Robot balls & strikes needs to happen

4,304 Views | 51 Replies | Last: 4 yr ago by toucan82
Know Your Enemy
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
The HP umpire has been awful tonight. Can't have that in a World Series Game 7. We all need to riot until Bud Selig, Jr. agrees.
Bunk Moreland
How long do you want to ignore this user?
No. They. Don't.
Betoisafurry
How long do you want to ignore this user?
No
_lefraud_
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
Those back to back called "strikes" on Zimmerman earlier were absolutely terrible.
sellthefarm
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
I've watched every game this World Series and tonight was actually the best they've been all series. Time for robo zone.
Know Your Enemy
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
Why would you be against balls & strikes being 100% accurate?
LeftyAg89
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
Pretty soon we'll have Robo pitchers, hitters etc.

Do away with all replay!!!
Lt. Joe Bookman
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
Never understood why any one would be against them. It's pretty proven that these guys are terrible at their jobs. Not really their fault, it is definitely a hard one. The thing that people argue... that at least they have a "consistent zone" has been proven false as well.

Why not get it right if it doesn't interfere with the flow of the game?
hph6203
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
Perfection is boring?
.
Lt. Joe Bookman
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
Lt. Joe Bookman
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
hph6203 said:

Perfection is boring?


So you'd rather the rules be enforced incorrectly because that's more exciting?
hph6203
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
Yes. Butt hurt fans over officiating is part of sports and I'd genuinely be happier if there was less of a trend towards replay reviews. Life is imperfect, sports should be too.
.
Bobby Petrino`s Neckbrace
How long do you want to ignore this user?
It aint the ump's fault that Altuve and Bregman just decided to suck for the last 7 games.

Know Your Enemy
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
Bobby Petrino`s Neckbrace said:

It aint the ump's fault that Altuve and Bregman just decided to suck for the last 7 games.

That has absolutely nothing to do with this thread.
Ags #1
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
All these haters must be rams fans and not want to get call right
LawHall88
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
diehard03
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Quote:

Yes. Butt hurt fans over officiating is part of sports and I'd genuinely be happier if there was less of a trend towards replay reviews. Life is imperfect, sports should be too.

This is such a strange take. It's one thing to dislike the solution to try and achieve perfection. It's quite another to deny even trying to get it.
TexasRebel
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
hph6203 said:

Yes. Butt hurt fans over officiating is part of sports and I'd genuinely be happier if there was less of a trend towards replay reviews. Life is imperfect, sports should be too.


Then why have any rules at all?

Let's just play Calvinball.
Eliminatus
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
hph6203 said:

Yes. Butt hurt fans over officiating is part of sports and I'd genuinely be happier if there was less of a trend towards replay reviews. Life is imperfect, sports should be too.


I promise I mean this in the nicest non aggressive way possible, but this is a really stupid take.
91AggieLawyer
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
Junkhead said:

Why would you be against balls & strikes being 100% accurate?

1. Accurate based on what? The strike zone is 3d. How are you going to measure it.

2. You're going to have the same exact issues with calls. Instead of "the ump missed it" it will be "they programmed the strike zone robot to favor the Yankees" (or whoever, or a certain pitcher or pitcher style). There will be allegations of a conspiracy based on longer or shorter games, more entertainment (ala NBA), making small market teams more competitive, owner revenues, player stats, etc. What if MLB changes the robot year to year based on various measures? You open up a huge can of unforeseen worms here.

3. What IF the robot actually does miss it? How are you going to handle it and what are you going to do to fix it? Are you going to promise to stop *****ing? (We won't hold our breath).

As long as people have a rooting interest in a team they will NEVER be satisfied in whoever the arbiter is, human or tech. I can assure you that there will never be any agreement as to what constitutes 100 percent accuracy. Even if you could master the tech, and the robot actually worked (a huge IF), as the base running issue illustrated last night, there are just quirky rules in any game that people are not going to like regardless of whether they're called correctly or not. Putting a computer at the helm is NOT going to make any difference. You'll be asking for the next big thing later.
jopatura
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
I know I've read lately the Skeeters league uses the robo-umps. How has that been going for them?

