Think of it this way, there's tons of very good hitters, only a few very good pitchers.
MLB robo-ump is glorious
- Thread starter onewoof
- Start date
Concur, not just error, but judgement too. Take Sunday afternoon, a cold meaningless game, that everyone wanted to get over quickly. Ump had a wide strike zone, he, like everyone else, wanted to get out of there. No one wants walk after walk in that type game.
Hopefully this is a bridge to just using the automated system for every pitch.
If a pitcher throws he a strike, he deserves to have it count as a strike, every time. If he doesn't and the batter correctly doesn't swing, the batter deserves the credit of having it count as a ball, 100% of the time.
If a pitcher throws he a strike, he deserves to have it count as a strike, every time. If he doesn't and the batter correctly doesn't swing, the batter deserves the credit of having it count as a ball, 100% of the time.
I like change. It just needs to make sense. I'm fine with a check here and there if it's quick and the flow of the game isn't impacted. I like instant replay in football for the most part. I hate it when it takes 5 minutes to come to a conclusion on a tweener.
For baseball my concern mostly is that the folks that can't accept error in umpiring will complain about it until they are completely removed from the game and there's a red/green light behind the plate. That would be lame. And I guarantee people would still argue balls and strikes or suggest the bookies have rigged it.
Point being...it's sports. People make sports, 17ups included. Take too much of the people out of a game and it becomes sterile and boring.
Maybe instead of a scoreboard, the umpires should just remember what the score is, and if they get it wrong ... hey, it's just humans making errors, part of the game!
Pencil and paper has been around since before the creation of baseball. There has been no technical assist for score keeping. But to your point being made, why stop with umps? I bet there are some mean robot technologies out there that won't leave a curve hanging. Take the human part out of the game and let a pitching machine execute the perfect curve called by the the AI algorithm. No more pesky errors by humans.
I think it's a very reasonable and common opinion that we should "stop with umps."
Once you ask a robot to do a man's job where to you stop? Might be the most important question of modern times.
Anyhow...bring on the big green/red light to call balls and strikes. Y'all won't be happy with that either. I give it half a season before it's declared rigged and becomes controversial.
I understand the point you're making (i.e., human error is a part of sports). However, in this particular instance, the only automated change would be the computer calling every pitch a ball or a strike. All other instances of human error in baseball would remain.
I've thought for years that computers should call balls and strikes. That change can't come soon enough, in my opinion.
I think long term it simply shifts the frustration and skepticism to a man behind the curtain instead of the ump on the field. Again, I'm fine with an occasional quick review or an audit of the umps to weed out poor performers. A complete outsourcing would have folks up in arms quickly because people still ultimately program the system, configure the system, and install/configure the devices used by the system to read the pitches. It'll make a bad call. Or people rely on their bad camera angle and think it made a bad call (just like with an ump). It won't take long for there to be skepticism that the zones are accurate/fair or that there aren't behind the scenes rigging. Same world just someone else to blame.