Since its inception a decade ago, K Zone has won over many, but many still remain against an official role in pitch calling.
Is It Time For Professional Baseball To Adopt Robot Umpires?
by Peter Murray October 20th, 2011
It’s one of the important questions facing American society today. On the one side are the liberal-minded who want more regulation; on the other side, conservatives who despise any proposals put on the table.
I’m speaking, of course, about the debate of whether or not technology should be used to call balls and strikes in baseball.
This same question was posed recently on Slashdot with an invitation for readers to comment – and comment they did, 141 times. The original question entertained the use of “robot umpires” to “either replace or enhance the human umps’ work on the field.” And it considered how to go about developing technologies such as “touch-sensitive bases/foul lines, etc.” rather than simply calling balls and strikes. But I’m going to limit our own peregrination on this topic to the strike zone simply because the technology’s already here to potentially improve this central part of the game.
And yet we’re not using it.
Not surprisingly the Slashdot discussion centered mostly on the question of the strike zone. Is there really a need for an upgrade at the umpire position? If so, would the current “robot umpires” do a better job than their human counterparts? I’ll get to the comments, but first let’s take a look at what the human umps are up against.
Realtime position of the baseball is determined by triangulating with three different cameras.
Except for one drawback. No, it’s not K Zone’s inflexibility as many dissenters argue. According to Jed Drake who invented K Zone for ESPN, the vertical range of the strike zone recalibrates to the height of each batter (between a batter’s knees and the lettering on his shirt). The system, however, can only detect strikes if the ball passes through the strike zone at the front of home plate. Curve balls that bend around the front plane of the plate but nevertheless pass over the rear portion of the plate – so-called “backdoor breaking balls” – will erroneously be judged balls.
Realtime position of the baseball is determined by triangulating with three different cameras.
Regardless, if you’re the type of person who values a correct call above all else, the improved accuracy of an unbiased and all-seeing K Zone plus PITCHf/x system would outweigh the occasional missed backdoor strike.
And by and large, this seems to be exactly the type of person who posts comments on Slashdot.
“Umpires should still call out/safe calls, but ball/strike should have been given to a computer long ago, especially seeing what an inconsistent job the umps do at it.”
“(I am a former little league umpire) – I’d be all for having a sensor based ball/strike call. Nothing more annoying than having 1/2 the fans yelling strike and 1/2 yelling ball…over a game for 9yr olds.”
“Give the umpire behind the plate some sort of augmented reality HUD headset that shows the strike zone and highlights the ball as it comes over the plate.”
One reader who claimed to have attended a professional umpiring school was all for using a HUD that is “able to track the ball and allow the umpire to replay what he [just] saw….”
These comments sum up the overall sentiment of Slashdot readers. You have to scroll down a ways before seeing a comment against robot umpires. Eloquently stated, “…replacing any part of the umpire’s job brings an unbalancing mechanical aspect to this most human of games. I would rather the umpire made the occasional mistake, and keep the game human.”
But just how “human” is the game of baseball? Baseball stats cruncher Jonathan Hale took a look at the consistency – or inconsistency I should say – of pitch calling by MLB umpires. According to Mike Port, vice president of MLB umpiring, they call balls and strikes correctly 95 percent of the time. What about that dubious 5 percent? Using K Zone to conduct his analysis, Hale showed that home plate umpires are biased: some umpires have smaller strike zones than others. But everyone knows that. It’s to be expected, they are, after all….
What’s interesting, though, is the systematic biases that emerge when averaged across the entire league. Turns out that, on average, strike calling is less consistent for strikes called on the left side of the plate (from the catcher’s point of view) compared to the right side. Hale suggests this is due to umpire positioning when left-handed batters are up. Because almost all catchers are right-handed, it’s more difficult to see the catcher’s glove receive balls on the opposite side of the plate, which is the left side.
The vertical strike zone suffers even more from umpire inconsistency, as it is much more difficult to gauge the height of the ball compared to discerning whether or not it crossed over the plate surface.
Individually, however, it’s anybody’s guess. Hale writes, “Umpires don’t just have big or small zones, they have very specific preferences for the four edges of the strike zone and are rarely simply ‘big’ or ‘small.’ Often an ump expands the zone one way but plays it by the book in the other directions.”
Former hurler Roger Clemens used to study the umpires intensely, making copious notes on their calling tendencies. I can’t say if he was rewarded for his fastidious approach to pitching, but he was the best pitcher in the American League seven times and he’s a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame – er…oh…well…the whole steroids thing. Sheesh.
In any case, speaking for myself as an avid baseball fan, I’m with Slashdot commenter number four. I think replacing umpires with K-Zones – no matter how accurate – would be travesty. Part of the game’s beauty is watching a pitcher try to take advantage of an umpire who’s giving him the low, outside corner, and watching the batters adjust in turn. And not to mention, we’ll hear a lot less of the “ooooooooohs” in the bottom of the ninth, with two outs and two strikes, and the pitch looked so good.
But, somehow, just missed.
Relegating ball and strike calling to a machine would, as is oft said, remove part of the game’s human element. It would make the game simpler, like playing a game of chess with one less piece. At the risk of sounding traditionalist and – God forbid for a SingularityHub writer – anti-technology, I say keep the robots away.