Robot Umpires Could Be Coming To MLB In 2024 (theverge.com) 70
Major League Baseball plans to introduce robot umpires in the 2024 season, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred told ESPN this week. The Verge reports: He framed the change as a way to speed up games, but anyone who's watched baseball the last few years will tell you that a machine would almost certainly call balls and strikes better than the humans do. There are two ways the "Automated Ball-Strike System," which is the technical term for these robot umpires, might be implemented. One is the fully automated version, in which the AI-powered system calls every pitch a ball or a strike and relays the call to the umpire. Or the MLB could decide to use the AI as a review system, like VAR in soccer or the Hawk-Eye system used in professional tennis: each side gets a certain number of challenges, which are then adjudicated by the automated system.
Good (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Viewership drop. Half the fan is arguing with your friends over that sonofabitch umpire who made the wrong call.
Re:Good (Score:5, Interesting)
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Next year may also include a pitch clock, which will help speed up games.
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Ks cause batsmen to swing and that causes the ball being in play. Too many walks is what slows the game down.
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The increase in strikeouts and walks go together. For a couple decades now play has been trending towards batters taking more pitches and making the pitcher work harder. If you see a strike that's hard to hit early in the count, just let it go and see if you get a better pitch later in the count. Both walks and strikeouts go up as a result. You also get less weak contact and more hard contact.
Another side effect of that play strategy is the increased pitch counts mean teams use more pitchers per game, which
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If marginal balls become strikes, the strategy of taking becomes less useful. Soft contact on a marginal pitch looks better than getting punched out over and over.
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https://www.si.com/mlb/2021/03... [si.com]
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The term batsman also appears in the rules for Major League Baseball. Perhaps the problem is a loss of balls in play.
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If we can get rid of the "fans" who think the fun of the game is bitching about the calls from the ref, then nothing of value is lost.
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Viewership drop. Half the fan is arguing with your friends over that sonofabitch umpire who made the wrong call.
So you're saying the worlds 2nd most boring sport could become even more boring.
Don't worry, you've still got a long way to go before you reach the boredom level of Cricket. Imagine if you will, a sport with all the tedium and lack of excitement as baseball but it goes on all day... for five days... and that's just the first of 3 tests... and after all 15 days of play you can still have a draw.
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So you're saying golf is more interesting than baseball, or that it's not a sport?
Re: Good (Score:2)
Baseball is not a boring sport, unless you consider anything that has less action than "Extreme gladiator blood, guts, and flamethrowers!!!" to be excruciatingly boring.
American football OTOH..you need plenty of beer to make that one the least bit exciting. That one is riding on extreme amounts of testosterone and pumped up hype.
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When did you last watch cricket? The 1970s? Sure the long form of the game still exists but if you want closer to a like for like comparison with baseball look at T20 cricket. 240 deliveries (equivalent of pitches) per game. Three quarters of deliveries will result in a scoring play and about one in six will be hit to or over the boundary at the edge of the ground and with all that going on you'll see a new delivery about ever 40 seconds The whole thing is done in two 75 minute sessions of play with a
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Replays have been in place for years, and I think arguments between the coaches and umpires have probably gone way down in response to calls that aren't about the strike zone. Since they can't get rid of bad umps because of the umpire union, they'll have to do this to minimize the PR impact of certain bad umps. Unfortunately, it won't improve MLBs problems which are teams focusing on winning by taking more pitches, and their decision to put their product on expensive cable networks which bring more product
Re:Good (Score:4, Interesting)
At least half of the art of pitching is making a pitch look like a different pitch. Make fast balls look off speed, make a ball outside look like a strike over the plate, etc.
While umpires strive for a common consistent strike zone, each sees it a little differently. That's still fair as long as they call the SAME strike zone for both teams.
Honestly, much of the time when "the ump gets it wrong", it's only wrong in the wishful thinking of a fan. Really! Most telecasts now use an automated system to overlay the strike zone on the pitch so you can see for yourself.
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That's still fair as long as they call the SAME strike zone for both teams.
