Resistance is Futile

Photo by Kindel Media from Pexels

By Mark Mamerow

When Milwaukee Brewers’ GM David Streans signed catcher Yasmani Grandal for the 2019 season, he wasn’t just adding another high batting average power hitter and playoff caliber defender to the team. He was also picking up an elite “pitch framer”.

Pitch framing is the alchemy applied by experienced catchers to convert borderline pitches into called strikes. Pitch framers work in the “shadow zone”–within one width of the baseball either inside or outside of the strike zone. They absorb the pitch and funnel the motion back into the strike zone, making it harder for the umpire to detect that the pitch was actually outside the zone. Framing has to be subtle and smooth. Any catcher who jerkily drags a pitch several inches into the zone wil be caught by the umpire. These guys may need glasses, but they’re not stupid!  

Statcast, the high speed automated toolset used by MLB, has so many sensors pointed at the strike zone that detailed pitch framing statistics have been developed, and there is  even a catchers’ framing leaderboard.  In 2020, Yasmani Grandal, who had by then moved on to the White Sox, converted 50.9% of all shadow zone pitches to strikes, placing him third in the majors .

All of this duplicity and gamesmanship is headed for the scrap heap. It’s not a question of IF, but WHEN, human home plate umps are replaced by robots. In 2021, for the third year, the automated Trackman umpire system is being used in the minor leagues. Once the kinks have been worked out, you can bet that it will be deployed in the majors. The human umpires haven’t built up enough trust or respect, with either the players or the coaches, to expect a lobbying effort from that direction. There’s not a chance that the human home plate umps will survive this particular labor-saving device.  

In 2021, the Trackman robots are being used for the first time in affiliated minor league ball, the Low A Southeast League. This is a big step closer to the majors from their previous deployment in the independent Atlantic League, where long-shot prospects battle to make it to Korean baseball, to Mexico, or onto the minor league roster of an MLB team.

The Trackman system uses Doppler radar to generate an accurate strike zone for each batter. An Aaron Judge-sized colossus of a batter will have a longer strike zone than 5’ 6” second baseman Jose Altuve, and Trackman handles that with ease. With the strike zone automatically  established, the system detects whether the flight of the pitch intersected any part of that three dimensional elongated cube.  The call, ball or strike, is relayed — without noticeable delay — to the human home plate umpire. He (or, in future years, she) signals the call. For those Major League fans who have bridled against delayed strike calls for years — relief is on the way.

The home plate umpire  is still needed. He calls swinging strikes, plays at the plate, fair or foul batted balls, and overrides any obvious glitches or malfunctions resulting in terrible robot calls. But the primary advantage of the robot umpire taking over the strike zone  is obvious:  accuracy. It’s not uncommon for human umpires to simply flat out miss a ball or strike call. YouTube is full of long videos featuring bad call after bad call. You see fastballs grooved right down Wisconsin Avenue, as Bob Uecker would say, but the ump just stares at  it and rings up a ball. The pitcher and catcher go ballistic.  But Major League announcer character Harry Doyle gets the final word: “Ju-ust a bit outside!”  

(As a side note, game scenes from Major League were filmed in Milwaukee County Stadium. You can’t make a positive ID of County Stadium by all of the empty seats in the bleachers, though that’s a decent clue. You do it by spotting the large speaker tower looming over left center field. Starting in the early ‘80s, this  speaker blasted Brewer fans with commercial jingles and the rally-killing organ stylings of Frank Charles, with all the stereophonic fidelity of a two-dollar transistor radio.)

The other major improvement that the robot umpire brings is consistency. Veteran baseball fans have heard this discussed on their favorite team’s broadcast. “The ump is giving them that inside corner”, Brewers color commentator Bill Schroeder will intone. “He’s been doing it all afternoon.” One of the worst ump crimes against baseball humanity is to have an inconsistent strike zone.  If that inside pitch is a strike in the first inning, it had darn well better by a strike when Josh Hader is bringing heat in the ninth! The word from the ballparks is that the Trackman robot has a problem with low breaking balls.  But observers have also marvelled at its consistency. Pitchers in particular are pleased to know exactly how high or how low they can throw, and still get a strike.  

Fans won’t miss the bad calls by Angel Rodriguez, Joe West, and the other umps who patronize cut-rate optometrists. But the robot umps will leave a huge hole in the game. Who will the managers argue with? Instant Replay has already eliminated most disputes. Yet we all know that a good screaming match between manager and umpire can enliven even the dullest afternoon at the park. I’ll never forget seeing Earl Weaver turning around his hat, kicking dirt on the ump’s shoe, and being  ejected after a game-ending play, with Bob Uecker asking “Can the ump even DO that?”  

But the fact is, arguing over balls and strikes has been illegal for years. It’s punishable by ejection, and no warning need be given. There’s still plenty of bellyaching from the dugouts, and players discreetly voice their opinions without visibly showing up the umps. But any batter who gets in the ump’s face over a called third strike is headed for an early shower. If the steam is building, managers usually scurry out post haste to get between their player and the ump.

There’s no getting between major league baseball and the coming of the robot umps. Let’s just hope they at least bring some kind of attitude to the game. We’d prefer the sass of the Jetson’s wisecracking robot maid Rosey to the sedated tranquility of the killer HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Either way, the new ump won’t be fooled by even the cagiest pitch framing. And we’d all better hope that the robot ump network can’t be hacked by those cheatin’ Houston Astros!