Leaderboard

Sure, the technology may soon enable tracking the ball's path to centimeter accuracy. But, the strike zone is not defined to that level of accuracy. Yes, the edges of the plate are well defined. But the upper and lower boundaries of the zone are not defined to that accuracy. Just throwing two horizontal lines on a 2D image of the pre-pitch batter's stance is not that accurate. Furthermore, it's not easy to do a better job than that! The strike zone rule, as currently written, probably defines the upper and lower boundaries to an accuracy of a few inches, at best. Unless the upper and lower boundaries are better defined --- and I am not convinced they can be better defined --- fantastic accuracy in tracking pitches will not make roboumps the ultimate answer to "getting the call right." Barring a dramatic rewrite of the strike zone rule, any use of pitch tracking systems will always involve human judgment of the upper and lower boundaries.

Bobby Vee calling for the installation of computer umps on every ballfield across America so we don't ruin any more kid's lives, and Dave Valle telling us pro umpires are being fooled when F2's yank the ball into the zone......This is almost worse than watching/listening to campaigning politicians.

Bobby Valentine..."calling strike three on a kid destroys his life". PUULEASE

In fact, the player must step on the base (or tag the runner) to make the appeal -- the "argument" part isn't need if the appeal is obvious (the rule book uses the term "unmistakable')

Yeah, I still don't see how Farrell didn't. But they said the whole dugout was chirping, but seemed like he was the one doing it the most. 3B was a legitimate placement - he was at 2B when JBJ dove for it, so there's not much of a chance he can recover, get up, turn around and throw to 3B in time to keep J.D. Martinez from getting there. If it were Victor Martinez though, 2B wasn't a sure thing

Why? You didn't see the out before the run, so how can you not score the run? (and, I'd ask the same (well, opposite) question if you had answered differently.) Part of the problem with this is that OBR especially (and to some extent the other codes, and certainly in this situation) assume that the umpire will (almost) always use correct mechanics and be in a position to judge all the action -- something that didn't happen in the OP

Idk but I just paid big bucks for one. I hope it's not bent or a scammer. I've noticed a lot of them available too. One guy was in my hometown and refused to meet me to sell it directly. He's posted multiple masks. I think he's a scammer.

You see if you say the color from the OP you would have sell it faster than what you sold it.

I really think that with MLBAM and sites like brooksbaseball using pitchfx data to show it, we'll see improvements from plate umps. Shoot, I'd use it to analyze my zone if I had access to it.

That's because the umpire had good timing!

During High School summer ball I had R2 and R3 with a grounder to short. Shortstop got R2 in a rundown and ultimately tagged him after several throws for the 3rd out. R3 literally stood in the right handed batters box(before touching home) and watched the runner get tagged out. He then turned and touched home. The Head coach started to argue when I waved off the run, but the first base coach saw what happened and then both coaches started yelling at R3.

JV , I can see somewhat .......but you have to call that on a Varsity pitcher ..........

I think I have isolated the problem.

You have a two-part issue, seems to me: recruiting umpires and retaining them. What jumps out at me from your post is this: you lose umpires because of problem coaches and teams. Assign your Bruce Froemmings and Joe Wests, umpires willing to EJ, to the games with the hardnosed coaches and mouthy kids until they get the message. Keep your less-experienced umpires away from those games, so they don't get discouraged. Is there a consequence when a coach gets EJ'ed? If not, consider pulling umpires from that coach's next games.