And right there you've hit on the issue, they are wildly inconsistent. The exact same pitch in the exact same spot called two different ways adds nothing to the game.
Honestly, much of the time when "the ump gets it wrong", it's only wrong in the wishful thinking of a fan. Really! Most telecasts now use an automated system to overlay the strike zone on the pitch so you can see for yourself.
Those are contradictory sentences. It's not an emotional thing, whether they got it right or not is right there on the screen for the world to see. (I'm talking STRICTLY ball/strike calls here, the rest of the umpire-related duties won't be automated any time soon.)
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That's why I used quotes. Many cases of "The ump got it wrong" is actually the ump called a strike a strike but the fan wanted it to be a ball.
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My biggest problems with this is if you've been following the pitch tracking data for a long time, you know that every now and then it completely misses a pitch.
The errors the tracking systems make tend to be the system just not reading a particular pitch for no obvious reason. Most of the umpires error tend to be fairly predictable. Certain umpires tend to shift the zone a little in a certain direction. Most umpires call the zone too low on really tall players.
I'm not really convinced that it will make les
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every now and then
I'll take 1 in 1000 (or 1 in 100) "blown" calls any day over the best umpire's 1 in 20 rate. Add in the ability to ask for a replay review once or twice in a game and you have a VASTLY more accurate game.
The name of the first robot.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Angel Hernandez!
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Erik Gregg had a bigger strike zone [youtube.com].
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It's not the size of the zone. Hernandez can't call the same pitch the same way twice in a row.
Viewership will drop (Score:2, Interesting)
Half the fan is arguing with your friends over that sonofabitch umpire who made the wrong call. Can't argue with a computer.
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Can't argue with a computer.
Wanna bet? [stayathome.com]
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Can't "productively" argue with a computer. ;)
Passed time, for pastime. (Score:4, Insightful)
"He framed the change as a way to speed up games..."
Can't believe we're looking to speed up a game that literally has a 7th-inning stretch built into it, and is allowed to go into obscene amounts of overtime (still remember a 22-inning marathon one summer day in '89).
This isn't a way to speed up games. This is a way to speed up the death of baseball. Sounds like a lot of greedy idiots need to look up the definition of "pastime" again, 'cause Billy the Bleeping Bot-Ump ain't it.
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Cut the crap. Let me watch the game and I'll watch it. Baseb
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its suppose to be something you do to pass the time
So why bother with team standings, the playoffs, the World Series, or even keeping score? If you're not interested in accuracy why even care about the outcome of the game? I, personally, prefer the outcome to be determined by the skill of the players, not the umpiring.
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Related to this, I'm waiting for football with no time outs. Take away all of the protective bullshit also.
It'll be over in 12 minutes. It's be hilarious and I'd actually pay to watch it.
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Related to this, I'm waiting for football with no time outs. Take away all of the protective bullshit also. It'll be over in 12 minutes. It's be hilarious and I'd actually pay to watch it.
Half-assing it? Sounds boring as hell. Convert the stadium into a Colosseum and bring the lions back.
Those Romans really knew how to entertain, and we've got plenty of fodder on death row that you're already paying for.
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If we could do it like the Romans and use it to get rid of the most problematic Christians (who were at the time rioting in the streets and killing one another over whose Jesus was better) then we'd really have something there. Unfortunately, they then picked up the mythology and ran with it, and now many a year later we have a Catholic Court in a nation literally founded on freedom from religious oppression.
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And yet Freedom of Speech and legalized abortions provided by many States Rights within a nation, continue to be available. Along with Satanism or Atheism if you so desire. Not sure why it's all that shocking to find a Federal Court decided they weren't going to rule on something in a nation literally founded on freedom from religious oppression.
Ironically, the Catholic Drinker of the House, has a Hell of a way of expressing her religious support. Religion doesn't even recognize Religion anymore.
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And yet Freedom of Speech and legalized abortions provided by many States Rights within a nation, continue to be available.
Available to those who can afford to travel, who might still face legal action upon returning home, which they can't afford.
Not sure why it's all that shocking to find a Federal Court decided they weren't going to rule on something in a nation literally founded on freedom from religious oppression.
