Robo-Umps ARE Coming, Manfred Nearly Guaranteed It
Through all the fun of watching big leaguer’s playing with kids over the course of the Little League Classic, there was a rather important tidbit to come out of the festivities. No, I’m not talking about the declaration that playing in that environment would help the Cubs, but I am more specifically talking about MLB commissioner, Rob Manfred’s affinity for electronic strike zones.
During the ESPN broadcast of the LL Classic, Manfred had this to say about electronic balls and strikes.
“I think the automated strike zone could really help us,” Manfred explained. “I think it would produce a consistency around the strike zone. I think that our umpires do a great job, but they’re human. We do have the technology, and I do think an automated strike zone would put you in a position to manage that strike zone. Where should it be exactly to produce the amount of offense you want. I think that could be a very important change.”
Baseball already has some data on the automated strike zone with the addition of robo-umps in the Atlantic League. While the robot ump is right much more often than it is wrong, there are still mixed reactions to an automated zone. While there are those that will quickly dispute the need or claim that it changes the authenticity of the game, there are players that are excited about being a part of the experiment.
“I think it’s really cool to be around this,” says Kent Blackstone, the shortstop for the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs, “because if they can get it right, I see this being in Major League Baseball in three to five years.
“For us to be the first ones to use it, if I want to get into the operations of baseball, I can say I was there during all this. I try to shift it to the positive.”
The Blue Crabs manager also chimed in.
“There’s a lot of people who say, ‘This will never be passed at the major league level,’ ” says Stan Cliburn, the Blue Crabs’ 62-year-old manager. “Well, people better look back and see that baseball’s about change, life’s about change.
“Is it the direction Major League Baseball is going? They’re certainly taking a hard look at it.”
TrackMan
TrackMan is the master system on the backend of the automated strike zone in the Atlantic League. This is the same system that measures things like exit velocity, launch angles, pitch velocity, and rotation, or all the cool aspect of Statcast.
A cool aspect of this system is, it pulls height and stance information from a large database and then applies it to the hitter. This allows for a more perfected strike zone, well, unless you change your stance. Or height, but that’s not very likely.
This allows TrackMan to be as accurate as possible, however, there are still times when it is less than perfect. From players and coaches claiming that there are times in which weather can affect the zone, to some stadiums having differing effects, TrackMan isn’t perfect. But mostly, the system calls a rather good vertical zone, while having room for improvement north to south.
Because of some of these issues, and times in which TrackMan essentially runs to the concession stand, MLB is looking to move to the Hawk-Eye Tracking System in 2020. This is a system which tennis uses for tracking serves.
The Bad
An automated zone renders most great catchers irrelevant. In a game in which every borderline pitch, it is the goal of the catcher to earn a strike. Without that, the biggest reason to have a catcher is to stop the ball from hitting the backstop.
Pitch framing will be eliminated, and I can see teams ignoring other defensive skills in an attempt to put bigger offensive threats behind the plate. This might “seem” small, but this completely changes the mentality surrounding the position and will certainly eliminate jobs at both the minor league and big-league level.
Another related change, the league could potentially lose future MLB managers.
It shouldn’t be a secret, the backup catcher position has been a hotbed of MLB managers for years. The Cubs manager, Joe Maddon was a backup catcher, Joe Girardi, Bruce Bochy, A.J. Hinch, and Mike Scioscia are just a few current MLB managers to be backup catchers.
Sure there is a saying that if you’re good enough, someone will find you, but professional sports tends to live outside of that world when it comes to coaches and managers. MLB is very much an exclusive group to anyone without at minimal high MiLB experience.
Ultimately, MLB’s quest to get things right will trump most anything else. Wait, hahahahahaha, I just wrote that!? Haha…
MLB is the king of change after the damage has occurred. They might be the ultimate reactive league, well, if it weren’t for the NHL. There is hardly a proactive bone in their body, and I feel that is due to the “purists” that are out there. The group of fans that scream anytime baseball even looks at an idea.
Regardless, an automated zone is probably needed at this point. I know I have seen the data which shows an MLB umpire will get a ball/strike call right somewhere around a 98% rate. So if there are 250 pitches in an MLB game, there are only like five missed calls. But five calls a game, by 162 games, by all 30 teams – that’s roughly 12,000 missed calls a season. If they can cut that by a third, robo-umps would be a positive change.
