Which brings us to the next point - Who or what verifies the ABS is setup correctly for each game? After all, even a slight difference in setup can make a difference in the call. Then there's the Inadvertent issue - machine goes down due to power, glitchy software update(s), the location is off etc. Or the dark side - tampering for the home team's pitching....
ABS is currently two dimensional, and would have done nothing for either pitch represented above. or indeed for any late breaking low pitch inside the strike zone.
If there was actual 3D ABS that worked, then there is every chance the pitch to Soto was actually a strike. (Less so on the Perdomo pitch, but still possible, though probably not) It started out above the bottom of the strike zone and was caught below it. The dots you show represent the where it hit the catcher's glove. It doesn't show the height of the pitch when it hits the front portion of the plate instead of a couple of feet later when it hits the mitt.
At the front of the plate, both pitches were a bit too close to watch them go by with two strikes. But they treat strike 3 like any other in baseball now, with no change in approach. Unless and until they have 3D ABS that works everywhere, expect pitchers to keep throwing 2 strike pitches like this, and expect them to get some of the calls.
You are incorrect. The dots show the location of the pitch at the midpoint between the front of the plate and the back of the plate, not where the ball hit the catcher's glove. MLB has been explicit in that the graphics show the fixed position of the ball when it is exactly 8.5 inches from the front edge of the plate. It would defy physics for a ball to be below the strike zone at the midpoint between front and back of home plate and suddenly rise into the strike zone before passing the back of the plate. Those were egregious errors on the part of the umpire, period. Your explanation is not factual.
In another moment of umpire humanity, we didn’t need, how about a marginal check swing call that ended an NLDS playoff series in a winner-Take all game 5 between one of the top three longest and bitterest rivalries in baseball. That’s what happened to Wilmer Flores and the Giants Against the Dodgers in 2021, for a 2-1 Dodgers win, same score as the US vs Dominican Republic. Read the room for godsake’s!!
Joe, I’m a big fan and subscriber. But “unsatisfying” is an UNFair way to label the game. It was a great game loaded with talent and big, exciting and skillful plays. Yes, maybe the strikes were called unfairly. I can show evidence of poor calls in every sort and most games. Maybe Chess is an exception
I’m savoring the game and would have regardless of the winner.
Joe, because you are a baseball historian, I thought you'd like this little tidbit. My great Uncle Seaver Rice, who was born in 1890, began attending games in the old Polo Ground around 1905 and then the Huntington Avenue Baseball Ground in Boston, pre-Fenway Park or Braves Field. When I asked him what kind of things fans would shout out to umpires on bad calls, he recalled: "Two that I remember: 'Hey Ump! If you had one more eye, you'd be Cyclops!" and "Hey Ump, I've seen better eyes on a potato!"
Let's not conflate ball-strike calls with ridiculous came off the bag calls. The easy solution for those is once the player touches the bag the play is over, unless the runner slides past or voluntarily comes off the bag.
Also, looking at that chart of the Soto at bat looks like a lot of them he had with the Padres. Going down looking when the team needs a hit. Yep, he knows the strike zone. That is cold comfort when you are walking back to the dugout. I was not sad when the Padres traded him.
The amount of comments saying essentially, “if we have robo-umps, what will we argue about?” is interesting… have you met humans? I think we will still find a way to argue…
We will argue about whether that was the right pitch to throw, the right time to test the right fielders arm, the right time to remove the starter, the right acquisition at the deadline. Arguing about an obvious missed call isn’t really arguing - it’s obstinance in the face of clear evidence.
Should baseball strive for statistical perfection in all facets of the game, not just the ball/strike count, but all plays and possible violations? As AI advances, almost minute by minute, it may be possible. Plays at the bases. In or out of the base path calls. First and third base coaches, in or out of the box. The amount of pine tar on a bat? Let the machine surveil the game and make the calls automatically. Homer of foul?
