Latest news with #AutomatedBall-StrikeSystem
San Francisco Chronicle
a day ago
- Sport
- San Francisco Chronicle
Sunday's ball-strike calls in Giants game are why robo umps can't get here soon enough
I never thought I'd be the guy crying out for more technology, but enough human error is enough. Sunday afternoon, the San Francisco Giants got fed up with the ball-strike stylings of umpire Chad Whitson, leading to an ejection. Dave Flemming, calling the game on TV for Roku, sounded like he was ready to charge home plate to confront Whitson. The reason why? Whitson was interpreting the strike zone the way Picasso interpreted the human form. Just another day at the ballpark. Inconsistent ball-strike calling is a plague on Major League Baseball, an increasingly glaring defect of the game. Next season will be better, right? The rumble is that MLB will bring in the robo ump, also known as ABS, the Automated Ball-Strike System. Each team will get two challenges per game, appealing to the robot when frustrated by perceived human error. Two? Just two? So they're going to slap a band-aid on a shark bite. Let me tell you what should happen. But first: The Giants did not lose Sunday because of Whitson. According to Umpire Scorecards, 11 of Whitson's 51 called strikes were true balls. The Giants lost by two runs, and that website's analytics say that Whitson's errant eye made a 1.69 run difference. So if Whitson had had a perfect day, the Giants might have lost anyway, because nobody scores by the hundredths of a run in baseball. Still, Whitson was a party pooper. He punched out Rafael Devers on a 3-2 pitch outside the zone. A 3-0 pitch to Matt Chapman was two baseballs outside the zone, but called a strike. 'That was a very generous call,' Flemming fumed. 'What a weird strike zone today.' Same deal next inning, with Brett Wisely at bat. Flemming: 'Very friendly call (in the pitcher's favor), Wisely didn't like that one. Just another example of a strike zone that has been all over the place. When you're seeing the ball well, you see a pitch, you know it's out of the strike zone, yet it's called against you, that's not really that close, it jars you as a hitter.' Apparently it also jars you as a pitcher who isn't pitching. Future Hall of Famer Justin Verlander, on a day off, got tossed by Whitson for protesting from the dugout. Verlander was getting his info off a tablet, which displayed, in delayed time, the umpire's (many) goofs. So a guy sitting in the dugout, and everyone in the park with a cell phone, had access to technology unavailable to the ump. The thing is, Whitson called an OK game, for a human being. In a study conducted by Boston University and published in 2018, data showed that big league umpires blew 14 ball-strike calls per game, or 1.6 per inning. Whitson on Sunday had a 92% accuracy on ball-strike calls (per Umpire Scorecards). If you protest that the coming of the robo ump deprives baseball of a cool human element, tell me you'll smile and embrace it as a colorful part of life when Amazon delivers your package to the correct address 92% of the time. You got someone else's underwear? Makes life more fun! The challenge system next season will be wildly popular with players and fans, although maybe not with umps. To challenge a call, the batter or pitcher simply taps his helmet or cap. Within a few seconds, almost instantly, the verdict is rendered on the ballpark video screen. I believe that MLB will fast-track ABS for next season, because Rob Manfred and the boys have seen that most fans and players embrace positive change. The pitch clock has been a big success. Even though batters no longer have time to re-Velcro their batting-glove straps after every pitch, miraculously, not one single glove has flown off! Surely that's a sign from above. Do you miss the defensive shift? The ghost runner in extra innings isn't universally beloved, but it also hasn't ruined the game. Point is, MLB now knows that the change can be beneficial and widely accepted, if it improves the game. The ABS system has been tried in the minors, to widespread acclaim of players and fans. The problem with the two-challenge system, though, is that it's like ordering popcorn at the movie theater and they give you two popped kernels. Since we know there will be 1.6 blown calls per inning, how about one challenge per inning, per team? This would add, by my amateurish calculations, about 15 minutes to each game. Time well spent. At the very least, give each team a bonus challenge in the ninth inning, and in every extra inning. The BU study found that in that 2018 season, 55 games ended on incorrect calls. The study also found that umps have a dramatic bias toward pitchers on two-strike calls, that umps have blind spots in their strike zones, and that younger umps outperform older and more experienced umps. In short, human umpires are just too damn human. The two-challenge system will be a success, and it will be expanded, and eventually every pitch will be called by the robot. Real people will still do the pitching and hitting, and isn't that mainly what you came to the ballpark to see? This is not to say home-plate umpires can be entirely replaced. After all, you can't trust a ballboy to do a proper job of whisking dirt off the plate.
