people broadly misunderstand what the robo umps are even gonna do. it won’t be every ball/strike called, you’ll be able to challenge. so umps still get to call balls and strikes and its left to discretion of managers/pitchers/catchers to challenge calls with it. afaik it’s been incredibly successful so far
The challenge system will be a total disaster so that’s exactly what they’ll do. Manufactured fake drama that has almost no impact on the game.
they tried full abs and nixed it because everyone hated it - players seem to prefer challenge, shrug
ok that’s a start, I didn’t know that, but tbh I think that might not be far enough. Pitchers aren’t gonna want to challenge a call and look like a big dummy when they’re wrong. I think ultimately I’ll want all robot balls and strikes, with an incredible different tone for each one that will instantly become two of the most famous tones in sports. Or if people still want the human element then let each team, or better yet each pitcher, pick the strike tone, and each batter pick the ball tone. So if Nolan Ryan wants to tie his strike tone to a big mooooooo then so be it. And everyone should get a punchout call too, like Nolan can have his “Steeeeeeraaak three! Yeehaw! grab some bench!!” Or some more trolly southern guy like Verlander could have “Strike Three. Bless your heart”. But the batter could pick too, so if like Trevor Bauer threw a ball he could get a “GAVEL! no means no”. These are merely suggestions. And then when the ball’s in play and there’s gonna be a play at the plate, the home plate ump could emerge like from the dirt in one of those hunger games cornucopia tubes, “yer OUT!” and then it would go back down
Yeah they hated it because they are all used to bullshit strike zones. They’ll get over it. Meanwhile, giving a team two challenges per game against Bucknor and Laz Diaz won’t change jack shit. They just called a pitch 4" off the plate a strike, and they’ll keep calling it a strike all night. The MLB umpires are basically cops, but instead of shooting unarmed black people they derive their sadistic pleasure from strike zone fuckery.
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all i wish is for check swings not to be such total bullshit. especially for mlb the show video game.
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It’s going to be amazing one game deep into the Challenge System Era when it’s the 7th inning bases loaded and batter challenges a 2-2 pitch several inches outside and it’s overturned to ball. Out of challenges. Next pitch is a foot off the plate and Ron Kulpa does a bunny hop two-piece combo punch out because fuck you that’s why.
I’m pretty sure you don’t lose a challenge if you’re shown to be right. In which case your version won’t happen (or at least not as quickly in each game as you seem to imagine)
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This is what bothers me about the NFL challenge system.
I can understand wanting to limit the number of challenges so the games aren’t constantly delayed but it seems they could come up with a more situationally aware system so regardless of the rest of the game, no team can run out of challenges towards the end. I wonder if adding a yardage penalty for failed challenges would limit spurious challenges at all?
Teams should not be charged for a successful challenge. If games slow down because of too many successful challenges, it means that the officiating sucks. That’s a larger problem than the game being slowed down.
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Scherzer vs. Kershaw tonight in the Jays-Dodgers game might be the last matchup we’ll ever see between two active 200-game winners.
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The point is that as soon as teams run out of challenges – which will be very soon given that the players are barely better than 50% at challenging – these assholes are instantly back online raining horrible calls. It doesn’t address the actual problem. Some of these dudes are missing 20+ calls per game, and the players will be no better at it unless they’re extremely conservative with the challenges. It’s just an engagement farming carnival game charade like the tennis animation. Maybe the fans with raise their arms, wiggle their fingers, and belt out a rising “Oooooaaaaaaaah” as the ball graphic comes in toward the bounding box.
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The last time they’ll ever face almost as notable as the first time in 2008, the actual scheduled starters for that game were randy johnson vs greg maddux. Also that first game was an extremely rare occurance of future hall of famers facing each other as rookies as the previous game like that involved cy young.
Anyway, that game tonight is also only the fourth time of one of the 3k strikeout club facing another. (scherzer being involved in the previous one against verlander). All these guys have long careers and we don’t realize how rare it is they end up facing each other.
via elias, just the 12th instance of two starting pitchers matching up at least 17 seasons after their first head-to-head meeting. Previous was in 2007.
they were 4 out of 5 correct at the all-star game. the better the player the better the challenge obv
Hitters hate true ABS because the rule book strike zone is nonsensical. And the reason is obvious: the rulebook strike zone enforced to the millimeter is grossly unfair to hitters. As people have pointed out, the real called strike zone throughout the history of baseball is more like a 2D rectangle with rounded corners, not a sharp 2D rectangle (also not a rectangular solid, and certainly not a rectangular solid connected to a pyramidal solid that some people have suggested should be the strike zone). The fact that they are just now starting to realizing this is what I find alarming.
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In reality Id be fine with a front of the plate rule. Maybe make it a 4” depth to catch some late movement. If you throw an eephus pitch then well fuck you.
(all this is why I’d go with umps and an auto overrule only if they are off by a cm. (Strike to ball overrule if outside of zone by 1 cm, ball to strike if 1cm of ball is in zone)
embarrass the truly bad calls.
Use the family feud sounds.
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I think the “pitchers don’t want to look like a big dummy” thing isn’t real with pitcher careers ending over waste first pitches in innings.
How long does an ABS review take?