There’s No Good Reason to Squeeze the Strike Zone

[Towny9]

You still don't get it. That is not how it works. To imply it does or expect it to work that shows your complete and utter bias.



Uggghhhhh! This is another thing that NEEDS TO STOP. Just because the next banger or borderline pitch goes the other way does not make it a "make up call." Knock it off already.

Y'all just prove my point that we should just throw the towel in and say the definition of strike should be "the pitches my pitcher throws", and the definition of ball should be "pitches the other team's pitcher throws."


Ehh, not exactly. While you are correct about the flaw of most ABS systems only measuring the ball at one 2-dimensional point in a 3-dimensional world, you are not correct that the system was "too good." The system sucked. It still sucks because MLB doesn't want to spend the money it takes to get it to "good." Right now, it is "adequate" for their wants and needs. If they want to sink the money in, the Eagle Eye system is the best they can do. They have been testing it. It does track the ball's path pretty accurately.

The other big flaw is they do not adjust it in real time for batters. They use either pre-programmed points (which is flawed) or league average points (even more flawed).

Currently, there are multiple possible interpretations of the hard data produced by MLB. The "TV box" is not accurate at all and is used for TV broadcasts. The raw data is the seemingly "real time" data produced on pitches. Then MLB processes the data to another standard and that is what is actually used in umpire grading. All of those still have a margin of error.

The strike zone is not a cube. It is a heptahedron. (I need to fix that in my earlier post. I erroneously called it a dodecahedron. I teach English, not math.)

We will have to agree to disagree on a lot of these. Go figure, a coach not agreeing with an umpire haha. The correction on the geometrical shape of the strike zone was a bit much - you know what I meant when I said cube. The back point of the plate is virtually irrelevant in calling balls and strikes. (And I do actually teach math)