What? This is about a court ruling on something, not about them not ruling.
Ironically, the Catholic Drinker of the House, has a Hell of a way of expressing her religious support. Religion doesn't even recognize Religion anymore.
Nothing is more Catholic than drinking.
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And yet Freedom of Speech and legalized abortions provided by many States Rights within a nation, continue to be available.
Available to those who can afford to travel, who might still face legal action upon returning home, which they can't afford.
HIPAA will suddenly have actual privacy wrapped around it again, so no one is going to face legal action. People don't vacation in California to smoke all the legal weed they want, only to come home and be put in jail for it. And since there is so much money backing abortion, I'm certain obscenely rich celebrities will start up a fund soon for anyone in need. I mean, if they actually care as much as they claim, right? Companies are already offering thousands to fly their employees around to do this, so t
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HIPAA will suddenly have actual privacy wrapped around it again
That's irrelevant because your web searches are not health care data. Nor are your travel records. It's also false because 45 CFR Â 164.512(f) [cornell.edu] provides for disclosure of health care information to law enforcement without even being required to notify the patient.
People don't vacation in California to smoke all the legal weed they want, only to come home and be put in jail for it.
Not only is coming to California for legal recreational weed not health care and therefore HIPAA is still irrelevant, but red states don't want their citizens vacationing in California. They might find out that it's not a communist shithole or
not trolling (Score:2)
Trolling implies you're making shit up to piss people off.
I'm serious.
The Roman Empire in general didn't give a shit about people's wacky religious views as long as they weren't causing religious problems. This is not to say that bunches of Christians weren't martyred by the Romans, only that they were killing one another in droves over whose Jesus was best. It was hardly universal [wmich.edu], but then the same is true of Roman persecution, which was generally limited to short periods and which was never practiced avi
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I did not mod you, but if I were modding this article, I likely would have called you a troll, and it only takes one line to push me there.
we have a Catholic Court in a nation literally founded on freedom from religious oppression.
Why should it matter what religion the justices practice? The whole majority opinion relied on the law, not on what the bible says. The troll was in tying the religion of some of the court to the ruling, as if it had any impact on the ruling. Even RBG said that Roe was a terrible ruling. Our president, and speaker, both claim to be Catholic, while they are spouting t
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Why should it matter what religion the justices practice?
Because their agenda is religious. It shouldn't matter, but it always does.
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Their agenda is to hear cases brought before them, and rule on the constitutionality and lawfulness of the case. The decision is based on those two factors, and lists no religious reasoning. That would indicate that they did not rule based upon religion, but you assert that they did, even with evidence to the contrary.
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The decision is based on those two factors, and lists no religious reasoning.
Well, even Kavanaugh isn't as stupid as your argument.
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https://www.supremecourt.gov/o... [supremecourt.gov]
So, show me where the religious text is. Since it is so important to the decision, it should be right there.
But, you know, keep that trolling up, I am sure it is healthy for your Karma.
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So, show me where the religious text is. Since it is so important to the decision, it should be right there.
Keep on demonstrating the ramifications of your apparent repeated head injuries for the audience
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Keep on demonstrating your complete lack of ability to read and understand a legal document, while spouting anti-religious idiocy.
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This is a way to speed up the death of baseball.
No it's not. Baseball simply takes too long and much of it is due to wasted time. It makes for boring watching and as a result the sport is growing progressively less popular.
Cricket had that issue too. Dropping interest and dropping viewership from day long test matches led to the introduction of Twenty20 Cricket, and the significantly shorter and far more exciting game proved so popular they developed it into international leagues.
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This is a way to speed up the death of baseball.
No it's not. Baseball simply takes too long and much of it is due to wasted time. It makes for boring watching and as a result the sport is growing progressively less popular.
The game, isn't what changed here. Narcissists who can't stand dedicating time towards someone else, is what changed. I suppose if you banned smartphones from parks the sport would be over with by...tomorrow, right? Dunno how the hell we're gonna save golf. Maybe we just bring the UFC in, turn it into a full-contact sport. That'll get the kids excited again. Screw tradition. Sales is what matters.
