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Originally Posted by Steve M
One of our board posters works the pro game. There, they want the entire ball in the strike zone - or so I'm told by some of those who regularly work those games. Different levels of the game have different expectations of the officials who work the games.
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The NPF asked that we make the whole ball be above the knee and definitely call the letters (shift the zone up more to the definition), and the ball actually cross the corner (not the whole ball just tighten up the corners). The reasoning was to try to force the pitchers to be more hittable and potentially add offense (I don't know if it worked).
I do agree that different levels have different expectations, but I believe it is more in the consistency than the actual zone. In fact, in general and IMO, the higher the level - the less the location of the zone matters because both offense and defense will adjust to your zone, just stay consistent so they know the zone. I find that it is in the rec leagues and JO where players are less knowledgeable that they expect the definition zone and are not of the ability to recognize consistency because they have two zones, one for their offense and another for their defense.
I do adjust my zone for the level of the game. For me, the younger/lower levels see a more complete zone (pits to bottom of the knees, roughly box to box) because the pitchers struggle and are not overpowering. As the game gets better, I lower the zone slightly (about a ball on top and top of the ball-top of the knee) and tighten up the corners (half a ball off the plate inside and a full ball outside).
I will guage responses early in games in leagues I am not familiar with and try to adjust to what they want called/are used to having called; they are paying the fees, after all.