luv baseball posted:There was a segment on HBO Real Sports a couple of years ago where they took Eric Byrnes and had him call an Independent League game in CA. System works with an ear piece and someone in booth getting system feedback and then hitting a button that communicated to Byrnes behind the plate for ball or strike. Zone was adjusted batter to batter.
Game went by seamlessly and there was zero bitching about balls and strikes.
Some of the other claims in the piece were interesting as well. The primary thing was the claim that umpires get 97% plus of the calls correct. I forget the exact statistic but 90%+ of the pitches are swung at, clearly out of the zone or well within the zone. In other words easy calls sort of like a guy thrown out at first by 2 steps on a ground ball.
That means on the 10% of close calls that umpire are getting about 1/3 wrong based on analytics. Not interested in arguing the accuracy of the zone because of the subjective nature of that. But I do believe that the robo umpire can solve two things at once - 1) create a level of consistency that does not fully exist today and 2) End the bitching over balls and strikes. If it yields a 3rd benefit by shaving 5 or 10 minutes out of games because there is no jawing or long walks around the plate area for 30 seconds when the 1-1 pitch on the corner is called a strike - then count me in.
For those of you that think this is stupid - watch John McEnroe argue lines circa 1981. Totally sucked the air out of tennis. Now they have the challenge system - call gets made and the match continues. Takes 15 seconds, and it works in tennis - and will in baseball as well.
You raise a really important point: Even if the robo-ump is wrong, it ought to be consistently wrong, which will be a plus. If a good hitter knows where the strike zone will be called, he can adjust (same goes for good pitchers). The umps that are maddening to watch aren't the ones who call strikes 2" off the outside of the plate, but the ones who call that pitch sometimes and not others.