You'll have perfection. And no one will even argue calls. And what will you lose? Earl Weaver erupting in a 20 kiloton blast. Billy Martin in 5 megaton blast. And George Brett in the mother of all explosions.
One of the great things about baseball is that in an era of horrible consequences, baseball offers the opportunity to argue almost endlessly over things that are utterly trivial. Do we really want to lose that diversion?
Also think of the great stories sportswriters would lose.
Yeah, the game should strive for perfection. But the end results of perfection may in fact be imperfect.
I agree 1,000%, Joe. Part of "being human" is that we, as humans, have developed reliable technology that will more fully mete out justice. For a pretty entertaining MLB Network pitch-by-pitch breakdown of the at bat:
Agreed on everything said here, with one tweak at the end: this was an advertisement for the ABS SYSTEM (no "challenge"). I get that MLB feels they have to slowly introduce this change in, but I for one cannot wait until we get rid of the "two challenges per game" nonsense and just have every ball and strike done automatically.
Yeah, an even better brouhaha comes when ABS comes to the WBC, and the 2029 Perdomo strike equivalent can’t be corrected, because two earlier challenges were not upheld. Will it be the failed challengers fault? More than the umpires? Tune in again tomorrow!
Curious if we all would have freaked out as much on the last call WITHOUT the strike zone box being overlaid--i know I would have at least thought it was a little low, but now it just seems so much more egregious with the box right there. What does everyone else think?
It must be harder to be a home plate umpire now than ever.
Pitchers are doing more impossible things every year with velocity, arm angles, and movement. The best hitters in the world—in their athletic prime and spending countless hours watching film and practicing—struggle to pick up pitches.
Many umpires are not of ages where they are at their peak in terms of vision and stamina. And I would imagine that—like the rest of us humans staring at screens all day—they may find it quite hard to maintain the kind of sustained focus needed to call games. (Remember, the home plate umpire is the only person who needs to be 100% dialed in on every single pitch.) Then you layer on the pressure of doing that when everyone but the umpires have instant access to what the "correct" call was.
I can't imagine how hard that job is now.
The reason I'm typing all this out isn't to give umpires a pass, but because I think this is part of where the "we've always had human umpires and it's more or less been fine, so why take out the human element now?" argument starts to break down. For the reasons I mentioned (and more), calling balls and strikes in 2026 is VERY different from what it was in 1995 or 1968 or 1938.
ABS will be full-time in the future. And younger fans will be baffled by the idea that people were actually defending a less accurate system.
I’m baffled today. If MLB was using high school-level umpires, and we knew that major league-level umpires existed, wouldn’t we want the MLB-level umps doing MLB games?
Why put a cap on accuracy?
Just use the best system available to get the calls right, and let the players decide the games. As God intended.
All the more reason why umpires should be given the benefit of technology.
When a pitch hits the zone, the home plate ump should hear a signal in their earpiece so they then can make the correct call.
The ump would still be calling the pitch, in case the audio system breaks down or clearly malfunctions. But they would be helped by the technology that already exists, and that everyone else watching the game around the world can use to immediately know the correct call.
There is an unfortunate unintended consequence to video replay, it takes the rule interpretation into the world of the weenies and dorks. Balls and strikes are actually not a big deal, but in every other sport a freeze frame replay just moves the argument from "what is the right call" to "how does the rule work" and for me we are now worse off.
NFL: What is a catch
NBA: What is a charge
EPL: What is a handball
Probably nobody over here saw it, but over the weekend a controversial TMO (television match official) call in the Rugby Six Nations cost Ireland the championship (France won). The error only occurred because TMO existed. I see this happening again and again. Lets make like the DR and live with the human error.
What is a catch and what is a charge are not issues because of replay, unless you are arguiing that by virtue of not having replay what they were was a moot point.
it was never a question before replay, in that the nearest official made a ruling and that was the end of it. Looked like a catch - it was a catch. Now that you can go frame by frame, I need to develop a definition, and nobody can agree what a catch was. Ask Bills fans!
