Must be a new season

[Rich Ives]

Originally Posted by jicecone

FACT

And any umpire that officiates any type of decent baseball and calls balls and strikes strickly by where it crosses the plate, is not officiating decent baseball for very long.....!

I believe the MLB tracking systems (the official ones, not the TV network ones) measure the area over the plate and rate the umpires accordingly.

[bob jenkins]

Originally Posted by Rich Ives

I believe the MLB tracking systems (the official ones, not the TV network ones) measure the area over the plate and rate the umpires accordingly.

Except that the pitch that hits the bottom of the zone and then hits the dirt (not sure the exact criteria for this) is properly called a "ball" even in the tracking system

[flaump22]

Originally Posted by bob jenkins

Except that the pitch that hits the bottom of the zone and then hits the dirt (not sure the exact criteria for this) is properly called a "ball" even in the tracking system

just a side note, the MLB tracking system (ZE system) judges the ball from the time it crosses the plate, so initially that pitch that catches the bottom of the zone but hits the dirt is ruled as a missed pitch for the PU... obviously they don't want that called a strike so the supervisors go in each morning and when they check the performance of the umpires they reverse that decision and recalculate the PU's accuracy score so it is scored as a ball

edit: the balls and strikes system they use is the ZE system, the system they use for calls in the field is the SURE system

[jicecone]

Originally Posted by flaump22

just a side note, the MLB tracking system (SURE system) judges the ball from the time it crosses the plate, so initially that pitch that catches the bottom of the zone but hits the dirt is ruled as a missed pitch for the PU... obviously they don't want that called a strike so the supervisors go in each morning and when they check the performance of the umpires they reverse that decision and recalculate the PU's accuracy score so it is scored as a ball

I find that hard to believe that in THE PROS they actually cheat and call pitches that touch the strike zone balls. Where is that allowed in the rulebook.