Technology has come a long way since the Fred Flintstone days. Yabba, dabba, dooo, baseball now has the technological advances to challenge just about anything — but MLB is still only using limited video challenges for now, and not using all of the technology that could be implemented.
Why not get the game right? With legalized sports gambling, there is a lot riding on the honor code with umpires. And don’t fans deserve as close as we can get to zero-defect umpiring to get the correct calls?
Last night in the Arizona Fall League, they debuted “check-swing” technology. Mind blown. This is fantastic that they have this type of technology now.
For the first time ever in a game setting, MLB is trying out check swing challenges at Salt River Fields today.
Mets outfield prospect Drew Gilbert just got a call overturned.
If they have that check-swing technology, certainly they can tell you if a groundball went over a base or a flyball over a foul pole. And lastly, calling balls and strikes properly has been perfected and still not being used in MLB games. Why not?
They have the technology to make almost every call right. Take the 4 B’s out of baseball by using technology:
Bias
Bad Umpiring
BS
Behavioral dishonesty aka cheating
BIAS
Some umpires have a bias in calling pitches differently based on the player’s level in the league. A player known to have a good eye at the plate might get a borderline call. Also, many times a certain team will get calls over another team. Other times it is that one manager who chirps a lot and gets his team favorable calls.
BAD UMPIRING
We have all seen the incompetent umpire who just misses pitches by a mile. You know, when Angel Hernandez called a fastball 6-inches off the plate as a strike.
BS
This is when the umpire decides to be a jerk. He decides to give an indoctrination to the hot new star like James Wood or Dylan Crews and calls clear balls as strikes to teach them who the boss is. Obviously there are other examples.
BEHAVIORAL DISHONESTY
This is the big one. This is the cheating ump. We’ve already seen the scandal in the NBA. Just because nobody has been caught does not mean it isn’t happening.
Cheating in baseball is nothing new, and it happens in every game. Yes, you read that correctly. You probably haven’t thought of framing pitches as cheating, but think about it, taking a ball that you know is out of the zone and jerk it back to deceive the umpire is cheating. Sure, it’s legal. This just degrades the integrity of the game.
Cheating in baseball can be illegal like taking prohibited performance enhancing drugs (PEDs), or sleazy like stealing signs, or using an unfair advantage like a corked bat or other equipment that goes against MLB rules. Someone once coined the adage “if you ain’t cheating you ain’t trying”.
Before instant replay, many times you could get away with a hit-by-a-pitch when it actually hit the bat knob. That act was performed to Hollywood standards by Derek Jeter once to be given first base on a gifted hit-by-pitch. We knew he had actor’s training on Seinfield, but that HBP acting was next level. Fortunately, that is a play that is reviewable now. But you know what isn’t reviewable? Whether a ball was fouled off the batter’s body. Why not?
There are other examples of common cheating. Pitchers used to regularly put pine tar or foreign substances on baseballs for extra spin rates, and now they do the umpire “foreign substance” checks. Still, there could be some pitchers that have found other ways around it, and just this year there were two suspensions for this infraction.
Then you have Lenny Dykstra, who has a checkered past, and Lenny appeared several years ago on the FOX Colin Cowherd show “The Herd” to talk about his book and had this to say:
“I said [to myself] ‘I need these umpires,’ so what do I do? I just pulled a half million bucks out and hired a private investigation team. [The umpires] blood is just as red as ours. Some of them like women, some of them like men, some of them gamble. Some of them do whatever … It wasn’t a coincidence do you think that I led the league in walks the next two years, was it? …Fear does a lot to a man.”
Dykstra claims he intimidated an ump with a gambling issue with just a common gambling term, “‘Hey, so did you cover last night?’”. Dykstra said, “[The ump] called a strike.” Dykstra then addressed the ump again, “‘Oh I don’t think you heard me. Did you cover the spread last night?’”
Dykstra then motions with his hands the shrinking strike zone. “I had to do what I had to do to win — and support my family”.
Dykstra led the league in walks and cut down significantly on strikeouts when his blackmail scheme allegedly started. He got the benefit of the doubt on close plays. Just more proof that life ain’t fair in baseball, and that’s easy to say even if Dykstra’s claims weren’t true.
You are taught in sports at an early age from your PE teacher in elementary school the rules of a particular game, and that everybody should play by the same rules. In baseball, there can be a different strike zone from one at-bat to the next, and it was generally accepted that was the way it was for well over 100 years, but now we have the technology to reinforce that everyone can play by the same rules in baseball.
With the advent of instant replay the field evened out for many bad calls on the bases like the “in the neighborhood” play for a double-play or the throw beat the runner to the base. Video replays have helped but more plays need to be subject to video replay, and maybe the one they will never get right consistently is the Trea Turner runner’s interference type of play.
This, and other reasons we mentioned is why so many pundits have called for the “Robo-ump” and certainly you can use an electronic system to get it 100 percent right. Keep “blue” but have the stop light colors flash the correct ball and strike call which is instantaneous. Get it right.
Let’s examine 2 common batter’s counts in FanGraphs stats and see how pitch #3 in a 1-1 count changes outcomes: In the 2-1 count you have a .873 OPS or the opposite count in a 1-2 you have a .423 OPS on average. That’s a difference of 450 points hinged to 1 pitch! Ask Ben Revere in that finale last week in the ALCS about blown ball/strike calls.
Watch the entire video:
What would happen in 10 years if we found out the ump in that postseason game was being dishonest in calls that turned a series? We aren’t insinuating dishonesty in this situation, but just look at how Navarro and Revere were both set-up for failure in the Game 6 vs the Royals ALCS finale last week in the 9th inning with poor strike calls with a runner on 3rd and 2nd in a 1 run game! Homeplate ump Jeff Nelson blew it at the most critical time. What if, what if!
