Poor performance by umpires has always been a part of baseball, but these days fans are forced to constantly be confronted with the extent and impact of sloppy strike zones. This greatly detracts from the viewing experience and sooner or later the league will have to make a decision on a reasonable path forward.
Image courtesy of Jesse Johnson-USA TODAY Sports
I watched the majority of Saturday’s match against the Guardians from one of my favorites. views of Target Field, standing on the rail behind the lower sections of the bowl marble. Provided you don’t mind standing, this is one of the best views you can have in the park without paying for expensive seats.
What’s particularly nice to watch from here is that you can keep an eye on the TVs mounted under the overhang for fans in the back rows and concourse – ideal for quickly viewing an enlarged rebroadcast of whatever you’re watching. come and witness it live. This was helpful, for example, when I was trying to analyze exactly what happened on that wild play at second base. This stuff is what makes watching and dissecting baseball great.
Unfortunately, Saturday’s game also provided a glaring glimpse of something that is increasingly detrimental to the quality of the baseball viewing experience: persistent, accurate display of the strike zone on broadcasts, coupled with plate umpires who are too often far from precise in their decisions. calls.
As Brennan Miller worked his way through this game, repeatedly missing calls that mostly went against the Twins, every fan nearby glanced at the screen, only to see these failures confirmed again and again. For Major League Baseball, it’s just a really weird way to present your product, putting the officials’ shortcomings and their crucial impact front and center for viewers, to the point where it sort of trumps the rest of the action.
When it comes to the topic of electronic strike zones, I personally tend to be a little more traditional. I actually don’t mind the idea of a somewhat subjective (but consistent) strike zone, and I appreciate that the human element plays a role in guiding the game. I’m comfortable with the pitchers being rewarded for very good execution, or the receivers for framing the ball, and with those skills bending the zone margins to some extent.
The point is that there is no real subjectivity when you have the strike zone overlay on the screen representing balls and strikes actually. When the circle is outside the box, it will clearly be seen as a ball, and as a missed call if the referee says otherwise. It’s black and white.
Worse still: the strike zones superimposed on the emissions are not always precise, and can actually undermine referees when they are NOT wrong. I’m not one to defend Angel Hernández (perhaps the biggest argument in favor of robot referees), but he was roasted by people on Sunday for calling a strike against Giancarlo Stanton it was…definitely a strike? Ah, but he didn’t land in the static strike zone that barely reaches the bottom of his belt.
Maybe I’m too sensitive to this, because I’m watching a team that pitches and hits very often, and seems to get bitten by these borderline calls with extreme frequency. For me, the boring experience of watching Saturday’s game and mulling over the missed calls non-stop has become somewhat routine. But on a broader level, I’ve long been bothered by this disconnect in how MLB presents its product, at a time when the league is struggling to win over new fans. This is starting to be a little difficult to bear.
If Major League Baseball wants to position the strike zone as an absolute, enforceable thing, then why not just implement the Automated Ball and Strike System (ABS) and remove the disjointed visual experience. If, conversely, the league wants us to believe that the strike zone is dynamic, fluid and subjective – thus validating the continued existence of human umpires – then broadcasts should stop giving the opposite impression. At the very least, the overlay area might better reflect how umpires actually learn to call balls and strikes (or how umpires are called). The Hawk-Eye tracking system measures them), as opposed to the uniform rectangular shape we typically get now.
One thing that doesn’t seem controversial: If we’re going to continue to present the strike zone so prominently, it’s high time we give managers the ability to challenge ball/strike calls to some extent. Rendering players, coaches and all fans helpless while watching a disastrously butchered officiating job like we saw from Miller on Saturday completely alter the course of the game is not good for anyone. It’s definitely not the kind of thing that’s going to attract more viewers to MLB.
What are your feelings on how Major League Baseball manages and presents the strike zone? Does the disjointed perspective of these shows bother you as much as it does me? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
