Ron Kulpa (a STL native) came to talk to our local association that he used to be part of before he got into the game, and he told us that the pitch tracker things shown on TV are not very accurate, nor the ones that MLB umpires are evaluated on.

What a surprise.

If he admitted they were accurate he would be admitting there are a lot of missed calls.

GMAFB. It looks like crap no matter who does it.

No system that represents the pitch as a point and the strike zone as a rectangle can possibly be accurate. Both the pitch and the zone are three-dimensional objects, and plotting a point on a plane simply will not provide enough information to evaluate the accuracy of a strike call (or non-call).

From what I've read up on the pitch f/x the actual tracking of the ball (from release of the ball to it being caught), along with other information gathered (horizontal/vertical change, release speed, spin) is accurate to a high degree (with the knuckle ball being the outlier as far as ability to track a pitches full movement from release to catch). The issue with all this is how the strike zone is represented with each different pitcher.

So you have just confirmed the inaccuracy of the entire system. The track of the ball is accurate however, relative to its placement in the strike zone, well that may or may not be so accurate. Which means the over all accuracy of the system may, or may not be that accurate.

As an Engineer, thats unacceptable.

Now, they just need a glowing, floating ovoid to represent the strike zone, and we'll have it!

They already exist in the shape of sports announcers. There definetly floating out there somewhere.

Exactly. The strike zone is a cube at the very least.

Rita