So if I'm being honest, I find all of the ABS talk exasperating. I don't mind it in the games—kind of—but I do not give a shit about the strategy of it, about the stats of it, about the What It All Means of it.
It reminds me of how we're all supposed to care about the box office for movies now, as if that has a single thing to do with sitting in a seat and being entertained. "You gotta pay that catcher, he's really good at ABS challenges" is a sentence that's coming, and it makes me want to scream.
As for the games themselves, my objection is the same one Joe has voiced about watching the NFL: delayed reaction sucks the joy out of the game. Is it a catch? Is it a touchdown? Is it a walk? Is it a strikeout? Boy, I can't wait to find out in the near future, not in the moment when I saw it happen (or not). Overall is it better than seething about a bad call? I guess?
It is frankly ludicrous to use the challenge system in the first place. Why are umpires still calling balls & strikes when ABS can do it better, faster, and more accurately?
They will use ABS full-time eventually. The current ABS 2-challenge system is just the camel's nose in the tent. It'll come in 2027, or in 2028 if the 2027 season gets cancelled.
The idea of the players umpiring themselves is interesting. We could take that literally. Have the catcher call balls and strikes. If the batter challenges a strike call and he wins, he gets two balls, not one. Have baserunners call themselves safe or out. If they call themselves safe and it is challenged and overturned, an additional out seems excessive, but maybe assess an additional strike to the next hitter or the current hitter.
I will be very surprised if this doesn’t lead to two things: one, a rush of umps retiring because they don’t have public humiliation in their DNA and two, full ABS, maybe as soon as next season. Now that we know they’re just guessing (and I’ve suspected that for decades) there’s no reason to let it persist if a better means of adjudicating balls and strikes exists. And it does. No one is immune from being sidelined by progress even if you’re great at your job (I think we’re all feeling that with AI on the horizon), but if your ability is demonstrably not any better than a coin flip? You’re a dead man walking.
When is the Umpires CBA up? That seems to me to be the real question. How much longer can the rank and file union members plausibly fight for rights of seniority rather than skill when they are now so easily graded and the League office has a huge new piece of leverage over them with the threat of robo-umps in the event of a strike.
Two worse calls (at first base, no less!) that come to mind because of the gravity of the situations: Ron Gant/Kent Hrbek in the 1991 World Series and Armando Galarraga's perfect game. Also, the 2011 Braves-Pirates game that ended in the 19th inning despite the Braves' runner clearly being out at home
It wouldn’t surprise me if CB calls it a career soon if this continues, it must be painful to be in the spotlight for making such obvious mistakes. He seems to be a good person donating time and money to help youth baseball in his native Jamaica, maybe he will take his pension and expand on those efforts. I feel kinda sorry for him.
Fun Fact re umpiring in the 19th century: In the 1860s, Western gunfighter and U.S. Marshal "Wild Bill" Hickok famously umpired a baseball game in Kansas City while wearing his guns, which helped keep the peace.
So if I'm being honest, I find all of the ABS talk exasperating. I don't mind it in the games—kind of—but I do not give a shit about the strategy of it, about the stats of it, about the What It All Means of it.
It reminds me of how we're all supposed to care about the box office for movies now, as if that has a single thing to do with sitting in a seat and being entertained. "You gotta pay that catcher, he's really good at ABS challenges" is a sentence that's coming, and it makes me want to scream.
As for the games themselves, my objection is the same one Joe has voiced about watching the NFL: delayed reaction sucks the joy out of the game. Is it a catch? Is it a touchdown? Is it a walk? Is it a strikeout? Boy, I can't wait to find out in the near future, not in the moment when I saw it happen (or not). Overall is it better than seething about a bad call? I guess?
It is frankly ludicrous to use the challenge system in the first place. Why are umpires still calling balls & strikes when ABS can do it better, faster, and more accurately?
They will use ABS full-time eventually. The current ABS 2-challenge system is just the camel's nose in the tent. It'll come in 2027, or in 2028 if the 2027 season gets cancelled.
The idea of the players umpiring themselves is interesting. We could take that literally. Have the catcher call balls and strikes. If the batter challenges a strike call and he wins, he gets two balls, not one. Have baserunners call themselves safe or out. If they call themselves safe and it is challenged and overturned, an additional out seems excessive, but maybe assess an additional strike to the next hitter or the current hitter.
I will be very surprised if this doesn’t lead to two things: one, a rush of umps retiring because they don’t have public humiliation in their DNA and two, full ABS, maybe as soon as next season. Now that we know they’re just guessing (and I’ve suspected that for decades) there’s no reason to let it persist if a better means of adjudicating balls and strikes exists. And it does. No one is immune from being sidelined by progress even if you’re great at your job (I think we’re all feeling that with AI on the horizon), but if your ability is demonstrably not any better than a coin flip? You’re a dead man walking.
When is the Umpires CBA up? That seems to me to be the real question. How much longer can the rank and file union members plausibly fight for rights of seniority rather than skill when they are now so easily graded and the League office has a huge new piece of leverage over them with the threat of robo-umps in the event of a strike.
The current CBA expires after the end of the 2029 season.
Two worse calls (at first base, no less!) that come to mind because of the gravity of the situations: Ron Gant/Kent Hrbek in the 1991 World Series and Armando Galarraga's perfect game. Also, the 2011 Braves-Pirates game that ended in the 19th inning despite the Braves' runner clearly being out at home
I wonder if before radar guns police had their "own" speed limits that they would enforce. And how quickly that went away once technology came along.
It wouldn’t surprise me if CB calls it a career soon if this continues, it must be painful to be in the spotlight for making such obvious mistakes. He seems to be a good person donating time and money to help youth baseball in his native Jamaica, maybe he will take his pension and expand on those efforts. I feel kinda sorry for him.
The replay did not instantaneously reverse Bucknor. It should have but it took way longer than it needed.
I think it was because they were laughing in the replay booth.
Fun Fact re umpiring in the 19th century: In the 1860s, Western gunfighter and U.S. Marshal "Wild Bill" Hickok famously umpired a baseball game in Kansas City while wearing his guns, which helped keep the peace.
They have to break the union and get rid of these terrible guys
Maybe the bottom 4 as determined by ABS get sent down to AAA and replaced by the best 4 in the minors.