This is similar to an artist practicing let say, painting for decades. Then in the middle of a masterpiece (an at bat) someone urinates all over it. Take this subjective aspect of the game away so these athletes can have fair at bats.
“The official strike zone is the area over home plate from the midpoint between a batter's shoulders and the top of the uniform pants -- when the batter is in his stance and prepared to swing at a pitched ball -- and a point just below the kneecap. In order to get a strike call, part of the ball must cross over part of home plate while in the aforementioned area.” In many of these videos where the ball is “high” the box barely reaches up to their belt line. It should be considerably higher than that per the MLB definition.
I agree, the box on the TV is inaccurate. These “misses” were calculated based on data points provided by Statcast for every pitch thrown - top/bottom of zone which varies by batter. Width of the plate is static, so from that I can calculate inches outside, inside, etc. using the coordinates of where the pitch itself traveled. Although there always seem to be a few flukes - likely bad data on the Statcast end. I promise you I did not comb through a season of calls to build this video. 😂
I was at this game. Front row. I yelled at one point “ANGEL YOU’RE ABOUT TO BE REPLACED BY A ROBOT” which was followed by a “BEEP BOOP BEEP” from someone behind me 🤣🤣🤣
Just more proof that MLB needs to start using the rectangle on the screen to decide the balls and strikes. ALTHOUGH…some of the boxes are taller than others. They need to be more uniform, if they ever start using them.
You can tell by the announcers that they’re flabbergasted by the lack of correct calls. It’s frustrating to the fans and 100x more so to the players. I’ve said this for several years…use the box on the screen to call the balls and strikes and put a cardboard cut out of an ump behind the catcher.
With Angel Hernandez in the thumbnail and the title is “worst 100 calls”, I’m guessing the video is from ONE game. When the catcher moves his glove 18” to fame the pitch, you’d think the umpire could see that and know it’s outside the strike zone.
If he plays like this in the 2024 season then absolute no doubt about it. He didn't play enough in '23, as he was just barely called up for about 60-80 games.
The problem with a lot of these “bad” calls is they’re based on the TV broadcast box. That box is invariably wrong, especially when it comes to the height of the strike zone. According to MLB the rule book strike zone is “the area over home plate from the midpoint between a batter's shoulders and the top of the uniform pants -- when the batter is in his stance and prepared to swing at a pitched ball -- and a point just below the kneecap”. But if you look at TV strike zone boxes the top of the zone is usually around the batter’s belt when it should be three or four inches above the belt. 95% of these supposedly missed calls above the strike zone box are actually rule book strikes, and should be called as such.
