{"id":73407,"date":"2024-05-15T18:41:03","date_gmt":"2024-05-15T22:41:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=73407"},"modified":"2024-05-15T18:41:03","modified_gmt":"2024-05-15T22:41:03","slug":"mlb-automated-strike-zone-two-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/05\/15\/mlb-automated-strike-zone-two-years\/","title":{"rendered":"MLB Two Years Away from Automated Strike Zones"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The days of strikes that are called balls and balls that are called strikes are numbered, because the automated strike zone is reportedly coming to MLB soon.<\/span>\u00a0<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For over three decades, \u00c1ngel Hern\u00e1ndez has terrorized Major League Baseball anytime he steps behind home plate. His persistent inability to consistently and accurately call balls and strikes defies all reason. Outside of suing MLB for racial discrimination, the fact that Hern\u00e1ndez has managed to retain his job is inexplicable.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While Hern\u00e1ndez has become the poster child for bad calls, he is certainly not alone. Strike zone enforcement is a growing problem in the majors that needs to be fixed before more catchers get hurt. Cardinals catcher <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/c\/contrwi01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Willson Contreras<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> broke his left forearm when he was hit by a swing earlier this month. Contreras will miss <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/05\/08\/cardinals-most-consistent-hitter\/\" target=\"_self\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">six to eight weeks<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> after undergoing surgery to repair the fractured arm he suffered in a freak accident from catcher interference.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">The automated strike zone is coming to MLB in the next two years, per \u2066<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BNightengale?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@BNightengale<\/a>\u2069 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/cVGeJsj7UL\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/cVGeJsj7UL<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Michael Schwab (@michaelschwab13) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/michaelschwab13\/status\/1790074631409283213?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 13, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With the automated strike zone expected <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/mlb\/columnist\/bob-nightengale\/2024\/05\/12\/khris-davis-home-run-leader-turned-auto-mechanic\/73657100007\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">within the next two years<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, per Bob Nightengale of USA Today, the days of bad calls and catcher interference are numbered. Catcher interference calls are on the rise as more catchers are setting up closer to the plate to steal strikes. Major league catchers set a new MLB single-season record with 96 catcher interference calls last season.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIt\u2019s risky,\u2019\u2019 Tigers manager <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/managers\/hincha.01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A.J. Hinch<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, a former catcher, told reporters. \u201cThe closer we can get to the plate, the more strikes we can grab at the bottom rail. Catchers are being evaluated and getting paid on how well they can control the bottom rail, and it\u2019s led to more and more catcher\u2019s interference calls.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>MLB Is Two Years Away from Implementing Automated Strike Zone<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The automated ball-strike (ABS) challenge system is currently being tested in the minor leagues. It could debut in MLB as early as next season. Two versions of robo-umpiring are being used in all Triple-A ballparks this season, a full ABS and a challenge system.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Each ballpark is outfitted with an array of Hawk-Eye cameras and a computer determines whether a pitch is a ball or a strike. The ABS then relays the call to the home plate umpire via an earpiece. Both versions of robo-umpiring are being tested in each series this year. Full ABS is being used for the first three games of each series while the challenge system is being used for the final three games.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With the challenge system, the home plate umpire calls balls and strikes while ABS tracks each pitch. Teams have a set number of challenges that they can use if they believe the umpire got the call wrong. If the call is overturned, they get that challenge back. If the call is upheld, they lose the challenge.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While umpires can still affect games with their inaccuracies, their impact will be minimized when it comes to critical, game-changing decisions and player safety.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Photo Credit: \u00a9 Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The days of strikes that are called balls and balls that are called strikes are numbered, because the automated strike zone is reportedly coming to MLB soon.\u00a0For over three decades, \u00c1ngel Hern\u00e1ndez has terrorized Major League Baseball anytime he steps behind home plate. His persistent inability to consistently and accurately call balls and strikes defies [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4975,"featured_media":73417,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1071,35],"tags":[3298,1508,85,168,1478],"class_list":["post-73407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb","category-news","tag-aj-hinch","tag-angel-hernandez","tag-detroit-tigers","tag-st-louis-cardinals","tag-willson-contreras"],"modified_by":"Lewis Masella, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4975"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}