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MLB Pseudo-Season 2020: Roger, Dodgers

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BillJ said:
I think part of it is that it gives us something to talk about. Taking umpires pretty much out of the game will kill a lot of great conversations.
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Yeah, that's fair, and of course it's fun to bitch about Cowboy Joe or Ted Barrett. But there was a study published this past spring that said, for example, Cowboy Joe averaged 21 blown calls per game in 2018. If there's a way to reduce or mitigate that, it should be explored. It's just that the tech needs more time in the oven.
 
Timby said:
Yeah, that's fair, and of course it's fun to bitch about Cowboy Joe or Ted Barrett. But there was a study published this past spring that said, for example, Cowboy Joe averaged 21 blown calls per game in 2018. If there's a way to reduce or mitigate that, it should be explored. It's just that the tech needs more time in the oven.
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There needs to be more accountability, but I don't think taking the human element completely out of it is the way to go. I used to be big on using tech to fix these kinds of things, but they've just become an even bigger pain in the rear, completely killing the pace of games while people stand around trying to figure out a call on a frame-by-frame basis.
 
BillJ said:
There needs to be more accountability, but I don't think taking the human element completely out of it is the way to go. I used to be big on using tech to fix these kinds of things, but they've just become an even bigger pain in the rear, completely killing the pace of games while people stand around trying to figure out a call on a frame-by-frame basis.
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I know I sound like a broken record, and I know that pace of play is a huge concern with MLB, but all they need to do to improve pace of play is enforce the rule that the batter needs to keep one foot in the box at all times, instead of letting the batter step out of the box, adjust his helmet, re-do his gloves, check his grip on the bat, tap dirt off his cleats, tug at his jersey and scratch his nuts after every pitch. That's 20 seconds per pitch saved, right there. Replays, on the other hand, don't actually tend to take all that much time (something like five minutes per game--not per replay, per game--at most).

I'm re-reading this Boston University study and there were 34,294 blown pitch calls in 2018. There's got to be a way to fix that.
 
Timby said:
Cameras, and the system then sends a signal to the umpire.

Unfortunately, the technology still has a very long way to go.

Also, a camera directly over home plate would almost certainly benefit pitchers who work from the top to the bottom of the strike zone and ding corner-nibblers who pitch for soft contact like Kyle Hendricks.
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I said upthread, that camera could also make swing/no swing calls 100% accurate. I think I was confused about that rule for years in that I thought the bat had to cross the foul line to be a swing. Apparently the bat has to cross the front of home plate, which no corner ump can realistically make a call on if it doesn't actually cross the foul line..

And it's a lot more than Joe West and Angel Hernandez with wildly inconsistent strike zones, they're just the two biggest assholes.. I have absolutely no problem with a wide zone, if the ump calls it pretty much the same all game, for both sides. Plus all that "framing" BS clearly confuses a lot of umps a lot of the time. Doesn't matter where the ball was caught.


Yanks said:
I don't know.... do we really need to go here?

I'm OK with the bang-bang calls in the field being reviewed, or homerun calls etc., but each strike being read by a computer?

I'm not sure I'm for it. Humans ARE part of this game you know...
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See my above comment on the blatant inconsistency of 90% of umpire's strike zones. I feel like those union jackasses don't even care about "getting it right" anymore. Sure, batters have griped about strike calls since they invented strike calls, but it's gotten much worse in recent years.

You'd still need a home plate umpire for safe/out calls and maybe fair/foul if he's in position.
 
Timby said:
Organized labor is a bad thing? Because, uh, without a union, MLB players would still be playing under the reserve clause.
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Good point, but many unions are "in it" for themselves more than those they represent. I know what unions meant to America in the very early days.

What's going on with these umps could be the entire group deciding to do whatever they want, rather than follow the rules of baseball, with seemingly very little MLB can do about it.
 
Skywalker said:
The outcome of a game should only be determined by the play on the field, not on someone's judgment call. Human fallibility needs to be eliminated from it as much as it possibly can be.
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But where does it end? Robot umpires first. Then what? Robot pitchers? Hitters? An entire TEAM of robots?
 
Timby said:
Yeah, that's fair, and of course it's fun to bitch about Cowboy Joe or Ted Barrett. But there was a study published this past spring that said, for example, Cowboy Joe averaged 21 blown calls per game in 2018. If there's a way to reduce or mitigate that, it should be explored. It's just that the tech needs more time in the oven.
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There's a better solution to this problem than robots: Fire any umpire who can't (or doesn't want to) reduce their blown calls. An average of 21 blown calls per game? That's some fucking bullshit. I know he's in a position of power, but he should be canned for that kind of shit.
 
Ar-Pharazon said:
I know what unions meant to America in the very early days.
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Then you should understand why they're so important now, especially as they're being eradicated across the country. Full-time employees with wage guarantees and benefits are being re-classified as "independent contractors." The so-called gig economy is a bad joke. Collective bargaining rights have been stripped from so many people across so many industries and lines of work. Large corporations do everything they can to crush worker efforts to organize. Hell, MLB does everything it can to try to break the MLBPA's solidarity during every round of collective bargaining despite making more and more money every single year.

The MLUA leadership is broken, I will fully agree with this. But it's the leadership, not the fact that it's a union, that is the problem.
 
Timby said:
Then you should understand why they're so important now, especially as they're being eradicated across the country. Full-time employees with wage guarantees and benefits are being re-classified as "independent contractors." The so-called gig economy is a bad joke. Collective bargaining rights have been stripped from so many people across so many industries and lines of work. Large corporations do everything they can to crush worker efforts to organize. Hell, MLB does everything it can to try to break the MLBPA's solidarity during every round of collective bargaining despite making more and more money every single year.

The MLUA leadership is broken, I will fully agree with this. But it's the leadership, not the fact that it's a union, that is the problem.
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Yep, the leadership is who's in control, so definitely a change needs to be made in that respect, but most members can't see the problem and the push for change has to come from within.

Large corporations are doing what you said no matter what. With the minimum wage law, places like Wal-Mart will just compensate by making more employees part-time and taking away the benefits a full-timer is entitled to.
 
Timby said:
And all you fuckers were saying last year that I was insane and being Chicken Little when I said there was collusion.
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Your insanity and collusion may or may not be mutually exclusive.

The surprising thing is how they keep what is probably a lot of collusion a secret in this era.
 
Timby said:
Organized labor is a bad thing? Because, uh, without a union, MLB players would still be playing under the reserve clause.
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Actually, it was one guy that won the court battle, not the union, right?
 
Yanks said:
Wow, that's collusion?
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It violates the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Which doesn't allow teams to confer on free agents.

With regard to sharing intel in free agency, the collective bargaining agreement states: “Players shall not act in concert with other Players, and Clubs shall not act in concert with other Clubs.”
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So, yes, it would be a form of collusion.
 
Timby said:
And all you fuckers were saying last year that I was insane and being Chicken Little when I said there was collusion.
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Since I posted it, obviously I'm more than open to admitting I may be wrong.
 
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