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.