This Athletic article is interesting on a couple different fronts. On automated strike zone and pitchers calling their own pitches
Posted by
Ender
Mar 29 '23, 20:47
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Tldr:
1) It looks like they're leaning towards a X challenges of balls and strikes per game system rather than it calling every pitch.
2) With the advent of the pitch clock, more pitchers want to call their own pitches and they've had to rush to get more pitchcom units to allow the pitchers to tell the catcher what's coming.
NEW YORK — A day before MLB’s 2023 season begins with a slew of rule changes, commissioner Rob Manfred called the automated ball-strike system “the next big one that’s on the agenda.”
“I do think that improved application of technology in the calling of balls and strikes over the long haul is a really good thing,” Manfred said.
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But on Wednesday afternoon, Manfred also identified two reservations about introducing the automated ball and strike system, or ABS for short, and seemed to hint that he’s favoring one of the two forms of ABS over the other.
“No. 1, there is a body of the MLBPA unit … they refer to them as ‘framing catchers,’ that kind of make their living in the major leagues on their ability to frame pitches,” Manfred said during a luncheon hosted by the Paley Center for Media. “And you know, unions are kind of one for all, for one, I like unions, it’s a good thing, and it’s sort of a nice concept. And you have to understand that when you’re making a change, and it arguably could eliminate a certain kind of player — not a guy or two, but a certain kind of player — that’s an issue.”
The second issue is that ABS, at least thus far, interprets the strike zone differently than umpires.
“(Umpires) are really skilled and dramatically more consistent than 15 years ago as a result of the application of technology in the training process,” Manfred told moderator Tom Verducci. “Literally after every game, they get an email with the pitches they missed. They must log in and look at the ones they missed. And there’s commentary about how they missed, and why they missed.
“But what they call — you know, the rulebook strike zone’s a rectangle, above the middle of the plate — they call an oval. So they don’t call that inside corner, and that outside corner. There’s a reason they don’t call it: because you can’t hit that. Okay, so while we have the technology, it’s kind of right — accurate — there are issues that we need to work through before it’s ready for prime time.”
MLB is testing two applications of ABS in the minor leagues. With one, the umpire is told on every pitch what to call. The other is a challenge system, where a team has three challenges to an umpire’s call per game.
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Manfred hinted that using ABS on every pitch, the more invasive approach, is less palatable.
“In the minor leagues, we have tested the umpire using (ABS) for every pitch in the game,” Manfred said. “Players know these things because they’re players — it does cause a problem with these corner pitches … because nobody has ever been trained to treat those as strikes, or hit them.”
But the challenge system, meanwhile, carries an appeal that’s similar to instant replay.
“The theory of instant replay was: fix the big miss,” Manfred said. “And we decided, well, why don’t we try the same theory? We’ll give pitchers, catchers, and hitters all the right to challenge a pitch, certain number per game. … It’s a very appealing way to correct a problem, or a miss, in a game where it can be a high-leverage situation.”
Although Manfred did not say this directly, theoretically, because the challenge system is used less frequently, it might also affect certain catchers less.
The challenge system also adds a strategy element, something Manfred said Yankees minor league manager Rachel Balkovec pointed out to him.
“What do you mean?” Manfred asked Balkovec.
“Some organizations let anyone who has the right to challenge — pitcher, batter, catcher — challenge,” Manfred recalled of her response. “Our organization, we only let the catcher challenge, because the pitcher and the batter, they run too hot.”
Overall, Manfred acknowledged that the response to ABS has somewhat surprised him, and used parallels to other technologies the sport has introduced to illustrate his point.
When MLB introduced the PitchCom system in spring training last year, giving catchers technology to communicate signs to pitchers via a headset, Manfred said the league’s intent was merely to run a test, rather than usher in change straight away.
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“What actually happened is, players came back, said, ‘We want to use this now,'” Manfred said. “Forget testing, we want to use it now.’ Interestingly, we had the same phenomenon this year with the pitch clock.”
Once again this spring, the league tested new tech for sign-calling — this time a means of having the pitcher tell the catcher what pitch is coming, rather than vice versa.
“And what we heard from the pitchers is, with the pitch clock, they would prefer to be able to call the pitch, because it saves the time of shaking off a signal from the catcher,” Manfred said. “So once again, we were kind of caught short, we had to scramble around to get enough pitcher transmitters to be able to use it in the regular season. But I think it’s an example of players … become more accepting of technology on the field, and then dictating how and when it’s going to be used.
“The automated strike zone, this is another place: you know, you whiff sometimes. I held this belief for a really long time: if we could get a system that was … accurate to a tenth of an inch on every pitch, that everyone would carry us around on a big gold chair. We know that every pitch was right. It has not been received that way by players, and there are actually good reasons for it.”
Manfred said the system is today actually accurate to a tenth of an inch. Although ABS has been referred to as the “robo ump,” Manfred emphasized Wednesday that it’s a misnomer.
“I get emails from fans talking about the robot,” Manfred said. “There’s no robot. The umpire has an earpiece, it tells him what to call, he calls it just like he calls it today. It looks the same for the fan.”
So, is ABS going to arrive in 2024?
“The short answer is, I don’t know what’s going to happen going forward,” Manfred said. “I’m trying to get through this year’s change. We have some work to do, I think, on ABS.”
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