Part of my lament is the loss of the "pick up game" element. When you introduce replay, calls that would be obvious in a pickup game are now changed.
I mean, football has had replay since before I started watching the game, though without challenges. I think the larger issue in regards to this is that they decided to change their definition of a catch. Now, what was a catch before is no longer considered a catch, and I think that's a bit silly.
However, in baseball, balls and strikes were always well defined- they just werent called well.
Specific type of weenie. The referee weenie. NBA and BPL have these people who want to say "but actually, by the official letter of the rulebook, what everybody thought was a good tackle is actually a foul". Drives me crazy.
Oh, don't kid yourself. If they ever come out with full 3D ABS, people will look at a dot on their computer (like Joe above) or an imperfect box put up by a network on a screen and shot by an off center camera 400+ feet away and argue that the ABS system was wrong.
Lou is just giving his Jack Webb (aka Joe Friday) answer. BTW, looking back on some of the Dragnet scenes... How come Harry Morgan had such huge bags under his eyes in Dragnet, yet, in MASH - he does not?
It's so good to see you get riled up about something - Joe! Those long winter semi-nostalgic topics you wrote for us... But this one - Back to the here and now! In the Present!
Which brings us to the next point - Who or what verifies the ABS is setup correctly for each game? After all, even a slight difference in setup can make a difference in the call. Then there's the Inadvertent issue - machine goes down due to power, glitchy software update(s), the location is off etc. Or the dark side - tampering for the home team's pitching....
ABS is currently two dimensional, and would have done nothing for either pitch represented above. or indeed for any late breaking low pitch inside the strike zone.
If there was actual 3D ABS that worked, then there is every chance the pitch to Soto was actually a strike. (Less so on the Perdomo pitch, but still possible, though probably not) It started out above the bottom of the strike zone and was caught below it. The dots you show represent the where it hit the catcher's glove. It doesn't show the height of the pitch when it hits the front portion of the plate instead of a couple of feet later when it hits the mitt.
At the front of the plate, both pitches were a bit too close to watch them go by with two strikes. But they treat strike 3 like any other in baseball now, with no change in approach. Unless and until they have 3D ABS that works everywhere, expect pitchers to keep throwing 2 strike pitches like this, and expect them to get some of the calls.
You are incorrect. The dots show the location of the pitch at the midpoint between the front of the plate and the back of the plate, not where the ball hit the catcher's glove. MLB has been explicit in that the graphics show the fixed position of the ball when it is exactly 8.5 inches from the front edge of the plate. It would defy physics for a ball to be below the strike zone at the midpoint between front and back of home plate and suddenly rise into the strike zone before passing the back of the plate. Those were egregious errors on the part of the umpire, period. Your explanation is not factual.
In another moment of umpire humanity, we didn’t need, how about a marginal check swing call that ended an NLDS playoff series in a winner-Take all game 5 between one of the top three longest and bitterest rivalries in baseball. That’s what happened to Wilmer Flores and the Giants Against the Dodgers in 2021, for a 2-1 Dodgers win, same score as the US vs Dominican Republic. Read the room for godsake’s!!
Joe, I’m a big fan and subscriber. But “unsatisfying” is an UNFair way to label the game. It was a great game loaded with talent and big, exciting and skillful plays. Yes, maybe the strikes were called unfairly. I can show evidence of poor calls in every sort and most games. Maybe Chess is an exception
I’m savoring the game and would have regardless of the winner.
I think it’s actually an advertisement for getting rid of the ABS challenge system, and just getting all the calls right.
Joe, because you are a baseball historian, I thought you'd like this little tidbit. My great Uncle Seaver Rice, who was born in 1890, began attending games in the old Polo Ground around 1905 and then the Huntington Avenue Baseball Ground in Boston, pre-Fenway Park or Braves Field. When I asked him what kind of things fans would shout out to umpires on bad calls, he recalled: "Two that I remember: 'Hey Ump! If you had one more eye, you'd be Cyclops!" and "Hey Ump, I've seen better eyes on a potato!"
