Pitch Trax

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quote:

Originally posted by Rob Kremer:
Is Pitch Trax good enough now that it could be used to call balls and strikes?

Let's say that they did perfect the system, so that it was completely reliable in judging whether a pitch touched the actual strike zone.

Should it be used instead of a plate umpire?

1. Pitch Trax has similar flaws as Questec.


2. Players are b!tching at PU's in the series for strike calls at the knees and on the corners that pitch trax would also have called strikes. They don't seem to think it's any better.

I'm asking, though - if they perfected the technology so it was absolutely reliable, should it be used instead of umpires?

Rob, I like the human element. Just my .02 cents worth. GED10DaD

quote:

Originally posted by Rob Kremer:
I'm asking, though - if they perfected the technology so it was absolutely reliable, should it be used instead of umpires?

When they perfect robotics so that a machine could hit the ball everytime, should they use it instead of players?

quote:

When they perfect robotics so that a machine could hit the ball everytime, should they use it instead of players?

Do you see why people sometimes accuse umpires of forgetting who the people are there to see?

quote:

Originally posted by Rob Kremer:

quote:

When they perfect robotics so that a machine could hit the ball everytime, should they use it instead of players?

Do you see why people sometimes accuse umpires of forgetting who the people are there to see?

Why do you immediately resort to an insult?

Don't you see how ridiculous it is to remove the human element from baseball? It has nothing to do with the fact that people come to see the participants and everything to do with silly expectations.

Humans are necessary to the game. Perhaps many, if not most are unaware, but the umpire(s) are, by rule, the only representative(s) of BASEBALL at the game. Who then would represent the game of baseball? Someone with a vested interest in the outcome? Or, maybe pitch trax?

There, I posted that without an accusation or insult. There really needn't be animosity here.

No animosity here, Jimmy. I just thought your reply was funny in that it absolutely elevated the umpires to the same level of the players. Surely you can see how it did that.

No, I wouldn't ever want to remove the human element from the playing of baseball. Remove it from the umpiring? Sure. If technology can do it better, then why not?

They now have instant replay on home run calls. They took the human element, to the extent the technology allows, out of that call. I don't think that is ridiculous at all. Why is that ridiculous?

I think humans will always be necessary for the umpiring. But maybe not for balls and strikes. If technology can accurately take this function, why not?

Rob, I would miss the umpires calling those third strikes, taking 5 seconds to call strike while batter is halfway to first. Maybe with the machine they could have a screen back there with a video umpire making calls?

And for the umpires themselves, a less dangerous place to stand.

Who would the batter argue with if he didn't agree with a call?

and what if someone tampered with the technology? Who sets the strike zone? What if the computer went on the fritz? Would you put an inexperienced umpire behind the plate?

Umpires are as integral a part of the game as the players. Sure, my husband watches the game to watch the umpires, but I think only a few do that. If they do their job perfectly, no one notices. No one is perfect, and baseball gives errors to players. Probably the umpire union should be more open to moving umpires up and down depending on performance, and not seniority.

So no, I don't think the umpires should ever be replaced. They are too much fun to boo!!

I wouldn't trust a machine to call balls and strikes anymore than I would put money into a slot machine and expect fairness.

I personally would love to see the reaction of the player getting rung up by a computer on a 12-6 yacker in the dirt that went over the plate a strike. That would be priceless.

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"I wouldn't trust a machine to call balls and strikes anymore than I would put money into a slot machine and expect fairness."

Who cares about fairness...





...when revenge will do?




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And the players are not representatives of baseball?????

Talk about Blue Ego taking over !!11

quote:

Originally posted by TRhit:
And the players are not representatives of baseball?????

Talk about Blue Ego taking over !!11

Its not blue ego.....its by rule...Players, coaches and team officials are not representatives of baseball....they are participants....and like Jimmy says it is because they have a vested interest in winning/losing.....Only the umpires by rule are the representatives of baseball (the game of baseball) as set out in rule:

9.05 (General Instructions to Umpires)
You are the only official representative of baseball on the ball field. It is often a trying position which requires the exercise of much patience and good judgment, but do not forget that the first essential in working out of a bad situation is to keep your own temper and self-control.

I dont really have any personal interest in this point whatsoever as the levels of baseball I call will never have the money to invest in such technology.....some of the schools I call games for barely have enough money for uniforms and baseballs much less ball/strike indicators.

That being said...the problem I see in this is who would want this....certainly pitchers dont want it...(see what Curt Schilling did to the questec machine)....the hitters dont want it.....the catchers dont want it....so who would want it??....the fan?.......maybe only when it benefited his team...but never when it doesnt....