Fox Sports
7 days ago
- Sport
- Fox Sports
MLB's Robot Umpire Reverses 4 of 5 Challenged Calls in All-Star Game Debut
Cal Raleigh was just as successful with the first robot umpire All-Star challenge as he was in Monday night's Home Run Derby, in which he slugged his way to the championship. Seattle's catcher signaled for an appeal to the Automated Ball-Strike System in the first inning of the National League's win Tuesday night, getting a strikeout for Detroit's Tarik Skubal on San Diego's Manny Machado. "You take 'em any way you can get 'em, boys," Skubal said on the mound. Four of five challenges of plate umpire Dan Iassogna's calls were successful in the first All-Star use of the ABS system, which could make its regular-season debut next year. Athletics rookie Jacob Wilson won as the first batter to call for a challenge, reversing a 1-0 fastball from Washington's MacKenzie Gore in the fifth inning that had been called a strike. Miami's Kyle Stowers lost when ABS upheld a full-count Andres Munoz fastball at the bottom of the zone for an inning-ending strikeout in the eighth. Mets closer Edwin Diaz earned a three-pitch strikeout against Randy Arozarena to end the top of the ninth on a pitch Iassogna thought was outside. Blue Jays catcher Alejandro Kirk used ABS to get a first-pitch strike on a 100.1 mph Aroldis Chapman offering to Brendan Donovan with two outs in the bottom half. "The fans enjoy it. I thought the players had fun with it," NL manager Dave Roberts of the Los Angeles Dodgers said. "There's a strategy to it, if it does get to us during the season. But I like it. I think it's good for the game." Skubal had given up Ketel Marte's two-run double and retired the Dodgers' Freddie Freeman on a groundout for his first out when he got ahead of Machado 0-2 in the count. Skubal threw a 89.5 mph changeup, and Iassogna yelled" "Ball down!" Raleigh tapped his helmet just before Skubal tipped his cap, triggering a review by the computer umpire that was tested in spring training this year and could be adopted for regular-season use in 2026. "Obviously, a strike like that it was, so I called for it and it helped us out," Raleigh said. An animation of the computer analysis was shown on the Truist Park scoreboard and the broadcast. Roberts laughed in the dugout after the challenge. "I knew it was a strike," Machado said. Skubal doesn't intend to use challenges during regular-season games if the ABS is put in place. He says he'll rely on his catchers. "I was joking around that I was going to burn two of them on the first balls just so that way we didn't have them the rest of the game," he said. "I'm just going to assume that it's going to happen next year." Before the game, baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred indicated the sport's 11-man competition committee will consider the system for next season. "I think the ability to correct a bad call in a high-leverage situation without interfering with the time of game because it's so fast is something we ought to continue to pursue," Manfred said. ABS decisions may have an error of margin up to a half-inch. "Our guys do have a concern with that half inch, what that might otherwise lead to particularly as it relates to the number of challenges you may have, whether you keep those challenges during the course of the game," union head Tony Clark told the Baseball Writers Association of America. "Does there need to be some type of buffer zone consideration? Or do we want to find ourselves in a world where it's the most egregious misses that we want focus in on?" Manfred sounded less concerned. "I don't believe that technology supports the notion that you need a buffer zone," he said. "To get into the idea that there's something that is not a strike that you're going to call a strike in a review system, I don't know why I would want to do that." MLB sets the top of the automated strike zone at 53.5% of a batter's height and the bottom at 27%, basing the decision on the midpoint of the plate, 8 1/2 inches from the front and 8 1/2 inches from the back. That contrasts with the rule book zone called by umpires, which says the zone is a cube. "We haven't even started talking about the strike zone itself, how that's going to necessarily be measured, and whether or not there are tweaks that need to be made there, too," Clark said. "So there's a lot of discussion that still needs to be had, despite the fact that it seems more inevitable than not." Manfred has tested ABS in the minor leagues since 2019, using it for all pitches and then switching to a challenge system. Each team gets two challenges and a successful challenge is