Getty Minnesota Twins SS Carlos Correa (left) & Umpires Arguing with Cardinals' Manager Oli Marmol (right)
As Major League Baseball fan/player frustration with the home plate umpire calling balls and strikes continues to escalate, the mission to find a solution is taking some unexpected turns.
Minnesota Twins’ shortstop Carlos Correa chimed in with an interesting proposal highlighted in a May 24th, 2024 article in The Athletic.
The former Rookie of the Year and 2017 World Series champion trotted out the idea of the home plate umpire using PitchCom and being privy to what pitch was coming (i.e., slider inside) to help the ump better manage the strike zone.
Let’s explore PitchCom and find out how Correa’s band-aid-like idea highlights why an umpire is set up for failure in the first place.
What Exactly is PitchCom?
Designed to stop sign-stealing, in 2022 Major League Baseball instituted its PitchCom system enabling the catcher to electronically send proposed pitch selection choices directly to the pitcher and select fielders.
As Tyler Kepner explained: “The catcher wears a forearm sleeve—resembling a remote control—with nine buttons for calling the pitch and location.
The pitcher has a receiver in his cap, the catcher has one in his helmet and receivers can also be worn by up to three other fielders (typically, the two middle infielders and the center fielder) to adjust fielder positioning.”
“An encrypted channel can be used in multiple languages, and teams can also program in code words to replace pitch names such as “fastball” or “curveball.”
In 2023, the rules were tweaked giving the pitcher the same access as the catcher to request a certain pitch and location. Other official changes included,
“Each of the 30 clubs to be in possession of three PitchCom transmitters (used for calling pitches) and 12 receivers (ear pieces used for hearing the pitch call). At any one time, two transmitters are permitted to be in use on the field — one for the pitcher and one for the catcher — and up to five receivers in total can be worn by the defensive team.
The PitchCom transmitters, which are wristband-like devices with buttons for calling a specific pitch and location, will be worn either on the pitcher’s belt or on the back of his glove.”
Carlos Correa Calls Umpire/PitchCom Marriage a ‘Great Idea’
Correa hatched his concept the previous weekend in Cleveland after he felt a few questionable strike zone calls negatively impacted some games. Correa thinks PitchCom would help “umpires call a more accurate zone.”
“It just occurred to me because I was thinking during the game about that,” Correa told Dan Hayes of The Athletic.
If umpires knew what was coming, it would be a lot easier for them to call balls and strikes instead of just trying to guess what way the ball is going to go.
I think it’s a great idea and something we need to talk about with the league and the Players Association because we want everybody to get the right calls. I think that would help big time.”
Why PitchCom Won’t Solve Anything
Considering the proximity and vantage point from where umpires are tasked with evaluating pitches, the human umps do a fairly solid job.
“According to TruMedia, umpires had a ball-strike accuracy rate of 92.5 percent through Wednesday, well above their overall average of 89.1 percent since 2008, when tracking began.”
“Then again, on pitches classified as “on the corners,” the accuracy rate dropped to 56.6 percent this season and fell to 45.9 percent for pitches on the corners with two strikes.
Both figures are about 10 percent more accurate in 2024 than they have been across the 17 seasons of data — but there’s still plenty of room for improvement.”
@MLBNetwork #MLB umpire joke of the day (so far)
ALL THREE called strikes to #STLCards Lars Nootbaar were well out of the zone
manager Oli Marmol was ejected shortly after
While improvement is good, when you have the technology to get the call right at a near-perfect ratio—particularly on the edge of the strike zone—you have to embrace those advancements. Why do a good job when you can do a great job, right?
Doubling down on the problem by giving umpires this added PitchCom feature isn’t the answer.
The Antiquated Element of Umps Calling Balls & Strikes
THIS IS ÁNGEL HERNÁNDEZ ON THREE STRAIGHT PITCHES AND THIS IS EGREGIOUS
Part of Carlos Correa’s reasoning on allowing access to incoming pitch location touched on umps needing to “guess what way the ball is going to go.”
First off, the umpire isn’t back there to speculate on incoming pitches. He should remain stationary just like the strike zone and call it where the ball crossed into the zone.
Secondly, the umpire could unknowingly develop a tell when he sets up for a delivery or positions himself behind the catcher. The batter could also conceivably hear the message piped into the ump’s hat. The idea is flawed in several ways.
The bigger issue is this: How can an umpire accurately call all pitches when he stands behind and hovers over the catcher in front of him? Check out this tweet.
Jonah Heim caught 259 called strikes on first-half pitches that were out of the strike zone and there’s nobody else even close.
Calling a fastball right down the middle is the easy part. It’s the breaking and sinking movements of the ball that can in no way be properly assessed from that vantage point.
As Seattle Mariners designated hitter/catcher Mitch Garver stated,
“I’ve caught some guys with outlier stuff, and those are the pitches that really screw up the umpires — like the low-release fastball that rides the bottom of the zone and catches the lower half, or the sweeping breaking ball that comes all the way across the plate, it’s hard for them to see that cross,” Garver said.
Placing a human behind the action and expecting him to correctly ascertain breaking stuff passing near strike zone corners is officially an antiquated conception.
It’s Simply About Getting the Call Right
A superimposed strike zone was first introduced in 2001 when ESPN’s “K-Zone” was launched.
Technology has exponentially increased since and can be utilized to get the call right as close to 100% of the time as possible.
The league can institute one designated superimposed strike zone for every broadcast to eliminate varying results.
Baseball can keep the human element of the umpire behind the plate, but let’s bring them into the 21st century.
Perhaps they can wear a nice fashionable pair of Oakleys that have a red light visible in the left corner of the ump’s peripheral vision and a green light on the right.
Remedial as it sounds, if the glasses were linked with the electronic strike zone in real-time, the umpire would instantly know what call to run with.
Imagine this scenario: A big, sweeping curveball hits the outside corner. The green light is activated, and the ump is free to break into an Enrico Pallazo-like celebration as he pirouettes into a stone-cold Michael Jackson-esque moonwalk.
The bottom line is this:
Umpires have been around since 1876. As the game has evolved in other areas, getting crucial balls and strikes right when you have that ability seems like a proverbial no-brainer.
It’s simply inexcusable in 2024 when human DNA can be altered and robots are working in fast food establishments not to use tech to get the call right.