See, don’t get me wrong, I like those games too. But then I guarantee the next day we’ll all be discussing the calls from the ump. “It ended third inning! Astros had the bases loaded and that was NOT a strike. They could never come back after their confidence was blown. I’l always blame umpire Fiddgypidgey for that.” And so on… Let the hitfest begin.
Astros are closing this one tonight. I fear it for the Dodgers.
I don’t mind a high-scoring game breaking out now and then. It’s exciting, and it makes the otherwise dominant pitchers seem human.
I don’t mind occasional home runs; the sight of the ball leaving the ballpark, especially at some crucial juncture, is very exciting. But, like anything exciting, it loses its excitement when done too often. Sadly, this year in the NL at least, hitting long balls payed off (the five playoff teams were the top five in SLG in the league, which was not true of OBP, and decidedly not true of AVG). So watching everyone swing for the seats seems to be here to stay. 
Swinging for the seats is here to stay. Hitters will be rewarded at contract time. But what about umpires’ calls on the strike zone? Will that become automated, much like tennis?
IOW, “Chicks dig the long ball.”
Why not? The technology exists, and essentially all other calls are already automated.
Good commercial, I’d forgotten about that one.
About the technology and automated calling of balls and strikes, it’s just a matter of time, especially if TV stations keep displaying the strike zone and an ump calls a pitch that contradicts what’s displayed. The more that happens, and it’s happened a lot in this series, the more that fans, players, and managers will ask for it.
I agree, I suspect we’re only 5-7 years away from auto-calls for Balls & Strikes.
If things keep going like this series, 5-7 years will be a painful wait.
On TV they display a rectangle, but the strike zone is more like a rectangular box — it has depth, it isn’t 2-dimensional. The automation has better take this into account.
Of course that rectangular box is the shape of home plate when viewed from above.
Re the balls and strikes, umps have been getting worse and worse in the post-season every year it seems. I’m not sure whether it’s because of some directive to call certain strikes or what but in game 5 it seemed like the outside corner of the plate was consistently inconsistent. One of the worst games I can ever remember was the Nats-Giants NLDS in 2014 game 2. Nats had a chance to tie it up and the umps just gave Affeldt an ever-expanding strike zone. I was basically pulling for the Giants that series but it made me sick to think that the Nats got jobbed like that.
The rectangular box is what is still being worked on I believe. That and it needs to be more accurate than the TV rectangle.
It would have helped Aaron Judge quite a bit this year and probably will always be helpful to rookies. It seems like vets get more favorable calls due to some sort of mental thing with most umpires. I’ve seen plenty of rookie pitchers get squeezed over the years and vets get extra inches all the way up to extra ½ foot that Atlanta’s 3 aces got in the 90s.
There is no earthly reason they couldn’t start in on it next season, and there’s no good reason not to.
I can’t think of another sport so willing to accept bad officiating. There’s a lot of bad officiating in football, basketball and hockey, but there isn’t an actual, validated, functioning computer system that can tell you if Sergie meant to cross-check Tim that hard, or whether or not Al fouled Henry when he took the jump shot. Baseball has an honest to god ball and strike system and they only use it for the benefit of TV viewers. It’s exactly as if you had electronic timing for Olympic sprinters but they only used it for TV and the medals were handed out based on some guy just eyeballing it.
I hate games being decided by umps. Hate it. The 1997 playoffs have a huge invisible asterisk next to them thanks to Eric Gregg. Every game with Angel Hernandez umpiring has the open question as to whether it’ll be decided by something stupid Angel did. If Pitchf/x didn’t exist then the system would be what it is, but it does, so why the hell not use it?
The replay system at least eliminates the possibility of a truly horrific call in the field; debacles like the Don Denkinger call, or Armando Galarraga losing his perfect game, or the Joe Mauer double that was technically a fair ball twice and someone Phil Cuzzi called it foul. But baseball is played in the strike zone more than anywhere else. Get it right.
Boxing, but you’re right.
This WS really isn’t all that bad…check out the Helen Keller of umpires Eric Gregg from the 1997 NLCS.
And the reason the umpiring will never change is because the umpires are unionized.
It’s not Eric Gregg! It’s Enrico Palazzo! 
Ummm…I’m as big a Giants fan as anyone around here, and I’d take Bumgarner in a “win or die” game without a moment’s hesitation, but he hasn’t been quite as god-like as you say…
From Baseball Reference:
Year Series W L ERA IP H R ER
2010 NLDS 1 0 3.00 6.0 6 2 2
2010 NLCS 0 0 4.05 6.2 9 3 3
2010 WS 1 0 0.00 8.0 3 0 0
2012 NLDS 0 1 8.31 4.1 7 4 4
2012 NLCS 0 1 14.73 3.2 8 6 6
2012 WS 1 0 0.00 7.0 2 0 0
2014 NLWC 1 0 0.00 9.0 4 0 0
2014 NLDS 0 1 2.57 7.0 6 3 2
2014 NLCS 1 0 1.72 15.2 9 3 3
2014 WS 2 0 0.43 21.0 9 1 1
2016 NLWC 1 0 0.00 9.0 4 0 0
2016 NLDS 0 0 5.40 5.0 7 3 3
2 NLWC 2 0 0.00 18.0 8 0 0
4 NLDS 1 2 4.43 22.1 26 12 11
3 NLCS 1 1 4.15 26.0 26 12 12
3 WS 4 0 0.25 36.0 14 1 1
All Postseason 8 3 2.11 102.1 74 25 24
Still…12 series, 16 G, 102.1 IP, 8-3 record, 2.11 ERA, 24 ER is nothing to shake a stick at.
Sure Bumgarner hasn’t been completely godlike in the postseason, but…
36 World Series innings. One run. ERA of 0.25.
That is a World Series pitching God.
I totally agree, but one thing that would probably have to change is that the zone would have to be static, rather than batter-relative. Which I also have no trouble with. Just means shorties would have to swing at pitches that are up, and tall guys would have to swing at things below the knees.
I wonder how precise we could get with current technology…
Bullitt:
Impossible. Salvador Perez hit a home run off of him in Game 1 of the 2014 World Series. The only way a home run isn’t an earned run is if the batter would not have come to the plate if not for a prior error, and his home run was a solo shot, so that can’t have been the situation.
There is no reason Pitchf/x would require such a change. They set it to the batter’s height now.
I mean, if you wanna make that rule change you can do so, but you can do it wiith human umps or Pitchf/x.
There is no reason Pitchf/x would require such a change. They set it to the batter’s height now.
I mean, if you wanna make that rule change you can do so, but you can do it wiith human umps or Pitchf/x.
Pitchf/x (or Trackman? There’'s a few systems) is accurate to less than an inch. It is already much better than any human umpire who has ever lived.