retained. Only catchers, batters and pitchers can call for a challenge. "Where we are on ABS has been fundamentally influenced by player input," he maintained. "If you had two years ago said to me: What do the owners want to do? I think they would have called every pitch with ABS as soon as possible. That's because there is a fundamental, very fundamental interest in getting it right, right? We owe it to our fans to try to get it right because the players as I talked to them over a couple of years really, expressed a very strong interest or preference for the challenge system that we decided to test." Skubal wondered is all contingencies had been planned for. "If power goes out and we don't have ABS — sometimes we don't have Hawk-Eye data or Trackman data. So what's going to happen then?" he said. "Are we going to expect umpires to call balls and strikes when it's an ABS zone?" The Associated Press contributed to this report. Want great stories delivered right to your inbox? 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NBC Sports
7 days ago
- Sport
- NBC Sports
Cal Raleigh successful as four of five challenges reverse calls in first All-Star use of robot umpire
ATLANTA — Cal Raleigh was just as successful with the first robot umpire All-Star challenge as he was in the Home Run Derby. Seattle's catcher signaled for an appeal to the Automated Ball-Strike System in the first inning of the National League's win Tuesday night, getting a strikeout for Detroit's Tarik Skubal on San Diego's Manny Machado. 'You take 'em any way you can get 'em, boys,' Skubal said on the mound. Four of five challenges of plate umpire Dan Iassogna's calls were successful in the first All-Star use of the ABS system, which could make its regular-season debut next year. Athletics rookie Jacob Wilson won as the first batter to call for a challenge, reversing a 1-0 fastball from Washington's MacKenzie Gore in the fifth inning that had been called a strike. Miami's Kyle Stowers lost when ABS upheld a full-count Andrés Muñoz fastball at the bottom of the zone for an inning-ending strikeout in the eighth. Mets closer Edwin Díaz earned a three-pitch strikeout against Randy Arozarena to end the top of the ninth on a pitch Iassogna thought was outside. Blue Jays catcher Alejandro Kirk used ABS to get a first-pitch strike on a 100.1 mph Aroldis Chapman offering to Brendan Donovan with two outs in the bottom half. 'The fans enjoy it. I thought the players had fun with it,' NL manager Dave Roberts of the Los Angeles Dodgers said. 'There's a strategy to it, if it does get to us during the season. But I like it. I think it's good for the game.' Skubal had given up Ketel Marte's two-run double and retired the Dodgers' Freddie Freeman on a groundout for his first out when he got ahead of Machado 0-2 in the count. Skubal threw a 89.5 mph changeup, and Iassogna yelled' 'Ball down!' Raleigh tapped his helmet just before Skubal tipped his cap, triggering a review by the computer umpire that was tested in spring training this year and could be adopted for regular-season use in 2026. 'Obviously, a strike like that it was, so I called for it and it helped us out,' Raleigh said. An animation of the computer analysis was shown on the Truist Park scoreboard and the broadcast. Roberts laughed in the dugout after the challenge. 'I knew it was a strike,' Machado said. Skubal doesn't intend to use challenges during regular-season games if the ABS is put in place. He says he'll rely on his catchers. 'I was joking around that I was going to burn two of them on the first balls just so that way we didn't have them the rest of the game,' he said. 'I'm just going to assume that it's going to happen next year.' Before the game, baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred indicated the sport's 11-man competition committee will consider the system for next season. 'I think the ability to correct a bad call in a high-leverage situation without interfering with the time of game because it's so fast is something we ought to continue to pursue,' Manfred said. ABS decisions may have an error of margin up to a half-inch. 'Our guys do have a concern with that half inch, what that might otherwise lead to particularly as it relates to the number of challenges you may have, whether you keep those challenges during the course of the game,' union head Tony Clark told the Baseball Writers Association of America. 'Does there need to be some type of buffer zone consideration? Or do we want to find ourselves in a world where it's the most egregious misses that we want focus in on?' Manfred sounded less concerned. 