I see. I thought that they were totally going to the automatic zone. Hopefully, its just a matter of time until they do. I don’t understand why they wouldn’t save some romanticized view of the game with a home plate ump.
of course. but still, an ejection? that’s an abuse of power.
“Ball Hair. What we need is a strike here!”
According to Ump Scorecard.
This season so far. umps have been 94.2% accurate.
Which doesnt sound like much. But
Average MLB game has 152 called balls/strikes
143 are called correctly 9 incorrectly
Thats 0.5 balls per half inning or 1 per inning called WRONG each game.
Worst games dipping to the low 80% best games 100%
This has effected the games by 0.4 runs per game.
Heres the Game 2 of Tigers Cubbs for a i kid you not SLIGHTLY below average game
Like WTF is that strike zone
Looking at the Tigers games.
Through 66 games
539 total runs scored (for and against)
74.5 runs were given or taken away due to bad calls.
Thats 13.8% of total runs affected!
Thankfully however. Only 1 games total outcome gas been affected so far.
Game 4: 4/2/25
DET@SEA
112 Pitches Called
102 Correct Calls
Thats a VERY high 8.9% miss rate.
The calls mostly went against the Tigers.
Total runs effected was 1.51
The difference however was 1.09 in favor of Seattle.
Tigers Lost 3-2
Adjusted for missed calls
The game would have been
3.3 DET
3.21 SEA
So in theory the tigers COULD have WON
18 Games this season so far out of 987 games
1.82% of games affected
Thankfully no real trend one way or another in terms of a specific ump or team getting more favorable calls.
But as you can see the accuracy isnt all that bad on a few of these.
Like 5/25 TEX @ CHW ump was 96.3% accurate. Only 5 missed calls, but those missed were at critical parts of the game.
Texas won 5-4
But with correct calls
Chicago would have won (theoretically)
When it was announced that the ABS (Automated Ball-Strike System) would be tested out in spring training this year, part of the accepted narrative was: “We won’t see it in the regular season in 2025.”
That’s still technically correct, but as Evan Drellich reports, it will be in place for the All-Star Game on Tuesday in Atlanta.
A quick refresher on how it works: Each team will have two challenges, which they will retain if the call is overturned. Only pitchers, catchers and batters can issue the challenge, and they must be made (by tapping their helmet) immediately after the ball or strike call is made by the umpire.
As we saw in spring training, the reviews don’t take long — a few seconds at most.
When the system was tested in spring training, walks increased a little, strikeouts went down a little, and scoring was up a bit as a result. Here’s a story from Jayson Stark in late March about what we learned during the spring experiment.
The All-Star Game isn’t known for being particularly controversial (unless you count that tie in 2002), but this will be the league’s biggest showcase for the technology. If the plan is to introduce it in the regular season — perhaps even by next year — this could be an easy way to show fans how it works on a big stage.
Needs to happen ASAP!
Ive seen in the minors and college and it works great. Just make it permanent
I agree, love it.
With only 2 challenges, I wonder if Managers will give every player free reign to challenge a call?
We know some players don’t have the best eye.
2 unsuccessful challenges. Meaning if they keep getting calls correctly they could have 100
Sounds like something to embarrass the umpire. If you want the machine to call balls and strikes than have the machine call balls and strikes. It’s kind of dumb if you ask me.
Never seen that in the minors but theoretically, correct.
Nope, makes everyone better with minimal impact on game length, avg call is 12-15sec iirc.
It’s not difficult for a system to call ball and strikes. If your car can drive itself, you sure as hell can call balls and strikes. And do it faster if you are worried about time.
Part of baseball has always been the human element, second guessing ect. Way it was explained to me they are trying to keep some of that in the game. We will see how long it lasts, umpires calling S/B that is.
Thats the way I feel about it. Either do it all the way or don’t do it at all.
Since these are not manager challenges teams would need to have some control.
We see it in basketball where players are constantly asking the coach to challenge a foul or out of bounds call.
If it is truly up to the player two incorrect strike challenges could be gone in a half inning.
I think a manager would trust his catcher and certain pitchers, but I wonder if managers would give the green light for all batters to challenge any call they disagree with,
Automated Ball and Strike calls is coming, they have the technology and show us live during every game we watch.
Baseball is so tradition focused that they have to do things a little at a time.
They also have an umpires union to manage.
I think technology opened the door. With the K-Zone box I can instantly determine whether a pitch is a ball or a strike. Umpires have historically and understandably been inconsistent. It’s a difficult job. Out of a couple hundred pitches it’s easy to miss a few. Without the K-Zone box though it would be extremely difficult for me to accurately determine balls / strikes on some of those close pitches.
