Keep Robot Umpires Far, Far Away From Me

We’ve all played wiffle ball, using a chair or a crate to create a strike zone. The ball can take any path it wants, as long as it hits that chair it’s a strike. It’s not perfect, it can be often infuriating, especially because wiffle balls defy every law of physics, but it’s the best we’ve got. Also – and this is important here – it’s fucking wiffle ball. Not professional baseball.

There has long been an outcry for robot umpires in baseball in an attempt to get “human error” out of the game. Traditionalists such as myself don’t mind the minor imperfections, especially with the advent of reviews and challenges cleaning up more costly errors like bang-bang plays at the plate. Robots taking over every ball and strike will probably result in being mostly the same as the game we already watch. Except, of course, for pitches in the dirt like the one above. A call no umpire in his right mind would call a strike. A call the catcher and pitcher both knew was a ball and had no qualms with that being called a ball. Watch both react in real time, since the robot is on a slight delay – mostly because it’s a fucking robot – the catcher had to double clutch due to how shocked he was at this call. The pitcher was just ready to get after this 1-2 count.

For the human umpire, this is the softest ejection I’ve seen since Tim Duncan was smiling on the Spurs bench. “What are you talking about?? Are you serious?! I wasn’t even talking to you! Oh my God, bro, I was yelling at that idiot robot for calling a pitch in the dirt strike three. Whose side are you even on here???”

Did this pitch cross the plate at the exact bottom of the strike zone? Yes, according to statcast it appears that a single seam caught a hair of the exact bottom of the strike zone. According to this robot no pitcher will ever have to throw the ball over the plate really ever again.

If that’s a pitch you NEED called a strike, you and I fundamentally want to watch different sports entirely. And while I don’t give a shit about the Arizona Fall League, I’m trying to picture someone with a massive, sweeping slider like Chris Sale. Anyone with a pitch that would simply need to nearly nick a corner of the zone while the ball ends up a foot behind the batter probably wont ever allow a hit ever again. That sport sounds awesome.