Recently, The Athletic had a Q&A with Rob Manfred, M.L.B.’s Commissioner, on the Future of Baseball that was published in the New York Times on April 6. The link is gifted and so it is not paywalled. I would encourage you to consider reading it. He addressed a wide range of topics including expansion, the ABS, the future of streaming, pace of play and more.
What really jumped out to me were his answers to multiple questions about Automated Balls and Strikes (ABS).
Baseball tried out robot umpires during spring training, in which players could question whether an umpire correctly called a ball or strike. How long until we will see this in the regular season?
Rob Manfred
“I think that the experiment was really successful. I think the owners made a good choice by going with the challenge system first, and I hope that we bring it to the big leagues in short order. It won’t be in 2025. It’d be in 2026. Here’s why I’m uncertain: We could go to the M.L.B.P.A. and say we want to go in 2026. Given that’s a bargaining year, it would not be shocking for them to say: ‘Let’s deal with this in bargaining. Let’s wait.’”
Personally, I hope we see it in 2026. I hope the MLBPA does not push back.
I have to admit I was surprised by his answer to the view of the umpires.
How do umpires feel? What did they tell you?
Rob Manfred
“We obviously had to make an agreement with them to use it, and we made the agreement. I will say this: I think that they were more receptive to using it on every pitch, because nobody knows what he would have called. The problem with the challenge system is it points out when you’re wrong. And I think nobody likes to be shown, in front of 48,000 people, they just missed the pitch”.
So what you’re saying is that the umpires were more in favor of having it on every pitch and they would no longer be calling balls and strikes and a robot would be doing it?
“I think we have the right to do that on every pitch”.
In hindsight, this makes sense if the ABS was used on every pitch and showed that they were quite good at calls for balls and strikes, that provides a more positive view of the umpires ability to do their job. That is contrasted with ABS where the reported error rate (roughly 50% so far) is much higher.
Really? So you’re saying the umpires would go along with that. Why wouldn’t you do that?
Rob Manfred
“The players. We’ve still got to deal with the players. They prefer the challenge system because it’s a smaller change and they generally prefer smaller changes. And there is an argument about how it affects the kind of players in the game. The argument that they make is if you have an automated strike zone, the framing catcher, he goes away. It’s like a lost art. It’s not necessary anymore. That ripples through the game in a way that changes who has what job, so framing isn’t important anymore, and maybe you get a more offensive-minded catcher as opposed to the framing guy, and the framing guy loses his job”.
The idea that eliminating framing is something that the players don’t want, makes no sense to me. Bottom line IMO is that framing is simply cheating. Period. Case closed. And the MLBPA logic that it costs jobs is silly. For every catcher who loses his job, another catcher gets one. In addition, keeping framing benefits two of the 9 guys on the field: the catcher and the pitcher on defense; getting rid of it benefits all 9 batters. The MLBPA position simply makes no sense.
Shortly after the Manfred interview was published an MLBTR article, Poll: Automated Ball-Strike System In MLB was published. The gave an alternative explanation for why there is reluctance to a full ABS system.
“What any individual thinks of as the strike zone is unlikely to be perfectly identical to the zone used in ABS, and that’s supported by the fact that nearly half of challenges made to umpire calls wound up being incorrect. That suggests players aren’t always more in tune with what the true strike zone looks like than umpires are, and a move to fully automated ball-strike calls could be a jarring adjustment for both pitchers and hitters as they adapt to a more accurate but wildly unfamiliar strike zone”.
MLBTradeRumors.com
Frankly, that sounds like an excuse to me. YMMV. Change happens; players need to deal with it. And the idea that attributes half the challenges were incorrect is due to a different interpretation of the strike zone makes no sense to me. There could be lots of reason for challenges being incorrect. Regardless, as of just before the third game against the Dodgers, these were the poll results. As someone with a background in analytics and polling I have to say I am not a fan of the second question. Seems to me that it would be more entertaining if the umpire made the call and the scoreboard flashed a message as to whether it agreed, disagreed, or couldn’t decide. That would educate the umpires, the players and the fans.
Moving on from ABS, Manfred expressed that the disparity between small and large market teams is a problem that has to be addressed.
I want to make sure I get it right. You’re saying that this is a massive problem you need to address?
Rob Manfred
“One hundred percent. Look, think about it this way. We sell entertainment that’s based on competition. If people don’t believe there’s competition, you’ve got a product problem, an existential problem for your business”.
IMO he is dead on right about this. Whether he can convince enough owners that this is an urgent issue is challenging..
The interview covers quite a few other topics which are simply listed here. Please use the link above to review them. I’ve added a brief summary of my take in italics.
- Expanding internally and incorporating broadcast and streaming as part of that. Manfred hopes every fan will have the ability to see most/all of his/her team’s games.
Manfred’s plan to include international games in this seems like a good idea and might facilitate getting buy-in from multiple parties.- He hopes to have the cities selected for expansion before he retires in 2029.
Not really a fan of expansion given that it dilutes the talent. But the idea of 32 teams with 8 teams in each league making the post-season and eliminating byes is something I could buy into (pun intended).- Getting players to the majors sooner and giving them more exposure in the time between the draft and their first game. He commented that is something the NFL and NBA are able to do that and baseball needs to improve in that area.
I understand the rationale, but I am not sure how viable it is. A really off-the-wall idea is to add a level between AAA and MLB and have the players play in each city’s home stadium while the MLB team in on the road. Yea, not viable as I have suggested it. But maybe provides some food for thought.- Pitcher injuries and he points out that it has to start in little league. By the time pitchers get to MLB much of the damage has already been done.
As Manfred says, this is a real challenge. Seems like MLB needs to re-invent the whole approach to pitching.- More action on the offensive side. More stolen bases; less strikeouts; showing the athleticism of the athletes on both sides of the ball ; and more. There were numerous questions along these lines.
I sincerely hope that MLB figures this out. It is simply a fact that today’s gane us HR (and thus, K) dominated. When you look at the NFL, NBA and NHL what do they have in common? Lots of motion and activity on the field, court, ice. MLB need to match that. Maybe we need more players like Alex Call and Jacob Young and fewer HR/K players.
Please review the interview for yourself. The link is repeated here for your convenience. A Q&A With Rob Manfred, M.L.B.’s Commissioner, on the Future of Baseball.
