Are You Ready for Robots to Call Balls and Strikes?

No high-tech cheating

What’s more, a challenge must be made immediately after an umpire’s call or the resolution of an intermittent play, such as a stolen base attempt or appeal of a check swing.  

The idea is to prevent a team from peeking at instant replay before determining whether to challenge.  

In fact, the manager, coaches and other players in the dugout or on the field are prohibited from encouraging a challenge; if they do, umpires can deny it. 

Nor can there be ABS challenges following replay reviews. 

Where do the base runners go?

 If an incorrect ball or strike call “had no effect on subsequent behavior,” any other calls will stand. The rules state that runners will be awarded the “last base legally touched at the time of the challenge,” which leaves it to the discretion of the umpires. 

What’s a strike, anyway?

 The MLB strike zone has never actually been cut-and-dried.

Some umpires have had a reputation of being a pitcher’s ump or a batter’s ump, with some tending to call high strikes, and others, low ones. The height of the batter also comes into play. 

“The strike zone was probably the hardest question we had to answer when testing the system,” says MLB’s vice president of on-field strategy, Joe Martinez, a former major league pitcher himself. 

To produce an ABS strike zone that the league maintains is “generally acceptable to players,” someone must have boned up on geometry. Picture a 2-D rectangle that’s 17 inches wide. The top and bottom of the strike zone will vary based on how tall the batter is, with the league actually measuring and certifying all the players for their standing (not crouching) height during spring training. If any part of a baseball touches an area within the 17 inches and is somewhere between 53.5 percent of the batter’s height at the top and 27 percent at the bottom, it will be considered a strike. Outside that range is a ball.  

The ABS zone is actually a little bit smaller than what umpires have been using to determine strike calls. As a result, the league expects the new zone to slightly reduce the strikeout rate and increase the walk rate. 

How might challenges impact strategy?  

The system has been tested in the minor leagues, as well as last season’s All-Star Game and spring training. During tests, there have been about four challenges per game and a 50 percent overturn rate.  

It remains to be seen what kind of game strategy emerges during the season—that is, might players request challenges only in high-leverage moments late in a close game, which appears to have been borne out during the tests?  

By choosing a challenge system instead of allowing every pitch in a game to be second-guessed, “players and teams will have to use these in a way that they get the most value out of them,” Martinez says. 

While the goal is to ultimately correct erroneous calls, critics have argued that the use of instant replay in all sports has slowed down the games and fundamentally altered the fan experience, not always for the better. Besides, arguing with the ump is, for some fans, anyway, part of baseball’s charm. 

If you’re wondering about how ABS impacts the length of a ballgame, the league reports that the test challenges have added about a minute. 

“It’s actually a tribute to human umpires that baseball is not charging right into a system in which robots call every pitch,” wrote MLB senior writer Jayson Stark in The Athletic. “So in theory, umps can still control the pace of a game and call strikes the way humans see them.”

But Stark added that “in real life, if the experience in Triple A (minor leagues) tells us anything, those umpires are going to quickly get tired of having challenged calls overturned. So how can they avoid that? By calling balls and strikes the way they think the robots would call them.”

When the league posted a QR code on a jumbotron and solicited fan feedback during a spring training game last year, 52 percent of those who responded indicated that the impact of ABS technology on their experience was “very positive,” and 20 percent, “somewhat positive."

In a routine he posted on his Facebook page, comedian Steve Hofstetter quipped, “I don’t understand why anyone is against the idea of a robot umpire. It’s like, ‘Well, it would take the human element out of the game.’ I’d be like, ‘You mean the mistakes?’ “

How accurate is the technology? 

The system runs on a 5G private network provided by T-Mobile and incorporates a dozen Hawk-Eye-branded cameras placed around the perimeter of each ballpark. 

ABS error rates have been very low during testing. Out of more than 88,500 total pitches in spring training, only four pitches were “untracked,” the league reports. Barring technical glitches, if you’re sitting in the ballpark, an animated graphic showing the outcome of a challenge will appear on the scoreboard, the same if you’re watching on TV.  

If there is a snag, the umpire will announce the results of the challenge. If the system fails during a game, an ump’s call on the field will remain in effect. 

Those watching from home won’t see a broadcast feed with a live strike zone box; any visuals with such a box will be delayed by at least nine seconds. 

The era of robot umps is not likely to end with ABS. Major League Baseball is experimenting with a high-tech system progressing through the minor leagues to determine whether a batter has swung or checked his swing. 

Play (robot) ball!