Quote:
Originally Posted by Déjà Bru
Robot umps are here: What MLB players need to know to navigate ABS this spring
I forgot about this and now I am confused about it. I thought that the Automated Ball-Strike System (ABS) would be calling balls and strikes, period. There would still be a home plate umpire for other purposes but he would not be making balls and strikes calls.
Reading the article, however, I see that it's a challenge system?
This sounds ridiculous. I can see the two challenges being used up in the first inning of every game.
This article also posits that the strike zone is going to change. That is, it's going to be rigidly enforced as the rectangle that it's supposed to be. "That strike zone called by human umpires in the big leagues may be a rectangle in theory — but it’s more like an oval in real life. That’s because many pitches up and in, or up and away, are not called strikes by human umps, even though they’re technically in the zone."
Attachment 1049570
The author makes a few other points but none as strong as these two.
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This blows my mind. Not that they're going to a challenge system, I welcome that (I was afraid they might go with full robo umps), but that they're going to use a completely different strike zone for the challenges. What in the world are they thinking? Seriously, this is crazy. How did these details not come out in the years they were testing it in the minors? Was it reported somewhere and I just missed it? My first issue is some players clearly crouch more while others stand up straighter. Now one might say, "we can't change the parameters of the strike zone every pitch". Why not? Umps supposedly do. Besides, if you can track where a 90+mph with movement went in flight every pitch, surely you can track how tall the player is crouching. Put a little chip in the top of their helmets if it helps. And maybe even worse, they're not even using a 3D image if the strike zone, they're using a 2D vertical plane close to the middle of the plate. How stupid is that! If you can tell where that 2D plane is then surely you can be able to also tell where the front and back of the plate is! This is not rocket science, MLB. Tennis was able to pioneer this stuff in 2003, it's 22 years later now! Figure it out right or don't use it at al!
I'm also a little annoyed that it's only 2 challenges. From everything we've been hearing it was 3 and it was going to be 3, but now it's only 2? I was hoping for more than 3. 2 per inning would have been better. This strikes me as, "we don't really want a better called game, we just want to be able to point at it and say, hey, we did something".
I also love that Francona reportedly instructed his players not to engage with the ABS system at all this spring training. I laugh thinking how mad MLB must be at that.