are consistent, not only across different instances of an individual's performance, but also across the performance of a large number of different individuals. The problem is eminently fixable if they just went after it effectively. It's very obvious that they don't do that. Whether it's incompetent leadership or simply not giving a damn about it, I have no idea, but it's one or the other.

[Migrant Redbird]

Another factor that you're ignoring is that major league umpires are usually approaching middle age by the time they get promoted to that level, and human eyesight deteriorates as we get older. I don't know what kinds of eye test standards MLB has for umpires, but I suspect that aging eye muscles do contribute to the difficulties of umpires maintaining consistency.

[RShack]

Another factor that you're ignoring is that major league umpires are usually approaching middle age by the time they get promoted to that level, and human eyesight deteriorates as we get older. I don't know what kinds of eye test standards MLB has for umpires, but I suspect that aging eye muscles do contribute to the difficulties of umpires maintaining consistency.

Aging eyeballs? You could say the same thing about airline pilots. So what? You keep coming up with excuses. Parallax. Old eyeballs. What's next? I have no idea why you insist that this is an intractable problem that is fixable only by techno-gadgets. It's not. The calling of balls/strikes is inconsistent and unreliable to the degre it is because MLB tolerates that. This is true whether you're talking about gross inconsistency in the performance of a given individual umpire or the performance of the whole group of them. They could improve the consistency dramatically with appropriate training and supervision. But they don't.

[Migrant Redbird]

I have no idea why you insist that this is an intractable problem that is fixable only by techno-gadgets.

My anecdotal observation is that this problem exists across the entire spectrum of major league umpires to a greater or lesser extent, although I've certainly done no actual survey to confirm that. Certainly some umpires are more inconsistent in their calls than others, but I'm not aware of any umpires who are regarded as immune to inconsistency in ball/strike calls.

I think that what you're proposing is simply incredible -- that there is some great conspiracy or lack of motivation on the part of major league officials and umpires to call balls and strikes more consistently. It's your proposal which is dubious and demands more proof beyond your simple assertions that MLB lacks appropriate supervision.

We know that a DVD is made of the ball and strike calls for every major league game, with each pitch call's accuracy verified by the operator of Questek (or its successor system), and we know that these DVDs are provided to both the home plate umpire and to the MLB office that supervises umpires for their review. MLB is very close-mouthed about whether any reprimands or disciplinary actions are taken against umpires with too many erroneous calls, but to allege that MLB officials don't care or are incompetent is a charge for which you should have to provide some real evidence if you want us to take you seriously.

Of course, everyone loves a conspiracy, so I'm sure that there will be a few fans who are only too willing to sign on to your theory.

[RShack]

My anecdotal observation is that this problem exists across the entire spectrum of major league umpires to a greater or lesser extent, although I've certainly done no actual survey to confirm that. Certainly some umpires are more inconsistent in their calls than others, but I'm not aware of any umpires who are regarded as immune to inconsistency in ball/strike calls.

I think that what you're proposing is simply incredible -- that there is some great conspiracy or lack of motivation on the part of major league officials and umpires to call balls and strikes more consistently. It's your proposal which is dubious and demands more proof beyond your simple assertions that MLB lacks appropriate supervision.

We know that a DVD is made of the ball and strike calls for every major league game, with each pitch call's accuracy verified by the operator of Questek (or its successor system), and we know that these DVDs are provided to both the home plate umpire and to the MLB office that supervises umpires for their review. MLB is very close-mouthed about whether any reprimands or disciplinary actions are taken against umpires with too many erroneous calls, but to allege that MLB officials don't care or are incompetent is a charge for which you should have to provide some real evidence if you want us to take you seriously.

Of course, everyone loves a conspiracy, so I'm sure that there will be a few fans who are only too willing to sign on to your theory.

Oh, jeez. Who's alleging a conspiracy? Not me. I said it's either disinterest, lack of commitment, or incompetence. No conspiracy is required. As for whatever video record they have, that means zilch. Having that available is necessary but it is not sufficient. Lots of people in lots of enterprises have tons of perfectly good information that they don't make effective use of either. And most of the time that has zilch to do with conspiracies either, just like this.

This is not rocket science. It's not like driving a race car at 200 mph, and it's not like being in an aerial dogfight. It's about being a competent and reliable professional at accurately judging whether a baseball passes through a (supposedly) well-defined area, just a couple feet in front of you. This is not a hard problem to solve. However, it does require cycles on a regular basis from those involved. I'm 100% sure they are not devoting sufficient cycles to it in effective ways.

As for why they're not, I really don't know. My hunch is that it's too much trouble, it's not a big priority, and they'd rather play around with spending money on subcontractors with techno-gadgets that do the calling, rather than deploy the combination of gadgetry and actual work required to fix the human problem. But that's just my hunch, I really don't know why they're not. I know they're not, but I have no way to know why not.

[Migrant Redbird]

... This is not rocket science.

Well, since I've never actually seen any umpire who could call balls and strikes consistently, I simply don't agree with your hypothesis that it's easy. I'm from Missouri and you'll need to show me something a little better than just claiming that MLB officials are all incompetent.

[DrungoHazewood]

Well, since I've never actually seen any umpire who could call balls and strikes consistently, I simply don't agree with your hypothesis that it's easy. I'm from Missouri and you'll need to show me something a little better than just claiming that MLB officials are all incompetent.