The last point I would make is just because it is technologically possible does that make it desireable?.........Aluminum bats are technologically superior to wood.....yet by tradition we shun that technology...to keep the game as intended by tradition....

The Pitch Tracking system is a good monitoring device for umpires. It can help them as a training tool to discover what calls they are getting right as well as what calls they are getting wrong. MLB moved to a new system called Zone Evaluation at the start of this last season to monitor umpire performance.

In fact MLB began using a system called QuesTec in 2003 at the displeasure of the umpire's union, which subsequently filed a grievance with MLB. This new system (Zone Evaluation) is more accurate in data collection and for use as a training device.

The problem for using this system to call balls and strikes is that the strike zone is three dimensional and not a flat rectangular shape as seen on TV. A curve ball could catch the corner of the plate and quickly move out of the strike zone. Zone Evaluation or QuesTec is not going to see this as well, or as quickly as an umpire in a three dimensional world. The improvement is Zone Evaluation is that it uses a system of more and better camera placement to make the data collection.

The purpose for this system in my opinion should be to maintain quality assurance for umpires in maintaining the integrity of the rulebook strikezone. The game has become long enough and resorting to a collection of 30 camera locations to determine strike location just does not seem practical to me.

quote:

Originally posted by gotwood4sale:
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"I wouldn't trust a machine to call balls and strikes anymore than I would put money into a slot machine and expect fairness."

Who cares about fairness...





...when revenge will do?




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Is that a rendition of Carlos Zambrano having issues with the ball/strike machine?

quote:

The last point I would make is just because it is technologically possible does that make it desireable?

And this was my essential question. I asked: Assume it was totally accurate and reliable - would we want it? (This is theoretical, to be sure, because I gather the current systems are far from this good.)

The fact that umpires are the only representatives of baseball is irrelevant to this, since there would still be umpires on the field. In fact there would still be an umpire behind the plate!

I think the MLB umpires are pretty darn good at B/S calling, and still there is constant complaining. If there was a technology that everyone knew was accurate, there wouldn't be anyone to argue with nor any reason to argue.

That may or may not be a good thing, depending on your perspective.

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I believe they are his mentors CPLZ!

I think one is Tom Delay.




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I am with gotwood on this. It would be a heck of a lot easier for some fan to hack into a computer system and make it favor his home team versus trying to corrupt an umpire.

Even the Pentagon and Microsoft get hacked.

Doughnutman:
You think it would be easier for a fan to hack into the system and manipulate its results in a way that would not be caught than for a fan to bribe an umpire?

There may be lots of good reasons that this is a bad idea, but I don't think this is in the top 50.

I'm certain they use a similar devise in tennis. I think they used it at Wimbledon.

They do not solely rely on it, but use it as a backup to the line judge.

Baseball would still need an ump to determine high and low balls, but if can determine what is across the plate and outside, seems like it might be a good way to help the poor guys out.

Rob,
It wouldn't be that hard to screw with a system if somebody wanted to do it. Say you have the Yankees playing. They have around 50 million people that hate them. You also have about 50 million people who like them.

Out of that many baseball fans, someone will screw it up. It only takes one time for the system to never be used again. Then all of the past games would be suspect.

They will never use it.

Rob,
Whether it works and whether people trust it, are two completely separate issues.

Voting machines work...sometimes in Chicago, they overwork!

quote:

Originally posted by Rob Kremer:
Doughnutman:
You think it would be easier for a fan to hack into the system and manipulate its results in a way that would not be caught than for a fan to bribe an umpire?

There may be lots of good reasons that this is a bad idea, but I don't think this is in the top 50.

It might not a good reason, but since there has only been one umpire ever to be banned from baseball for taking bribes its a pretty safe bet.

It was Dick Higham (a former player) back in 1882...some 127 years ago.....

If we go to all this technology nobody will ever get to Bobby Cox's ejection record !

And I may never get thrown out of game again

quote:

Originally posted by TRhit:
And the players are not representatives of baseball?????

Talk about Blue Ego taking over !!11

It's not ego, it's fact.

Read the rule book, then we'll talk. I'll be happy to mail you one.

JIMMY

I know what it says and you can read all you want--btw I do not take gifts from umpires

In my book the players are the best representatives the game can have not men in blue who think they are the focus of the game and with 6 umpires cannot even get calls right

quote:

Originally posted by TRhit:
JIMMY

I know what it says and you can read all you want--btw I do not take gifts from umpires

In my book the players are the best representatives the game can have not men in blue who think they are the focus of the game and with 6 umpires cannot even get calls right

Your willingness to ignore the rulebook is neither new nor surprising.