Let's not conflate ball-strike calls with ridiculous came off the bag calls. The easy solution for those is once the player touches the bag the play is over, unless the runner slides past or voluntarily comes off the bag.
Also, looking at that chart of the Soto at bat looks like a lot of them he had with the Padres. Going down looking when the team needs a hit. Yep, he knows the strike zone. That is cold comfort when you are walking back to the dugout. I was not sad when the Padres traded him.
The amount of comments saying essentially, “if we have robo-umps, what will we argue about?” is interesting… have you met humans? I think we will still find a way to argue…
We will argue about whether that was the right pitch to throw, the right time to test the right fielders arm, the right time to remove the starter, the right acquisition at the deadline. Arguing about an obvious missed call isn’t really arguing - it’s obstinance in the face of clear evidence.
Alas .... the machines have won!
Should baseball strive for statistical perfection in all facets of the game, not just the ball/strike count, but all plays and possible violations? As AI advances, almost minute by minute, it may be possible. Plays at the bases. In or out of the base path calls. First and third base coaches, in or out of the box. The amount of pine tar on a bat? Let the machine surveil the game and make the calls automatically. Homer of foul?
You'll have perfection. And no one will even argue calls. And what will you lose? Earl Weaver erupting in a 20 kiloton blast. Billy Martin in 5 megaton blast. And George Brett in the mother of all explosions.
One of the great things about baseball is that in an era of horrible consequences, baseball offers the opportunity to argue almost endlessly over things that are utterly trivial. Do we really want to lose that diversion?
Also think of the great stories sportswriters would lose.
Yeah, the game should strive for perfection. But the end results of perfection may in fact be imperfect.
I agree 1,000%, Joe. Part of "being human" is that we, as humans, have developed reliable technology that will more fully mete out justice. For a pretty entertaining MLB Network pitch-by-pitch breakdown of the at bat:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDbzuh-eWFw
Agreed on everything said here, with one tweak at the end: this was an advertisement for the ABS SYSTEM (no "challenge"). I get that MLB feels they have to slowly introduce this change in, but I for one cannot wait until we get rid of the "two challenges per game" nonsense and just have every ball and strike done automatically.
Yeah, an even better brouhaha comes when ABS comes to the WBC, and the 2029 Perdomo strike equivalent can’t be corrected, because two earlier challenges were not upheld. Will it be the failed challengers fault? More than the umpires? Tune in again tomorrow!
Curious if we all would have freaked out as much on the last call WITHOUT the strike zone box being overlaid--i know I would have at least thought it was a little low, but now it just seems so much more egregious with the box right there. What does everyone else think?
It must be harder to be a home plate umpire now than ever.
Pitchers are doing more impossible things every year with velocity, arm angles, and movement. The best hitters in the world—in their athletic prime and spending countless hours watching film and practicing—struggle to pick up pitches.
Many umpires are not of ages where they are at their peak in terms of vision and stamina. And I would imagine that—like the rest of us humans staring at screens all day—they may find it quite hard to maintain the kind of sustained focus needed to call games. (Remember, the home plate umpire is the only person who needs to be 100% dialed in on every single pitch.) Then you layer on the pressure of doing that when everyone but the umpires have instant access to what the "correct" call was.
I can't imagine how hard that job is now.
The reason I'm typing all this out isn't to give umpires a pass, but because I think this is part of where the "we've always had human umpires and it's more or less been fine, so why take out the human element now?" argument starts to break down. For the reasons I mentioned (and more), calling balls and strikes in 2026 is VERY different from what it was in 1995 or 1968 or 1938.
ABS will be full-time in the future. And younger fans will be baffled by the idea that people were actually defending a less accurate system.
I’m baffled today. If MLB was using high school-level umpires, and we knew that major league-level umpires existed, wouldn’t we want the MLB-level umps doing MLB games?
Why put a cap on accuracy?
Just use the best system available to get the calls right, and let the players decide the games. As God intended.
