Baseball proposing to change strike zone next season

[dagger]

Would raise the zone to the top of the knee, to get more balls in play.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/jaysonst/status/733810231285780480[/tweet]

[ldnk]

I like both. The strikes getting called at times at the ankles are absurd...particularly when it's a sinker-ball pitcher.

I love the intentional walk call. For the 1-2 times in the history of the league that a team has done something other than just get the runner on base from the walk it will save a few seconds in a game that takes way too long at times.

[Lateral Quicks]

DIsagree on both counts.

If umps are calling balls strikes, the solution isn't to change the strike zone to make up for it. The solution is to implement robot umpires.

As for the intentional walk, how much of an impact on game times will it really have? Intentional walks are pretty rare. Also, game changing moments - an accidental meatball, a wild pitch - can happen with pitch outs. Keep it.

[pingpongrac]

It's not going to make much of a difference, if at all, because some umpires are still going to have a very liberal strike zone. Bring on the robot umps already.

[rarefind]

Stupid. It makes no sense that Major League Baseball has gone to such extents to get calls right, including the slowing down of games so every damn play can be reviewed before challenged but we can't get a definitive and automatic strike zone?

[KL78192020]

What about letting the computer call balls and strikes.

[Natural11]

I disagree on both proposals.

The strike-zone itself is fine, it's the inconsistency with umpires that presents problems. The only change to that process should be finding a way to automate ball/strike calls.

The other half of that problem is that a lot of hitters are standing too far away from the plate, so they quite literally cannot make good contact on a low+away strike. Just watch where Goins stands in the batters box compared to Jose Bautista. He physically does not have enough plate coverage to make good contact at that location. But that's a problem with the player and his coaches, not the game.

As for intentional walks, they really want to cut down on this 30 second process, while allowing teams to delay multiple times per game so they can pre-review their intention to ask for a review? Then when they get to the review, it's another 1-5mins wasted, as they go through the slowest review process of any sport. Seems a bit much to add these things to the game, and then worry about intentional walks which occur far less frequently than reviews.

[Skin Blues]

If umps are calling balls strikes, the solution isn't to change the strike zone to make up for it. The solution is to implement robot umpires.

It's the opposite, really. The problem is that the umpires are actually calling the zone properly now. For years, they wouldn't give the low strike even though it was in the rulebook strike zone. After QuesTec and then Pitch FX they got feedback on how they were doing and the zone lowered consistently, year by year, until they were calling much closer to the actual rulebook definition. So, now that they are calling the zone properly they need to raise it back up to get the zone effectively what it was before. I believe the zone should be called electronically rather than by an umpire's judgment, but they have certainly become much better at calling the zone recently. The major remaining issue is the "lefty strike" which has for some reason gotten worse over the years. The entire zone is basically shifted an inch or so away from lefty hitters.

[SharoneWright]

This hurts Sanchez and Stroman, in particular.