The old chestnut of umpires who think they are the focus of the game is as tiresome as it is a myth.

No umpire I have met in 32 years of umpiring has ever believed that. But the myth persists with fans and coaches, usually whenever an umpire has to do something unpopular.

The player will always be the center of the game, despite some managers' attempts to steal the limelight.

But in practicality, at any level above t-ball, there are three necessary components..two teams of players and one team of umpires. Try having a honest, competitive game without all three.

quote:

Originally posted by Rob Kremer:
No animosity here, Jimmy. I just thought your reply was funny in that it absolutely elevated the umpires to the same level of the players. Surely you can see how it did that.

Since I don't get my exercise by jumping to conclusions, no, I don't see that. I compared humans to humans, not player to umpires.

If player and coaches could be trusted to be truthful, know the rules and not take unfair advantage, there would never have been umpires.

Cartwright et al knew better. An arbiter with no interest in the outcome has been required since the beginning.

Here's an interesting fact: The only person to have ever gotten so p!ssed at Questec was not an umpire being evaluated, it was ML pitcher who beat the h3ll out of a Questec camera with a bat.

quote:

The old chestnut of umpires who think they are the focus of the game is as tiresome as it is a myth.

No umpire I have met in 32 years of umpiring has ever believed that.

I dunno, Jimmy. At the start of this very thread you ridiculed my question of whether technology should ever call balls and strikes by sarcastically asking if we should let robots take the at-bats.

That comment sure does seem to have, at its core, a confusion as to what the point of the game is all about. As if taking the human element out of an umpiring role is the equivalent of taking the human element out of a playing role.

Usually things people say in moments of pique are revealing of what they really believe.

quote:

Originally posted by Rob Kremer:

quote:

The old chestnut of umpires who think they are the focus of the game is as tiresome as it is a myth.

No umpire I have met in 32 years of umpiring has ever believed that.

I dunno, Jimmy. At the start of this very thread you ridiculed my question of whether technology should ever call balls and strikes by sarcastically asking if we should let robots take the at-bats.

That comment sure does seem to have, at its core, a confusion as to what the point of the game is all about. As if taking the human element out of an umpiring role is the equivalent of taking the human element out of a playing role.

Usually things people say in moments of pique are revealing of what they really believe.

Wow. New to sarcasm I see.

Juimmy, you wrote:

quote:

Don't you see how ridiculous it is to remove the human element from baseball?

That wasn't sarcasm. You were saying that using technology to call balls and strikes would "remove the human element from baseball."

In other words: umpiring = baseball.

You never did answer my question about this post of yours: Do you think it is "ridiculous" to remove the "human element" from the home run call by using instant replay?

quote:

Originally posted by Rob Kremer:
Juimmy, you wrote:

quote:

Don't you see how ridiculous it is to remove the human element from baseball?

That wasn't sarcasm. You were saying that using technology to call balls and strikes would "remove the human element from baseball."

In other words: umpiring = baseball.

OMG. Now you know what others mean better than they do.

And they say umpires are arrogant. My, my.

Rob I have been reading your posts it seems for the last couple of weeks bantering back and forth with the umpires. I have to admit I have enjoyed the he ll out of it.

Well, shucks Jimmy.

I don't think pointing out the logical implication of your statement is saying I know what you mean better than you do.

Please, I am interested in what you think you meant, then, when you said it is ridiculous to remove the human element from [an aspect of the umpiring of] baseball.

I agree totally that it would be ridiculous to replace any aspect of the players' skill with a machine, such as having robots do the hitting. We agree there.

But do you really think it is ridiculous to use technological enhancements to aid or replace certain umpire calls, such as home run calls?

quote:

Originally posted by Rob Kremer:
But do you really think it is ridiculous to use technological enhancements to aid or replace certain umpire calls, such as home run calls?

Im not answering for Jimmy, but I would love the opportunity to use that technology for training umpires. I would be the first to volunteer...that being said, I do not believe it has any place in the live game...

After watching the strike zone in the series, time for something better. If the technology gets really good, how about gining each manager two challenges in a game, machine rules.

Absolutely not, no way, no how, not ever.

Umpires, for better or worse, are part of the game. Learning, and adjusting to, and umpires strike zone IS a part of the game. It isn't perfect, and sometimes isn't even very good, nor will it ever be perfect, but it is part of this great game. And, it needs to stay that way.