Again, ABS is 2D and would not have helped with either pitch.
You misunderstand how Hawkeye works - it measures the ball's location when it is at the midpoint between the front and back of home plate.
All the more reason why umpires should be given the benefit of technology.
When a pitch hits the zone, the home plate ump should hear a signal in their earpiece so they then can make the correct call.
The ump would still be calling the pitch, in case the audio system breaks down or clearly malfunctions. But they would be helped by the technology that already exists, and that everyone else watching the game around the world can use to immediately know the correct call.
Agree 100%. Modern umpires are EXCELLENT. But modern pitchers have made the job of a home plate umpire next to impossible.
There is an unfortunate unintended consequence to video replay, it takes the rule interpretation into the world of the weenies and dorks. Balls and strikes are actually not a big deal, but in every other sport a freeze frame replay just moves the argument from "what is the right call" to "how does the rule work" and for me we are now worse off.
NFL: What is a catch
NBA: What is a charge
EPL: What is a handball
Probably nobody over here saw it, but over the weekend a controversial TMO (television match official) call in the Rugby Six Nations cost Ireland the championship (France won). The error only occurred because TMO existed. I see this happening again and again. Lets make like the DR and live with the human error.
What is a catch and what is a charge are not issues because of replay, unless you are arguiing that by virtue of not having replay what they were was a moot point.
it was never a question before replay, in that the nearest official made a ruling and that was the end of it. Looked like a catch - it was a catch. Now that you can go frame by frame, I need to develop a definition, and nobody can agree what a catch was. Ask Bills fans!
Part of my lament is the loss of the "pick up game" element. When you introduce replay, calls that would be obvious in a pickup game are now changed.
I mean, football has had replay since before I started watching the game, though without challenges. I think the larger issue in regards to this is that they decided to change their definition of a catch. Now, what was a catch before is no longer considered a catch, and I think that's a bit silly.
However, in baseball, balls and strikes were always well defined- they just werent called well.
Balls and strikes are actually a HUGE deal.
I meant that a computer vision system can be correct with balls and strikes with no introduction of rules confusion. yes they are a very big deal.
So i understand correctly... Weenies & Dorks? What's the definition of each? I fear to be a Weenie or a Dork!
Specific type of weenie. The referee weenie. NBA and BPL have these people who want to say "but actually, by the official letter of the rulebook, what everybody thought was a good tackle is actually a foul". Drives me crazy.
We won’t be able to boo the umpire and argue with friends or fans of the opposing teams about iffy calls.
Why bother going to the stadium when you can just sit on your comfy couch at home with no interaction or controversy.
Why even bother to watch a boring cut and dried game?
That’s the humanity.
Oh, don't kid yourself. If they ever come out with full 3D ABS, people will look at a dot on their computer (like Joe above) or an imperfect box put up by a network on a screen and shot by an off center camera 400+ feet away and argue that the ABS system was wrong.
That's just what people do.
That’s probably true
To Boo or Not to Boo... is that the question?
Yes but that question’s been answered. Just sit there and watch politely.
Lou is just giving his Jack Webb (aka Joe Friday) answer. BTW, looking back on some of the Dragnet scenes... How come Harry Morgan had such huge bags under his eyes in Dragnet, yet, in MASH - he does not?
That is a great question!
Maybe they wanted him to look haggard and jaded.
They look like olden Lenny & Squiggy type guys on some of the photos....
You are a fan of arguing, a fan of booing, a fan of interaction and fan of controversy.
You are not a *baseball* fan. A baseball fan could never conceive of such a question. It's OK, not everyone is a baseball fan.
What a crock.
Of course I’m a baseball fan.
Been one for 55+ years.
Still keep score at the games like my dad taught me.
I honestly couldn't tell if the comment you're responding to is being facetious or not.
I still can't tell.
He can be slick like that ...
It's so good to see you get riled up about something - Joe! Those long winter semi-nostalgic topics you wrote for us... But this one - Back to the here and now! In the Present!