Exactly. We have a problem. Everyone knows this. Everything from PitchFx to Questec to standard video replays confirm that umps miss one out of 8, 10, 15, 20 pitches a game, or thereabouts. Meaning every single major league baseball game sees dozens of pitches that are called wrong.

Rshack says this is a simply solved probelm that they just don't care to solve. I (and I believe MR) think it's a matter of the umps not having the physical tools necessary to make these judgments consistently and accurately. Our theory is the Occam's Razor approach - they don't go it because they can't. Rshack's theory is a lot more inscrutable - they choose to allow umps to be wrong and bring disrepute to the sport dozens of times a game for some mysterious, unknown reason, but they could fix it any time they want.

Whatever the reason, giving the umps a "techno-gadget" would solve the problem, or at least 99.99% of the problem and it could be implemented as soon as next season. Building a rigorous training process, testing it out, putting all professional umpires through this process, weeding out bad umps, finding new ones that are better, training them... well, that'll take a long time, a lot of money, and the results still probably won't be a lot better than what we have today. Certainly not as accurate as a technology-aided ump; absolutely not as consistent. If they take their time and do this right the technology will be invisible to everyone except the home plate ump, and it'll be nearly real-time so the game won't be delayed. Or changed at all to anyone who isn't paying close attention to the accuracy of balls and strikes.

Why would anyone choose the long, hard, arduous process with the uncertain outcome over the relatively simple application of existing technology?

[Old_Bay_Oriole]

I sort of doubt the Yankees and Sox invented this...wouldn't they have figured this out in about...1889? Make the pitcher tired. Pretty simple.

[RShack]

Why would anyone choose the long, hard, arduous process with the uncertain outcome over the relatively simple application of existing technology?

Why would anyone bother to use existing knowledge and work to improve human performance? Why bother? Why not just use robot tools instead?

That was Roger Smith's attitude when he a boatload of money on a robot Buick plant that didn't work, when he could have bought all of Toyota for less...

I swear, you guys are making this sound like we're asking umps to count the bumps on a gnats ass at 500 feet. We're not. The task is to judge whether balls cross a stationary pre-defined area just a couple feet in front of them. It's not that hard. You're making it way harder than it is. What's your evidence that it's so impossible? Using the failure rate of people are not properly trained and supervised as evidence that it cannot be done is just silly. How good would hitters get if they didn't have proper feedback about the result of their swings? How good would P's get if they didn't have proper feedback about the result of their pitches? Same basic thing...

[DrungoHazewood]

Why would anyone bother to use existing knowledge and work to improve human performance? Why bother? Why not just use robot tools instead?

That was Roger Smith's attitude when he a boatload of money on a robot Buick plant that didn't work, when he could have bought all of Toyota for less...

I swear, you guys are making this sound like we're asking umps to count the bumps on a gnats ass at 500 feet. We're not. The task is to judge whether balls cross a stationary pre-defined area just a couple feet in front of them. It's not that hard. You're making it way harder than it is. What's your evidence that it's so impossible? Using the failure rate of people are not properly trained and supervised as evidence that it cannot be done is just silly. How good would hitters get if they didn't have proper feedback about the result of their swings? How good would P's get if they didn't have proper feedback about the result of their pitches? Same basic thing...

We're asking them to do something that they have never been able to do in 130+ years of trying. I'm not counting on a couple training sessions changing that.

But my real goal here is to have a stereotypical 1950s scifi robot mounted behind the catcher, spewing sparks and fire, and repeating "does not compute" endlessly.

[RShack]

We're asking them to do something that they have never been able to do in 130+ years of trying. I'm not counting on a couple training sessions changing that.

We have no evidence of any kind that the have deployed state of the art knowledge to try to fix it via appropriate feedback and supervision. None. Zero.

As for the noise about 130+ years, that's completely bogus. For most of that time, we didn't have the knowledge. You might as well be talking about our so-called 130 year history of trying to air-traffic congestion at airports. The fact that you're making such bogus arguments tells me that you simply want a robot solution and don't really care about the actual and very real options.

[DrungoHazewood]

We have no evidence of any kind that the have deployed state of the art knowledge to try to fix it via appropriate feedback and supervision. None. Zero.

As for the noise about 130+ years, that's completely bogus. For most of that time, we didn't have the knowledge. You might as well be talking about our so-called 130 year history of trying to air-traffic congestion at airports. The fact that you're making such bogus arguments tells me that you simply want a robot solution and don't really care about the actual and very real options.

Truthfully, I don't care a bit about some fix using "state of the art knowledge to fix it via appropriate feedback and supervision". I'm convinced that that's a halfway solution that'll always have a large human error component. The technology is better far than that now, and will only continue to get even better.

I want things actually fixed, with a reasonable guarantee of success, in a reasonable timeframe. Screening and supervision doesn't get us there. It's a compromise to get the hardline traditionalists running roughshod over baseball on board.

[crawdad]

We already have too many strikeouts in the game, so widening the zone is not going to make things any better. Pitchers will gravitate to the new corners. I think the only thing that would work would be to make it safer to pitch down the middle. Soften the ball up or make the bats heavier. I think softening the balls up would be the preferable thing to do. Just use the minor league baseball, they travel about 10 feet less than the major league ones.