Can computers call 'em better than the umpires?

2020dad posted:

Scotty83 posted:

I don't think they "need" it in the MLB but I sure would like to have it in HS ball lol. 

Agreed Scotty the place we need it the most we will never get it. Also it would be nice to just have one strike zone. One size fits all. The strike zone is incredibly biased against tall hitters. First of all the umps consistently still call the low strike which is so low on a talk hitter as to be just about unhittable. So they get no advantage for higher knees but you can bet mr umpire extends that zone up for the big guys. Totally totally unfair. If you named pitchers 6'5" and above you would be here forever. Start naming hitters and it will go something like, frank Howard, Dave Winfield, uh...    Uh...  Ok so there are another what couple dozen?  Probably more counting those we never really heard of. But you get the point. It's really really hard to be a tall hitter and the umps are largely responsible for this. Make a one size fits all slightly above the short players knees and ever so slightly below the tall players knees. The short player may have to extend up a little more and crouching will no longer work either. FAIR!!  

At the higher levels that is not true.  In fact short players get more calls outside the zone than tall guys,  umps tend to call a little toward a standard (say 6"2 or so) zone with extreme height hitters. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs...ikes-to-jose-altuve/

http://www.baseballprospectus.....php?articleid=14098

Midlo Dad posted:

 

Here's what I expect from an HPU:  Read the rule book, and enforce the strike zone as the rule book specifies it.  Take your ego out of it.  No one cares what YOU think the strike zone OUGHT to be.  There was a meeting, this was discussed, the people in charge came to this conclusion, and you are not authorized to undermine their decision by substituting your own judgment for theirs.

 

Jesus Christ...if I hear one more thing about ego and a strike zone, I'm going to start pistolwhipping people.

This isn't what happens. It's not as if umpires say, "This is what I'll call because I feel like it." Variances in the zone are because the participants want a general type of zone, but it's not defined. So we feel out what we can call and what is expected. Over time, the two balance out.

(And before someone thinks I'm serious in my first statement, points for anyone who gets the reference.)

joemktg posted:

Matt13 posted:

joemktg posted:

So I'm watching the Tigers @ Nats, with Zimmermann pitching to Murphy, men on 1st and 2nd, no outs in a 1-1 game bot 5. First pitch is at least 6 inches off the plate, called strike. That bad call changes the complete AB in a critical situation in the game. Now Murphy has to defend against stupidity, and fouls off the next pitch which was low in the zone. Now 0-2, and way behind one of the best hurlers in the AL.

One bad call can change the reflection of the game. Just one.

You HAVE to get it right.

P.S. Murphy pokes a single to LF to score 1. Nothing can stop this guy right now.

You're about 4 inches off in the placement of that pitch, according to PitchF/X.

Called Ball confirmed. 

With the technology available today, this shouldn't be tolerated.

Nope. It may be within the MOE.

Matt13 posted:

 

Jesus Christ...if I hear one more thing about ego and a strike zone, I'm going to start pistolwhipping people.

. . .

(And before someone thinks I'm serious in my first statement, points for anyone who gets the reference.)

Had to google it. Haven't seen the movie. Should I?

Swampboy posted:

Matt13 posted:

 

Jesus Christ...if I hear one more thing about ego and a strike zone, I'm going to start pistolwhipping people.

. . .

(And before someone thinks I'm serious in my first statement, points for anyone who gets the reference.)

Had to google it. Haven't seen the movie. Should I?

Absolutely, especially if you have any law enforcement experience.

2017LHPscrewball posted:

Standing in the box??? Please explain how this alters one's strike zone.

When you see statements like that you find out just how ignorant baseball players are about the rules of the game they play.

The STRIKE ZONE is that area over home plate the upper limit of which is a horizontal line at the midpoint between the top of the shoulders and the top of the uniform pants, and the lower level is a line at the hollow beneath the kneecap. The Strike Zone shall be determined from the batter’s stance as the batter is prepared to swing at a pitched ball. (For diagram of STRIKE ZONE see page 22.)