Serious q, don't follow the Skeeters at all but curious how it's working in some form of baseball.
91AggieLawyer
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
diehard03 said:

Quote:

Yes. Butt hurt fans over officiating is part of sports and I'd genuinely be happier if there was less of a trend towards replay reviews. Life is imperfect, sports should be too.

This is such a strange take. It's one thing to dislike the solution to try and achieve perfection. It's quite another to deny even trying to get it.

You don't quite understand: one side of the stadium (or one fan base) defines perfection one way; the other side defines it a completely different way. Robots aren't going to change things much -- they're just going to shift who gets yelled at.

Think about it: if you're convinced a call was missed and someone points out that, either by rule or by interpretation, the officials or umpires actually got it right, what is your FIRST reaction?

"Oh, OK, I learned something then."

OR

"Bull****"

Be honest, please.
Quincey P. Morris
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
I'm a Rangers fan. I was actively rooting against the Astros. There were numerous times just in this series that the Astros got hosed by s*** calls. The Nationals did as well, but this is an issue. I don't care what the strike zone is so long as it's consistent from hitter to hitter. It was not this series. At all. I've long been against robot called strike zones. Over the last few years, I'm not anymore. There are too many bad calls and, in this series, umpires more concerned with "being respected" than making the correct call.
BMX Bandit
How long do you want to ignore this user?
sellthefarm said:

I've watched every game this World Series and tonight was actually the best they've been all series. Time for robo zone.


This.


And with robot calls, Astros potentially don't even make game 7
DeLaHonta
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
If there's one thing that improves a sport, it's more subjectivity in the rules of the game. That's why everyone can agree that the targeting rule in college football is enormously popular.
backintexas2013
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
I don't think we will ever see robo-umps. Bad calls are part of the game.

The home plate umpire choked. In the top of 7th, which had the heart of the lineup he choked on the 2-1 pitch to Soto. Middle of the plate above the knee, not even at the knee but above it and he let Soto dictate his call. He choked but that's part of baseball.

It was an incredibly blown call and I am not sure how he missed one that wasn't borderline at all but he did. That's part of baseball and it won't be going away so we as fans have to live with it.
HTownAg98
How long do you want to ignore this user?
91AggieLawyer said:

Junkhead said:

Why would you be against balls & strikes being 100% accurate?

1. Accurate based on what? The strike zone is 3d. How are you going to measure it. Triangulating cameras. We can calculate spin rates, exit velocity, estimate distances of home runs, but can't measure a box?
2. You're going to have the same exact issues with calls. Instead of "the ump missed it" it will be "they programmed the strike zone robot to favor the Yankees" (or whoever, or a certain pitcher or pitcher style). There will be allegations of a conspiracy based on longer or shorter games, more entertainment (ala NBA), making small market teams more competitive, owner revenues, player stats, etc. What if MLB changes the robot year to year based on various measures? You open up a huge can of unforeseen worms here.Baseball, and all sports, have changed rules to get closer to perfection, while realizing that perfect is the enemy of good. Batters used to call for pitches to be in certain spots, and it was the pitchers obligation to do so. Overhand pitching was illegal at one time. A caught one-hopper was an out. The rules will change and be adjusted to address problems. It's been that way for almost 150 years.

3. What IF the robot actually does miss it? How are you going to handle it and what are you going to do to fix it? Are you going to promise to stop *****ing? (We won't hold our breath). The leagues that have used it address this. The umpire still watches every pitch and can call balls and strikes. They do so because testing has shown that the "robot" sometimes doesn't make a call, or there's a glitch that results in an obvious error. The umpire is allowed to correct those situations.

