I usually try to stay out of discussions about umpires. They are just like any of us: they are human. This means that, as all other humans, these guys aren't perfect. They are as prone to mistakes as anyone, but because of the position of their job within society, they are held to a higher standard than everyone else by baseball fans and the media. However, let's be real: these guys are asked to perform a duty where billions of dollars are involved. They are making personal judgment calls based on a complex rule book in a game where millionaires are playing for billionaires against the millionaires of other billionaires. Are these the kind of decisions to be left up to beings as imperfect as humans? Well, I think the question is a little bit more complex than that, so let's take a look.
First, let's start off with where sports are at in terms of how they let their officials make decisions. The NFL has expanded replay to all scoring plays and uses a challenge-based system where coaches can get non-scoring plays reviewed. The NBA uses a minimalist system where only specific calls are reviewable, and the NHL reviews any questionable play involving a goal-scoring effort. For the longest time, professional soccer has vehemently been against the use of replay, although even FIFA is realizing that its officials aren't perfect and some calls could be reviewed in the future. Heck, even college sports that don't have as many resources as professional sports (while they still produce money out the ass) use review systems in football and basketball. So where does baseball stand? Well, right now it's just at home run "boundary" calls. Even though it's one of the oldest American sports and has existed as a professional league since the late 19th Century, baseball didn't get any kind of review system until this past decade. For well over one hundred years, all calls were made at the discretion of the umpire, which led to (as expected) several noticeable botched calls (Derek Jeter says a big "thank you" and Armando Galarraga says "no comment").
So baseball has dipped into replay a little bit, but why has it taken so long? Personally I believe is that baseball and its commissioner want to hold on to traditionalist roots as American sports continue their phenomenal growth that they've been going through in the past couple of decades. As more TV contracts and 200 million dollar contracts are handed out, fans are becoming more focused on the commercialization and competitive nature of sport rather than the traditional view of the game that involves playing "for the love of the game." However, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Leagues are booming, ratings for sports like the NFL and UFC are insane, and owners are enjoying some great times even though the current US economy isn't the greatest. MLB is at a point where it has a decision to make: go with a deeper review system or stick to what's worked for over a hundred years. Well, there's a lot that goes into that.
Firstly, let's consider the ability to run such a system. In case you aren't aware, baseball has undergone a statistical boom in the last 15 years that has been *completely* driven by technology. Technology has helped advanced scouting to the point where it is possible to know the specific details of every pitch in every situation. For a while that was done by humans at a computer. Now, however, we've got technology that can capture pitch location, velocity, and break *instantaneously*. No buttons need to be pushed, no thinking needs to be done. In a matter of microseconds, this technology can tell you exactly where a pitch is and whether it was a strike or a ball. Yeah, the technology can even change the strike zone's height based on the height and stance of the batter coming up to bat! Now, I'll be the first to say that PitchFX isn't 100% accurate, because it can sometimes struggle with pitch types and has the occasional glitch where it misses a pitch. However, the location of the pitch (which is undoubtedly what is most important to critics of umpires) is almost always dead on. Knowing what we have for technology, let's consider a few different arguments:
1) "A replay system/robot calling strikes would take too long"
*instantaneously*...These calls wouldn't take any time. We've got the ability for a pitch to be called a ball or strike in an instant, and I honestly don't see a reason why people would complain about a 45 second review when some Yankee-Red Sox games are already running 4+ hours (and most games can get done under 3). What are you going to do with that 45 seconds of your life? Breathe a couple times? Pass some gas? Maybe pick your nose? I mean, think about how little time 45 seconds really is.
2) "It takes the human element out of the game"
No. Nobody that wants a replay system should want umpires completely out of the picture. If anything, the ball/strike calls from PitchFX would be there to overturn an umpire's call in a challenge-based review system. And let's be real, parts of the game just depend on umpires being on the field. A lot of base running decisions are made based on knowledge of whether the ball was caught or not. Players need to know the result of that kind of play instantly. Plus, umpires are there to enforce rules that don't involve replays as well. Technology wouldn't replace umpires. All it would do is help them do their job at a 100% efficient pace (how cool would it be if you had a backup system that let you do your job perfectly EVERY SINGLE TIME?). Sure as heck takes off a lot of the pressure from everyone, because you know that, in the end, the call is going to be right.
3) "Players determine the outcome of the game, not the umpires"
Armando Galarraga would now like to comment (okay, I can't actually speak for him, but you catch my drift). Ask Jim Joyce if Galarraga should have done something differently to get his perfect game. Wait, in case you actually might do it, you should know that he's apologized a million times and felt terrible about taking away a perfect game from a pitcher that had definitely pitched well enough to earn it. Ask the Baltimore Orioles (the 1996 ones) if a poor call didn't determine the outcome of a game (or a series, for that matter). A longtime phrase in baseball (and all sports) is that, "It's a game of inches." In fact, it is! Tag calls, fair/foul calls, boundary calls, and ball/strike calls are ALL decided (often if you watch enough baseball) by a matter of inches. All of us can think of games our teams have won or lost because the ball*just barely* went the way that was favorable for our team. We can also all think of games where our team has been on the poor end of a bad call that was also decided by a matter of inches. Heck, sometimes calls are blown that aren't matters of inches. Just check out this picture of a call missed in yesterday's Dodgers/Rockies game (http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/the-worst-call-of-the-year/). An umpire will be the first to tell you that he missed the call and would go back to get it right. An umpire wants to do his job as well as a player wants to do his, so why not help everyone?
4) "If you put in a replay system, how are you going to run it? It's too complex."
The National Football League has a fantastic review system. Others may disagree, but I love the system that the NFL uses. Coaches get two chances to challenge calls. If they're wrong even once, then they lose the ability to challenge calls and have to deal with the consequences (after all, you complained to the refs in those cases and they were right). However, if you correct two of their mistakes, you get to do it a third time! Also, they review every single scoring play, and in the final two minutes all close plays are reviewed by officials. You could do the same thing in baseball. Rather than running out of the dugout and yelling obscenities at umpires and getting thrown out of the game, managers could toss out a red flag and calmly challenge the play. Sure, you lose a bit of entertainment value in the case that guys like Sweet Lou can't kick around some dirt in Aquafina commercials, but your manager gets to stay in the dugout and the call is going to be correct.
I really get tired of this debate, because I am sympathetic to umpires but grow frustrated with their mistakes at the same time. I wish technology wasn't necessary in the game of baseball. I wish every single call was correct. However, let's not intentionally sit under a rock on this issue. Nobody is perfect, and umpires fall under the umbrella of "nobody." We are unreasonable to expect them to get more than 98% of calls right (I mean, let's not forget the immense number of calls that are right that nobody ever complains about). Forgiveness is a fine thing, but imagine if you could live in an environment where you never had to forgive anyone and nobody ever had to forgive you. Doesn't that sound amazing? Well, it's time to realize that this is possible in baseball. We can get every call right in every situation. We can make it so the phrase "Players determine the outcome of the game, not the umpires" is actually true. I think that is what everyone wants. There's no need to live in a system with 1900's technology when we have 2012 technology. Teams are getting smarter and using this stuff to beef up their operations, improve marketing, and make strides as organizations.
So should we keep umpires as they currently exist, or should we give them the resources to make every call correctly? I'll bite my tongue for now and let you decide.
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