Cricket had that issue too. Dropping interest and dropping viewership from day long test matches led to the introduction of Twenty20 Cricket, and the significantly shorter and far more exciting game proved so popular they developed it into international leagues.
It's quite important to note that the traditional form of cricket is still supported at the highest level
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Dunno how the hell we're gonna save golf.
Don't.
Screw tradition.
Yeah, that's what I said. Fuck Golf. George Carlin was 100% correct about it. If the golf industry can't figure out how to do it without wasting resources, it doesn't deserve to exist.
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>Dunno how the hell we're gonna save golf. Maybe we just bring the UFC in,
no need for that--each player already has squire holding a bag of weapons suiting to both striking and parrying. . .
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So you're OK with blatantly shitty calls (like actual verifiably blown calls, not ones you just didn't like) changing the outcome of a game? I was watching one last week: 2 outs, 2/2 count, pitch easily catches the edge of the zone, called a ball. Next pitch is sent out of the park, completely changing the trajectory of the game. If I wanted to watch a game of chance I'd go watch Wheel of Fortune.
I haven't heard a solid argument yet about why this is bad, other than ones along the lines of "it's traditio
Re: Passed time, for pastime. (Score:2)
The ratings will go up when the robot gets conked in the head with a wayward baseball. A moment of scrambled circuits and then "Reverting to default programming...CRUSH-KILL-DESTROY!".
They will instantly get millions of viewers who never even had any interest in baseball.
As The Games Grew Longer I Stopped Watching (Score:2)
Fans will only watch what their physical backsides can endure.
Baseball games got longer to accomodate TV requirements, then baseball left "broadcast TV" for cable & special channels & regionalized sports channels.
American football is going the same way. If you have ever watched American football LIVE in a stadium you will wonder about all of the "standing around delays" that you will see.
Football in the rest of the world (soccer to the USA) is still quite acceptable in terms of game length.
An NFL game lasts 11 minutes (Score:3)
A newspaper (the New York Times?) once calculated how long the ball is in play in an average NFL game. Eleven minutes. They are actually playing for 11 minutes, while fans spend over three hours to watch this 11 minutes of play.
This is why I used my DVR when I used to watch the Broncos.
I'd hit the button to skip ahead 30 seconds after each play.
Re: An NFL game lasts 11 minutes (Score:2)
It would be nice if the DVR could automatically edit the footage down to those 11 minutes. But advertising revenue.
Re: ReplayTV did this! (Score:2)
I remember that too and the uproar it caused with consumers. Corporate uber alles, as always.
We shall see (Score:2)
I'd like to see it be used to actually determine balls and strikes; but I expect they'll go with the half-assed approach and only use it to settle challenges.
Baseball is Doomed (Score:2)
More balls in play, more home runs, more scoring, more "excitement" equals a longer game.
To shorten a game you need to put fewer balls in play and reasonably set some pitch tempo, which probably means giving the fielding team the advantage.
Over the years, it's probably been easier and cheaper for a baseball team to find 3-5 awesome pitchers than 15-20 awesome batters. So there's more strikeouts, lower scoring, and the pitcher sets the pace.
You could also make 1 run equal 5 points; that may actually work fo
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And you forgot about hockey. I don't know about rugby but I think the reason a lot of Americans don't enjoy watching soccer is because while the ball is continuously in play, most of the time nothing interesting is happening. There's a lot of dead time in American football, but when something happens it's usually interesting.
I'm waiting (Score:2)
I'm waiting for robot players. Then baseball might become interesting again.
Whatever (Score:2)
MLB has made some very bad decisions in their attempt to become NFL-lite. Three divisions per league, two playoff wildcard teams per league, the wildcard one-and-done playoff game, the designated hitter, inter-league play, pitch clocks, putting a free runner on second base in extra inning games, etc. Now robotic umpires? I also understand they're considering putting a clock on the batter returning to the batters box (after, say, for example, he ran out what was eventually a foul ball). And I hear there's mo