As long as people have a rooting interest in a team they will NEVER be satisfied in whoever the arbiter is, human or tech. I can assure you that there will never be any agreement as to what constitutes 100 percent accuracy. Even if you could master the tech, and the robot actually worked (a huge IF), as the base running issue illustrated last night, there are just quirky rules in any game that people are not going to like regardless of whether they're called correctly or not. Putting a computer at the helm is NOT going to make any difference. You'll be asking for the next big thing later.If accuracy on balls and strikes could be improved from 85%-90%, depending on the year, to 90%-95% or even higher, would you consider that an improvement to the game? You'll never be able to get 100% accuracy, because there's ambiguity written into the rule on what is a strike. But if you can improve the accuracy AND consistency, I can't see how that is a bad thing.
WhoHe
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
Robo umps will bring their own set of problems to the game, just like every other technological rules enforcement system before.

It's a slippery slope ... while logic says to use all the technology available to "get it right," our sports are evolving more and more into video games and losing some of the charm that ultimately makes them so addictive.
KerrvilleAg
How long do you want to ignore this user?
WhoHe said:

Robo umps will bring their own set of problems to the game, just like every other technological rules enforcement system before.

It's a slippery slope ... while logic says to use all the technology available to "get it right," our sports are evolving more and more into video games and losing some of the charm that ultimately makes them so addictive.

But there is a big difference now....with technology available to the fan it is obvious when umpires make bad calls. Before you had things to debate/argue about. Now you know they screwed up and bad calls can't be defended. "It's hard" doesn't cut it anymore.
CampingAg
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG



I like to use this video as an example of where it could go bad. Pause the video when the pitch gets to the front part of the plate. If it's a ball, it's not by much. You would have pitches similar to this being called strikes for nicking the very edge before falling off and people would go ballistic.
Quincey P. Morris
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
The pitch tracker in that video places the ball well outside of the zone. Aside from that I really don't know how you'd determine with much accuracy when that pitch got to the plate from that video. And if a pitcher gets it in the zone it doesn't much matter whether people like it.
diehard03
How long do you want to ignore this user?
Quote:

Think about it: if you're convinced a call was missed and someone points out that, either by rule or by interpretation, the officials or umpires actually got it right, what is your FIRST reaction?

"Oh, OK, I learned something then."

OR

"Bull****"

Be honest, please.

It's odd question when talking about balls and strikes. What will happen is that we will stop seeing balls like the Correa SO happen. Broadcasts will also adjust their strike zone to match the robot ump one. So, virtually every single strike should be touching the line on the TV.

Now, we will start to argue about going around more on check swings. This will be an unintended consequence. I don't mind it, nor do I think this newly created "problem" invalidates robot umps.

As an unpopular opinion, I would also be fine with scaling back instant replay to remove the "millisecond off the bag" out plays. It's not a hill I need to die on, as I expect baseball players will evolve to avoid this issue anyway.
coconutED
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
They would work great for determining whether or not a pitch crossed over the plate. Not so much for the vertical limits of the zone, because it's different for every player, and players also sometimes change their stances as well. Potential solutions:

1) Make the strike zone height a set distance from the ground, regardless of player size
2) Manually set the zone height every at bat (IIRC, this is what the old QuesTec system did)
3) Measure every player and put all of their zones in a database
4) Install sensors in player uniforms
5) Let the computer determined if the ball crossed the plate, continue to use the Home Plate umpire to evaluate pitch height

Each of these has their own set of problems and issues.
W
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
the automated strike zone had issues with curve balls --- someone will need to work on that
Forum Troll
How long do you want to ignore this user?
AG
It can't happen soon enough. The technology is absolutely there. Look at what a Trackman can do with a golf ball traveling at 180 mph 330 yards out and be able to measure an immense amount of data with the clubhead.
Page 1 of 2
 
×
subscribe Verify your student status
See Subscription Benefits
Trial only available to users who have never subscribed or participated in a previous trial.