Who knows what team the guy setting up the strike zone is rooting for.  Until that can be 100% computerized, I'd be more trusting of an umpire.  Plus I like situations that call for an expanded zone, like the bottom of the 9th with the last batter up, that strike zone's going to be 5" wider inside and out.  Walk off called looking strike outs are as exciting as a walk off HR.  

Stats4Gnats posted:

2017LHPscrewball posted:

Standing in the box??? Please explain how this alters one's strike zone.

 

When you see statements like that you find out just how ignorant baseball players are about the rules of the game they play.

 

The STRIKE ZONE is that area over home plate the upper limit of which is a horizontal line at the midpoint between the top of the shoulders and the top of the uniform pants, and the lower level is a line at the hollow beneath the kneecap. The Strike Zone shall be determined from the batter’s stance as the batter is prepared to swing at a pitched ball. (For diagram of STRIKE ZONE see page 22.)

 

I know someone who played in the Independent Game last summer in which they had a computerized strike zone, all of the hitters hated it.  The strike zone was generated from the front of the plate and did not take into account where the hitters were standing in the box and they had the feeling that it did not take into account size of the player.

Stats - Please attribute the comment to IEBSEL.  I was just allowing that poster to correct themselves.  I'm not generally defensive, but prefer not to be tagged as ignorant.  I might be silent at times, but at least know enough to keep quiet when I should.  I was looking forward to either a retraction or what might have been a very interesting, albeit incorrect, response.

hsbaseball101 posted:

Who knows what team the guy setting up the strike zone is rooting for.  Until that can be 100% computerized, I'd be more trusting of an umpire.  Plus I like situations that call for an expanded zone, like the bottom of the 9th with the last batter up, that strike zone's going to be 5" wider inside and out.  Walk off called looking strike outs are as exciting as a walk off HR.  

Why do you trust an umpire behind the plate more than an umpire who’s setting the vertical zone on a computer?

Do you realize you’re saying you like a strike zone that changes during the game depending on the situation?

2017LHPscrewball posted:

Stats - Please attribute the comment to IEBSEL.  I was just allowing that poster to correct themselves.  I'm not generally defensive, but prefer not to be tagged as ignorant.  I might be silent at times, but at least know enough to keep quiet when I should.  I was looking forward to either a retraction or what might have been a very interesting, albeit incorrect, response.

I sincerely apologize for the misappropriation of the quote but I wasn’t calling the poster ignorant. The comment was attributed to “hitters” and that’s who I was talking about.

Sorry again.

Stats - thanks...I feel a whole lot better now.  Always like to read your take on what can be garnered from past performance measures (i.e. statistics).  Getting back to the post, do you know how PitchFx attempts to "adjust" for the height of the batter?  I think my understanding that it gets adjusted came out of an article by Alan Nathan - Physics of Baseball where he quickly tried to explain PitchFx/Trackman and the various possibilities of using the data collected.  I particularly liked his comments on batting average and how one's batting average could be dissected using Trackman - things like giving credit for that really hard hit liner that just happens to wind up in the shortstop's glove.

One of the questions that needs to get answered--and there are different answers for different levels of baseball--is how much money is it worth to get what level of additional accuracy.

High schools partially answer that question already with their umpire staffing decisions. In our area, they are willing to pay three umpires to work playoff games but only two umpires for regular season games.  So for regular season games, it's not worth a hundred bucks a game to get an incremental improvement in coverage. Granted, the third umpire doesn't help with the accuracy of balls and strikes. But this gives an idea of where the price point would have to come in for the technology to be palatable to a high school athletic director.

Major college conferences that recently upgraded from three to four umpires at an increased cost of several hundred dollars per game may  view the matter differently.

Based on current salaries of minor league umpires, where umpires can earn less per game than high school umpires until they reach double-A, there's probably not much willingness to spend more on umpiring technology--unless they saw the information yielded by the technology as pertinent to player development.