AgRyan04 said:

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You're right, people will complain about everything!

Im not super worried about it though. Every single MLB pitch thrown all season is broadcast for TV so there would be actual video evidence if that were the case. If this was NCAA baseball where none of our away non-conference games were televised, I could see that being more of a concern.

I think the liklihood of that is much lower than the liklihood of umpires consistantly being consistant.

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I'm telling you, as someone with over 30 years of officiating experience, you're dreaming. I know you THINK this is the case, but I can assure you what you think is "actual video evidence" is bunk to many.

Look, work an exercise with me. How many times have you gone to a game (any game) and thought the officials called all the ticky-tack things against YOUR team and let the other team get away with murder? A lot, right? Or, at least if you're more objective than most, sometimes. But still, happens. Well, the people that attended those same games but who rooted for the other side THOUGHT THE EXACT SAME THING.

I've had these sort of discussions with booster clubs and I've said something to the effect of "I think officials could probably work with the standard of 'start out perfect and get better' as impossible as that is IF we could all agree on what perfection is. Trouble is, you've got at least 3 different definitions of perfection." You've got the home team's version, the visiting team's version, and the official's version -- which hopefully is rules based and correct.

As far as consistency goes, you may limit human error, which I'm all for, but I don't think you're going to limit what FANS think of as consistency. Consistency to them means "my team gets the calls." If you don't really believe that's true, go to some HS playoff games this season (of teams you have no interest in) and sit in the middle of fans along with a seasoned football official. Ask him his opinion of the calls compared to the fans' opinion of them. While there WILL be missed calls (hopefully not too many from playoff crews, but I have seen some crews that weren't playoff ready), my guess is that the rhetoric and reality won't match.

Try it out and see, but I'm suggesting we're going to be here in 2-3 years trading one problem for another.

Why are you comparing subjective calls from basketball, football, etc to baseball? The strike zone isn't (or shouldn't be) subjective. It's clearly defined, and there's technology to call said strike zone, without human error or influence.

One of the few subjective calls in baseball is a check swing. I think this could be simplified with technology as well....ie the barrel breaks a plane from the batters front shoulder to the ground.

Why do I care about what fans think? How is the fans thinking the robot got it wrong a problem? Do you take Kyrie Irving seriously when he says the world is flat, too?

I have no doubt that people will drum up conspiracy theorys.....but they're already thinking that now as they're watching the human umps call balls & strikes so it can't be worse.

I'm just a big proponent of the players on the field determining the outcome of games, not officials.

Most big league umps are the best at what they do (Angel Hernandez excluded) but if there is a way to be even more consistant and accurate I support it.

AgRyan04 said:

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I have no doubt that people will drum up conspiracy theorys.....but they're already thinking that now as they're watching the human umps call balls & strikes so it can't be worse.

I'm just a big proponent of the players on the field determining the outcome of games, not officials.

Most big league umps are the best at what they do (Angel Hernandez excluded) but if there is a way to be even more consistant and accurate I support it.

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Agreed....and to be honest some of these reasons against robo umps are just silly because of that reason.

91AggieLawyer said:

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AgRyan04 said:

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You're right, people will complain about everything!

Im not super worried about it though. Every single MLB pitch thrown all season is broadcast for TV so there would be actual video evidence if that were the case. If this was NCAA baseball where none of our away non-conference games were televised, I could see that being more of a concern.

I think the liklihood of that is much lower than the liklihood of umpires consistantly being consistant.

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I'm telling you, as someone with over 30 years of officiating experience, you're dreaming. I know you THINK this is the case, but I can assure you what you think is "actual video evidence" is bunk to many.

Look, work an exercise with me. How many times have you gone to a game (any game) and thought the officials called all the ticky-tack things against YOUR team and let the other team get away with murder? A lot, right? Or, at least if you're more objective than most, sometimes. But still, happens. Well, the people that attended those same games but who rooted for the other side THOUGHT THE EXACT SAME THING.

I've had these sort of discussions with booster clubs and I've said something to the effect of "I think officials could probably work with the standard of 'start out perfect and get better' as impossible as that is IF we could all agree on what perfection is. Trouble is, you've got at least 3 different definitions of perfection." You've got the home team's version, the visiting team's version, and the official's version -- which hopefully is rules based and correct.

As far as consistency goes, you may limit human error, which I'm all for, but I don't think you're going to limit what FANS think of as consistency. Consistency to them means "my team gets the calls." If you don't really believe that's true, go to some HS playoff games this season (of teams you have no interest in) and sit in the middle of fans along with a seasoned football official. Ask him his opinion of the calls compared to the fans' opinion of them. While there WILL be missed calls (hopefully not too many from playoff crews, but I have seen some crews that weren't playoff ready), my guess is that the rhetoric and reality won't match.

Try it out and see, but I'm suggesting we're going to be here in 2-3 years trading one problem for another.

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You make a great point, but for me, it's not about "evening things out" for the fans' perception. It's about getting calls right, and not having the outcome of a game, or even an individual at-bat, decideded by a bad call. This is the very reason replay exists in the first place, but they just haven't had the technology to use it reliably until recently. You're right, every fan base thinks their team is always on the short end of bad calls, but that's not really part of my reasoning, because no matter what MLB does, that will never go away. I just want the egregious mistakes removed from the game.

The single biggest change I would like to see in sports is THIS!

But if you literally have the ability for it to be able to correctly call balls and strikes in place already, why would opt for anything else?

If you run a bank and you have the technology to have a machine correctly count the number of $100 bills in every stack that every customer hands you, why would you ever bring the chance of human error into the picture by having a bank teller count them by hand?

Pretty sure their union would never allow this to happen.

Of course they won't allow it. I wasn't sure what limitations were put on these hypotheticals.

Speaking of the umpires' union, when is that contract up for renewal? Any chance Manfred grows a pair and forces some change there?

MLB Needs
1. Televised games not on crappy stations like Bally
2. Robo Umps
3. Salary Cap
4. Let the steroid users in the hall of fame. You've shut out everyone's hero's that's 25-45 years old out of the history books while allowing the dinosaurs (mlb writers) favorite players in that did the same thing but weren't as good at it.

jkag89 said:

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Quote:

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3. Salary Cap

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Nope. I like the soft cap of the luxury tax. What MLB needs is a salary floor.

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With the salary cap you would also have a salary floor similar to the NFL. We need more parity for the smaller market teams. Just do what the NFL does.

Nope, I dislike the hard cap of the NFL. Far too many personnel decisions are made to stay under the cap not for football reasons.

Edit to add: The MLB Players Union is much stronger than its NFL counterpart, it will never agree to a hard cap.

I agree it will never happen. And the best players will typically go to New York or L.A. Hopefully the union will negotiate a salary floor next time it comes up.

RogerFurlong said:

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I agree it will never happen. And the best players will typically go to New York or L.A. Hopefully the union will negotiate a salary floor next time it comes up.

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Both the Dodgers and Yankees have won one WS each so far this century.

I think for robo umps, each batter should be sized at the beginning of the season for their "zone". That profile is controlled by the team and given to the field system when they go. It is up to the team to make sure the player is happy with the zone.

Only time it can be changed is after being on the IL or moving leagues (major, AAA, etc.)

~egon

The zone I would be happy with as a player would be a 3" x 3" square area, belt high, and two baseballs in from the inner edge of the plate

Yankees have two

Not if you're using the Gregorian calendar, you Yankee lover!

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-is-the-beginning-of/

AgRyan04 said:

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Not if you're using the Gregorian calendar, you Yankee lover!

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-is-the-beginning-of/

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Exactly!