'I don't believe that technology supports the notion that you need a buffer zone,' he said. 'To get into the idea that there's something that is not a strike that you're going to call a strike in a review system, I don't know why I would want to do that.' MLB sets the top of the automated strike zone at 53.5% of a batter's height and the bottom at 27%, basing the decision on the midpoint of the plate, 8 1/2 inches from the front and 8 1/2 inches from the back. That contrasts with the rule book zone called by umpires, which says the zone is a cube. 'We haven't even started talking about the strike zone itself, how that's going to necessarily be measured, and whether or not there are tweaks that need to be made there, too,' Clark said. 'So there's a lot of discussion that still needs to be had, despite the fact that it seems more inevitable than not.' Manfred has tested ABS in the minor leagues since 2019, using it for all pitches and then switching to a challenge system. Each team gets two challenges and a successful challenge is retained. Only catchers, batters and pitchers can call for a challenge. 'Where we are on ABS has been fundamentally influenced by player input,' he maintained. 'If you had two years ago said to me: What do the owners want to do? I think they would have called every pitch with ABS as soon as possible. That's because there is a fundamental, very fundamental interest in getting it right, right? We owe it to our fans to try to get it right because the players as I talked to them over a couple of years really, expressed a very strong interest or preference for the challenge system that we decided to test.' Skubal wondered is all contingencies had been planned for. 'If power goes out and we don't have ABS — sometimes we don't have Hawk-Eye data or Trackman data. So what's going to happen then?' he said. 'Are we going to expect umpires to call balls and strikes when it's an ABS zone?'
Fox Sports
16-07-2025
- Sport
- Fox Sports
Cal Raleigh successful as 4 of 5 challenges reverse calls in first All-Star use of robot umpire
Associated Press ATLANTA (AP) — Cal Raleigh was just as successful with the first robot umpire All-Star challenge as he was in the Home Run Derby. Seattle's catcher signaled for an appeal to the Automated Ball-Strike System in the first inning of the National League's win Tuesday night, getting a strikeout for Detroit's Tarik Subal on San Diego's Manny Machado. 'You take 'em any way you can get 'em, boys,' Skubal said on the mound. Four of five challenges of plate umpire Dan Iassogna's calls were successful in the first All-Star use of the ABS system, which could make its regular-season debut next year. Athletics rookie Jacob Wilson won as the first batter to call for a challenge, reversing a 1-0 fastball from Washington's MacKenzie Gore in the fifth inning that had been called a strike. Miami's Kyle Stowers lost when ABS upheld a full-count Andres Munoz fastball at the bottom of the zone for an inning-ending strikeout in the eighth. Mets closer Edwin Diaz earned a three-pitch strikeout against Randy Arozarena to end the top of the ninth on a pitch Iassogna thought was outside. Blue Jays catcher Alejandro Kirk used ABS to get a first-pitch strike on a 100.1 mph Aroldis Chapman offering to Brendan Donovan with two outs in the bottom half. 'The fans enjoy it. I thought the players had fun with it,' NL manager Dave Roberts of the Los Angeles Dodgers said. 'There's a strategy to it, if it does get to us during the season. But I like it. I think it's good for the game.' Skubal had given up Ketel Marte's two-run double and retired the Dodgers' Freddie Freeman on a groundout for his first out when he got ahead of Machado 0-2 in the count. Skubal threw a 89.5 mph changeup, and Iassogna yelled" 'Ball down!' Raleigh tapped his helmet just before Skubal tipped his cap, triggering a review by the computer umpire that was tested in spring training this year and could be adopted for regular-season use in 2026. 'Obviously, a strike like that it was, so I called for it and it helped us out,' Raleigh said. An animation of the computer analysis was shown on the Truist Park scoreboard and the broadcast. Roberts laughed in the dugout after the challenge. 'I knew it was a strike,' Machado said. Skubal doesn't intend to use challenges during regular-season games if the ABS is put in place. He says he'll rely on his catchers. 'I was joking around that I was going to burn two of them on the first balls just so that way we didn't have them the rest of the game,' he said. 