The Baseball Umpire Crisis

What the umpiring quality debate in baseball reveals and what automated ball-strike systems would change

The Debate

The baseball umpire accuracy debate -- the specific question of whether the ball-strike calls that human umpires make are accurate enough for the modern game whose pitching repertoire, spin rate data, and pitch movement precision make the evaluation of borderline pitches more technically demanding than any previous era -- has been documented by the pitch tracking systems that measure every pitch and compare the called result to the measurable location.

The ABS System

The automated ball-strike system that MLB has been testing in the minor leagues for several seasons has produced the specific data that the evaluation of the system requires: the calls that the ABS makes and that the human umpire would have made differently, and the direction of the difference. The ABS is more consistent. It is not obviously more accurate on the pitches where the definition of the strike zone is genuinely ambiguous.

On Deck News Coverage

The On Deck News covers the umpire crisis because the accountability journalism of baseball rules and officiating requires examining the technology that is available to improve officiating quality and the specific questions about implementation that the technology raises.

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