THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

There’s another thing I’d like to see data on, namely, the average length of games between teams that use the DH, and teams that don’t. It’s my impression that AL games take longer than NL games. That could be an argument for eliminating the DH.

I’m fairly certain that I’ve seen that data.  If I recall correctly, it was split out per season and the finding was there is no difference.  The longer batting innings of the AL were offset by the more frequent pitching changes of the NL or something to that affect.

#1: Would probably want to hold RPG stable for part of the study to make sure that it’s the added baserunners extending the time of game.  Could also hold mid-inning pitching changes stable as another control.

I’d also love to see television station worked into a study like this to see if certain broadcasts (national vs. local, local vs. local) affect commercial length.

What’s wrong with robots umpiring the games? People don’t pay good money for tickets to see some fat waddling umpire make a call.

What would happen if you used humans to handle appeals?  Would all of the robot calls then always be appealed?

Want to save time and increase accuracy?  Eliminate on-field umpire conferences and the practice of leaving the field to review the video.  Have a fifth umpire on the crew as part of the standard rotation who sits in the booth, serving as the official scorer and adjudicating disputed calls with the benefit of video.  Give him a direct line to the home plate ump who can announce decisions on the field.

As for having robot umpires, why would that be a bad thing? Aren’t 99% of their jobs simply applying black and white rules regarding physical occurrences? Why does the subjective application of objective rules need to be part of the game?

Biggest problem with robots is they don’t work 100% of the time. Look at the gameday data, lots of missing data. Umpires probably miss things too, but they have something to add other than a random number generator.

I’m not sure anyone disagrees with the ump in a booth idea.

As to robot umps, I get the feeling that the biggest complaint has to do with history and tradition.  Blown calls are a big part of a lot of franchises’ history and add a lot of story to them.  The other aspect is that you’re visibly taking somebody’s job when you install robo-umps (no mention will ever be made of the hundreds of people employed to create the hardware and software, maintenance the equipment, improve upon it, etc.) I suspect that as long as they aren’t glitchy as all hell people won’t complain much about them once they get used to them. 

Also, I’m just not sure how feasible robo-umps are at this point of time from a technical standpoint.  They’re probably more costly than umpires.  Maybe re-visit 10 years from now?

Statszombie/8, the missing data in Gameday is usually due to human error on the part of the stringer.  But the reason we still need stringers and human PITCHf/x operators is that computers/robots can’t do those jobs (yet?).

Wouldn’t going to robot umpires then in turn hurt the umpiring in the lower leagues. I would assume that at least for a while it wouldn’t be cost effective to develop robots for the minor leagues and college. I really don’t know anything about the subject but if I’m an umpire for college or the minors aspiring to be a major league umpire wouldn’t I have to consider changing professions once robots were installed.

I can think of about 30 people who disagree with paying for a fifth umpire in the booth at each major league game, and since they’re the ones who write the checks for it, I wouldn’t expect it to happen soon. 

Stuff does happen with video, not just equipment breaking down but the camera not in the right place.  There’s a lot of expense being talked about that covers a difference in accuracy it may not justify.  Rather than going whole hog about “the time for commercials” (which means lowering revenues, so you’re just spitting into the wind), why not get the actual statistics on cost and some estimates on accuracy and actually put a price tag on this.  That’s the kind of study that might convince someone.  Including convincing people to drop the idea.

Scott/11, absolutely yes.  Robot umpires are not feasible for many reasons, and that’s one of the biggest.

It’s much more productive to discuss computer assist on ball-strike calls or how to make replay video available to a human umpire than it is to discuss replacing human umpires altogether.

Why does the NHL review seven THOUSAND goals every year (including gimmes), and no one says boo about the cost?

Mike #13:

I agree with your 2nd paragraph in that technology is much more likely to enhance the calling of a game by making replays available than it is to replace umpires.  That Mauer “foul ball” should never have stood, and for my money, the “two guys tagged off third base” one shouldn’t have either.  In 2004, fortunately for Red Sox fans, the “umpires conferring” thing overturned two horrible initial calls (the A-Rod slap play and a Mark bellhorn homer), but 2009 proves that you can’t count on that always happening…

Seriously, when someone talks about replacing umpires with robots, forget about balls and strikes - that is a much easier thing to call than interference or obstruction or fan interference on a foul ball coming down just above the railing.  Until you can invent a robot that can make those kind of calls correctly (and my guess on when that is is “never"), forget about doing away with umpires, you simply have to have them…

On the hockey subject, they review goals but no one’s calling for a robot to call penalties.  No way can a robot ever do that. 

Although, one could very easily program a robot to call overtime penalties the same way the human referees do…

Re: DH and the length of games, there is very little difference in time between DH and non-DH games in MLB.  DH games tend to be slightly longer (something like 1 minute longer over the last decade, a bit more over all games since 1973), mostly because there are more mid-inning pitching changes with the DH rather than between-inning pitching changes.  The number of PAs is very close to the same with or without the DH.

The way to deal with the mid-inning pitching change slowing the game is to convince managers they are ruining their bullpen without getting a significant, if any, advantage.  It’s not really relevant to any argument on the DH.

I say bypass the umpires AND robots and go straight to training dogs to call games.  One bark for a strike, two barks for a ball, raise the right paw for an out and roll over for safe.  When Dusty Baker comes out to argue the dog could just play dead, then lift his leg to kick him out of the game.  We’d have to make slobber resistant balls is the only thing.

Of course I am just kidding, so please don’t ban me from the site.
vr, Xei

I think that today’s technology would be able to put some emitter inside the ball (in the center during the manufacture) and sensor net all over the home plate and a meter or so from the edge of the field. If done correctly, it could say if ball was over the plate to within a few millimeters, and it could also track the trajectory of the ball when crossing the line/fence. It would help with borderline fair/foul calls and with fan interference. And umpires would have to concentrate only on high and low strikezone borders.

Davor/20, we have PITCHf/x.  It’s not the technology for identifying balls and strikes that’s the problem.  I shouldn’t be that hard today to give the umpire an indicator which tells him real-time where PITCHf/x saw the pitch cross the zone.

Tracking the batted ball is a little more difficult, and adding an emitter is probably not the best way.  The TrackMan radar is currently the most promising from that approach.  But I don’t see why you couldn’t just have a replay umpire in a booth.  Human eyes on video are going to be more accurate than the ~1 foot or so accuracy you can get from an automated batted ball tracking system.

If you want to speed up the time don’t allow the batters to step out of the batters box except after foul balls.  Or allow them to do so, but allow pitchers to pitch to them even if they have one foot out of the box staring at third base and going through a Nomar like routine.

Also, limit the time a pitcher has to throw to the hitter so he can’t walk around the mound and then shake of the catcher a bunch.

If you did both of the above I think it would speed things up substantially.

There is a limit on the time a pitcher has to throw.  I’ve seen pitchers called with automatic balls for not pitching within that limit, although it is rare.  I don’t know how often pitchers go over the limit without it being called or if non-enforcement is an issue a lot of the time.

If I have my facts correct, there is a rule that the pitcher has 12 seconds to pitch when there’s no one on base. When there’s a runner on, there is no time limit. When Vicente Padilla’s pitching, there’s not even the concept of time.