'I'm just going to assume that it's going to happen next year.' Before the game, baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred indicated the sport's 11-man competition committee will consider the system for next season. "I think the ability to correct a bad call in a high-leverage situation without interfering with the time of game because it's so fast is something we ought to continue to pursue,' Manfred said. ABS decisions may have an error of margin up to a half-inch. 'Our guys do have a concern with that half inch, what that might otherwise lead to particularly as it relates to the number of challenges you may have, whether you keep those challenges during the course of the game,' union head Tony Clark told the Baseball Writers Association of America. 'Does there need to be some type of buffer zone consideration? Or do we want to find ourselves in a world where it's the most egregious misses that we want focus in on?' Manfred sounded less concerned. 'I don't believe that technology supports the notion that you need a buffer zone,' he said. 'To get into the idea that there's something that is not a strike that you're going to call a strike in a review system, I don't know why I would want to do that.' MLB sets the top of the automated strike zone at 53.5% of a batter's height and the bottom at 27%, basing the decision on the midpoint of the plate, 8 1/2 inches from the front and 8 1/2 inches from the back. That contrasts with the rule book zone called by umpires, which says the zone is a cube. 'We haven't even started talking about the strike zone itself, how that's going to necessarily be measured, and whether or not there are tweaks that need to be made there, too," Clark said. "So there's a lot of discussion that still needs to be had, despite the fact that it seems more inevitable than not.' Manfred has tested ABS in the minor leagues since 2019, using it for all pitches and then switching to a challenge system. Each team gets two challenges and a successful challenge is retained. Only catchers, batters and pitchers can call for a challenge. 'Where we are on ABS has been fundamentally influenced by player input,' he maintained. "If you had two years ago said to me: What do the owners want to do? I think they would have called every pitch with ABS as soon as possible. That's because there is a fundamental, very fundamental interest in getting it right, right? We owe it to our fans to try to get it right because the players as I talked to them over a couple of years really, expressed a very strong interest or preference for the challenge system that we decided to test." Skubal wondered is all contingencies had been planned for. 'If power goes out and we don't have ABS — sometimes we don't have Hawk-Eye data or Trackman data. So what's going to happen then?' he said. 'Are we going to expect umpires to call balls and strikes when it's an ABS zone?' ___ AP MLB: recommended Item 1 of 1
Time of India
16-07-2025
- Sport
- Time of India
Robot umpire debuts at All-Star Game as Cal Raleigh wins historic first challenge
Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh made history Tuesday night by successfully executing the first robot umpire challenge in MLB All-Star Game . In the opening inning at Truist Park, Raleigh triggered a challenge using the Automated Ball-Strike System (ABS), overturning a ball call into a strike to complete a strikeout of Manny Machado for Detroit's Tarik Skubal . "You take 'em any way you can get 'em, boys," Skubal quipped, as Raleigh tapped his helmet to initiate the review - one of MLB's first live uses of ABS during a game. The play was confirmed by computer animation shown on the stadium scoreboard and the FOX broadcast. — MLBONFOX (@MLBONFOX) by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Cardiologist Reveals: The Simple Morning Habit for a Flatter Belly After 50! Lulutox Undo Later in the game, Oakland rookie Jacob Wilson also made successful use of the system, challenging a called strike in the fifth inning and having it overturned to a ball against Washington's MacKenzie Gore. Skubal, who had just surrendered a two-run double to Ketel Marte, used the review system to his advantage, getting back on track with Machado. "I think it's a strike," Raleigh said, mic'd up during the moment. Live Events Despite his success, Skubal said he wouldn't lean on challenges if the system is implemented in the regular season, expected as early as 2026. "I'm just going to assume that it's going to happen next year," he said. Commissioner Rob Manfred voiced support for continued ABS testing , citing its efficiency and accuracy. However, MLBPA chief Tony Clark raised concerns over the half-inch margin of error and its implications on gameplay and challenge strategy.
