How many times have you been shocked and angered at the wrong pitch calls umpires make, especially when the wrong call affects the outcome of the game? How many times have you seen batters and managers get kicked out of a game for complaining about a truly terrible call? The time is right for Major League Baseball to use an electronic strike zone. This issue has become more obvious lately, as shown by a Boston University study.
In 2019, Boston University made a detailed study of umpire pitch calls for the previous eleven seasons and found a very poor record. Some of the discoveries they made for the 2018 season are; umpires made 34,294 wrong calls, 14 per game. Wrong calls are made from 20 to 30 percent of the time, or 1 in every 4 to 5 times. Also there's a bias with two-strikes, umpires will call a strike more often when it's actually a ball, and there's a strike zone blind spot, at the top of the zone there's 27% wrong calls and 18% for bottom of the zone.
The study shows that older umpires make more wrong calls than younger ones. The 10 umpires who make the most wrong calls average 56 years old and have 20.6 years experience. The 10 umpires with the fewest wrong calls average 33 years old and 3 years experience, they make 56% fewer wrong calls. It's obvious that as umpires age, they need an electronic strike zone.
By adapting an electronic strike zone, there will be far less angst and confrontation, it will also eliminate any "pay back/retribution" calls umpires make when they get yelled at by players and managers, pitchers will get better at finding the edge of the zone, batters will get better at getting hits, all in all it will make the game more compelling and pleasant to watch.
