http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/gameday/index.jsp?gid=2009_07_03_seamlb_bosmlb_1&mode=gameday

It was four inches off the inside corner, but OVER the plate. That should’ve been strike 3 and ended the game, but Drew got a single the next pitch. Thankfully Pedroia grounded out and the M’s won, but this game had perhaps the worst umpiring I’ve ever seen.

That drove in the Brewers only run.

That was a close call too. I agree that it was a bad way to end a game today in Chicago. But about 90% of umpires are not going to call that high strike.

Strike zone changes from game to game from umpire to umpire. The subjectivity of it is a part of what makes the game great. Did the Brewers have a bad call work against them today? Yes. But have the Brewers won 7 games this year on fluke plays or errors, Yes?

Your point about taking care when you have opportunities makes a ton of sense. In the end, you have to earn them for it to mean anything. A hit in any one of 3 different chances during the last week of 08 knocks the Brewers out of the playoffs, but they won their games and made it in. Were they lucky, did the back into the playoffs? Yes, but they also did their job so that they earned it as well.

It’s not debatable that the current ball-strike system in place now works extremely well. 99% of the time it works every time, as Brian Fantana would say. Of course you notice the 1% of the time it doesn’t work because it sticks out so much.

If you were to make a list of all of the factors that helped an event go in favor of one team or another, umpires would probably end up somewhere around the middle of the list.

Further, let’s say we do get a mechanized ball-strike system in place. How much will it cost, how much more accurate will it be, and how long until we start seeing consistently reliable results? Is it really worth it? If someone smarter than I wants to throw out some numbers, I’d bet that it’d have to be a really cheap system (in terms of cost) for it to be worth the investment.

On another note, how would such a change ever get past the umpires union? Is there anyone you can think of who would have the balls to even suggest this change to Major League Baseball?

Lots of questions to be answered. I understand the frustration over the inconsistent strike zones, but it’s just a part of baseball now and I think it’s better to just live with it.

This is a composite screenshot of Kendall catching the “ball” on the left and Fox standing before going into his crouch on the right:

I’m 90% in favor of non-umpire strikes zones and 100% in favor of not whining about calls whenever possible. Reason? See the NBA. It becomes the story instead of the baseball being the story.

Have we optimized the number of mistakes? Do we want a few more wrong calls? A few less? Why just settle for the status quo when we could really make the game perfect.

Also, a computer-called strike zone could be programmed to mimic mistakes or changing strike zones. Just change a few parameters each game to alter the shape of the zone a bit and choose what percentage of blown calls you’d like. Done.

When I am watching a game, and there is a bad call it pisses me off. The Cardinals lost a game a couple of weeks ago, partially because the umpire called a pitch to Rasmus, that was clearly a ball, a strike. Instead of getting pissed off at the players for playing a bad game overall, I was angry at the umpire and it allowed me to vent. In hindsight, the bad call made me feel much better about the Cardinals losing because I could blame it on the umps.

I am normally an objective and mathematical person when it comes to analyzing baseball, so maybe someone could convince me that this is a logical falacy.

Harry said:

Also, and this is very important, the pitchfx data that is used to rate the umpires (questec is gone, both were used in 2008 though) goes thru add’l post-processing. What we see in gameday, and in the downloaded files, may not match what is truly accurate and used for the umpire reviews.

MLBAM has stressed this many a time, the zones are for entertainment purposes. The outlines are fuzzy for a reason. But they do their absolute best to be accurate with the information.

When I look at gameday, there are two things that make it difficult for me to believe what I see is precise enough for me to evaluate close calls by umpires. First, the scale is off- a regulation ball is a hair under three inches in diameter and the plate is 17 inches wide. If I assume Gameday’s plate is 17in, the the ball displayed is 5+ inches in diameter. Where is the actual ball? In the center of the exaggerated ball? Is it more of a display of relative location? The second thing is the angle. It’s hard to line up the display to be horizontally and vertically in the position of the umpire, and when it is- the strike zone markers are screwed.

I do agree that it would be preferable to have an automated ball and strike system. Bad calls that change the outcomes are not the kind of human element I’d miss in the game. I don’t think Gameday is intended to be accurate enough to make the argument for or against the current system, or to use to show how unfair a particular close call was to a player and or team.

The STRIKE ZONE is that area over home plate the upper limit of which is a horizontal line at the midpoint between the top of the shoulders and the top of the uniform pants, and the lower level is a line at the hollow beneath the kneecap. The Strike Zone shall be determined from the batter’s stance as the batter is prepared to swing at a pitched ball.

Looks above the midpoint from here. Even the pitch f/x data showed it higher than any of the other pitches that AB. It was inside the estimated PFX K-zone graphic on gameday, which is said to be an estimate.

End of story.

(good time to lock comments)

For the record, I’m all in favor of balls and strikes being called by some manner other than a human umpire. It seems like the technology is now available.

But I do disagree with the statement that the called ball “ripped 1.2 million dollars out of the pocket of the Brewers and put it in the pocket of the Cubs.” That’s not at all what happened (unless the teams had a 1.2 million dollar bet on the game, in which case the umpire’s call is NOT the story.)

What the call did is, potentially, cost the Brewers a win and gave the win to the Cubs. But we don’t know for sure it did that since if the pitch had been called a strike, the Cubs still might have won the game.

Assuming the call did give the Cubs a win they would not have otherwise had, then it does alter the amount spent per win for each team. Also, if the Brewers miss the playoffs by one win, then it can be argued that the call cost the Brewers whatever revenues the post season would have brought them. But if the Brewers miss the playoffs by one game, it is unlikely that this is the only event in the season that cost them a win, so….

Not only because of the inconsistencies but because of favoritism. You can’t tell me that no umpire has ever leaned one way or another because they prefer a certain team. They probably try to be as objective as possible, but ultimately these are people who love the game (they must, they became umps after all), and so they have to have certain teams they hate, and certain teams they love. And you can’t tell me that that doesn’t influence their calls, whether consciously or subconsciously.

As for the supposed “human element”, what about getting the right call? And what about the stats? Should we put an asterisk next to EVERY player’s name because they were called out on what was clearly a ball, and they MIGHT have hit a homer on the next pitch? Aaron would have 756 homers if an umpire hadn’t realized he was out of the batter’s box on one; how many players have gotten away with that? Unless you get a consistent system which eliminates human error, all stats could be considered pointless.

It would definitely be good for baseball, but… just saying.

http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2009/7/8/942170/the-case-for-human-umpires

If you are going to complain about pitch 9, you really have to accept that pitch 1 was called a strike when it was a ball. This means (and we don’t know for sure) that Fox should have had a walk on 4 pitches.