gehringer_2

The only flaw I see here is that since questec and then the on-screen strike boxes, pressure began in earnest on the umps to call more, not less high strikes. Umps do call to the top of the video box we see today, and I'd stand hard on my contention that before the video tracking they never did - at least not since the 60's. I agree that launch angle does make it harder for hitters to cover the top of zone, but my take would be that hitters went to launch angle *in spite* of a strike zone that was moving upward instead of because of it - and that was driven by the rabbit ball increasing the value of the HR to where all other effects - including the upward creep of the top of zone, were relegated to secondary status.

smaller K zone would not make the hardest hit balls go further though it might make the HR/FB ratio go up. But on the other side, a smaller K zone would definitely NOT make Ks go up, which is the stronger proof that it is really is larger - particularly at the top.

this is almost funny, because the truth is that despite this chart showing the top of the zone getting lower, what the umps call has been getting higher over the same period. In the 80-90s a pitcher could hardly get anything above the waist called a strike. Some of what is going on in this chart is not a change in the real zone, but a move to get the zone closer to what the umps actually call. This began to matter with Questec technology starting showing what the umps really were calling. For decades between the 60s and the current game, the high fastball was useless as a strike out pitch because it was not going to be called a strike and hitters could just take it. The willingness of umps in this era to call higher strikes is what has brought back the power fastball strike out despite the official zone definition getting lower.

I don't think this is as big a deal as you posit. The zone goes from below the waist to above the waist. If a guy has long legs he has more zone below his waist, less above, and vice versa. Even for people with different inseams if you are approximately the same height your knees to shoulder distance varies less than the difference in the height of your waist, so a lot of it comes out in the wash in terms of a strike zone.

they could start with a hybrid system. The laser calls the plate by beeping in the ump's ear, he decides on the up-down and then makes the final call. Probably 80% of the worst bad calls are on width rather than height so you'd be rid of all those. Or just do it by %of height. Bottom of zone is x% of the batters standing height, top is y% of his height - whether he wants to crouch or not will not affect what he has to cover. That would be as fair to as many players as whatever the Umps are doing now.

I don't think they are supposed to be. Way back in the day, the National league moved away from the outside chest protector and the AL did not, and that did lead to a difference for a number of years because AL umps were looking from above and NL umps from the side. That meant the AL zone was more accurate left right but the low strike was approximate while in the NL up-down was more accurate but the outside was more approximate. The leagues eventually all got on the same page with inside padding and positioning. The definition of the zone was always the same, but the batters still got a different effect.

I predict it will make a lot changes in the game. There will a lot more 4 pitch walks, a lot more 3 pitch Ks, Batting averages will go up, scoring will go up (well, unless they just set the machines to call a bigger zone), and the differential between great players and the rest will come down because the machine won't be biased toward giving 'benefit' of the doubt to either Cy Young winners or a batting champions.

There can be certainly be inaccuracies in the "Bally Box" and as a matter of fact, when we used to be able to get strike call maps from Brooks baseball in real time, the umps were often more accurate in that box than in the (then) 'Fox Box.' But that aside, there is no excuse for what happened today to Niko where the ump gave the pitcher 2 ball widths additional on both sides of the plate in the same AB! There is no perspective or video inaccuracy can explain/excuse that. I have a fair amount of sympathy for the umps when players bitch about calls missed a little low or high, but umps should not be misjudging pitches on the horizontal axis.

Could be, but I doubt he will be. Mantha plays like he thinks he is Wayne frickin' Gretzky. He wants to float around above the fray and wait for some hard worker like Bertuzzi to set him up. Problem is that he is about 1000 goals short of earning that kind of deference.

If Manning had had the K zone Niko just got, he'd have pitched a shutout. Ridiculous umpiring with the game on the line. OTOH, if Niko had even the hint of rumor of a rep for knowing the K zone, he might get one of those once in a while.

the difference with Ras is that he can flash a certain level of physical dominance. Of course so could Mantha, didn't make him a good player - only meant that you could project a possible scenario where he is. Freely admitting that I haven't seen that much of him, to me the question with Zadina is whether he has the skill to ever draw your eye to him as a dominant player on the ice other than when he is working at an exertion level he can't sustain.

I liked this part (from the same NYT citation):

Yup - it's gotten to be a pattern that has become self re-enforcing because of it goes get more social media attention. Once is an accident, twice is a co-incidence. After that it's a plan.

If we won 1st overall we'd expect Connor McDavid, of course!

I used to say that Tiger Stadium had 10,000 of the best seats in the major leagues, but also 40,000 of the worst. Basically the box seats were fantastic places to watch a game - none of the rest were worth much because of the poles. The upper deck was the mixed blessing. There is probably nothing comparable to how close the upper deck boxes were left at any modern stadium, but the poles holding up the upper deck meant that just about the only good seating in the lower level was the box seats which were out in front of them. The upper deck was great close to the rail - again those were all 'boxes', but it wasn't steep enough for the seats further back to be very good and then you got to the poles holding up the roof. EDIT: HaHa - LS was typing the same post give or take a few thou...

Watching Tiger shortstops this season has been the one deeply masochistic aspect of this year's fandom.

no, Haase is a nice backup/utility guy and he might be a great platoon with a young Alex Avila, but I don't see LH platoon catcher candidate out there.

Manning got out of it despite being really squeezed on a couple of pitches.

I'm not strictly against term limits per se, but the ones we have in MI are so short they are counterproductive. I think something more like 12 yrs would force sufficient roll-over without creating the incompetence churn we have in the lower chamber now.

Yup, that's the one. I'm have no dog in a fight over whether Reyes or Hill wins the battle for more PA, but the rest is where they need to end up by sometime in May.

I still have a little hope Rasmussen turns into an asset. Fading fast for the others. Yzerman keeps saying nice things about Velano, but it's probably just GM speak.

Excellent JB! I have a whole catalog of fungi shots from a couple of trips to Isle Royale. The joke for me being that the SO is a mycologist.

I yearn for the day next season when I will see the first lineup without Niko or W. Castro.

One would hope so. If it's true that Patricia was a truly bad coach (widely assumed), both from the Xs and Os as well as motivationally, then certainly better scheme and discipline should yield better results even with the same personnel. If this weren't true then good coaching vs bad coaching wouldn't matter. And if we assume that on offense some of that improvement is going to be negated by the change to a less gifted QB (also assumed), then it would be the defensive side of the ball where the most difference would appear - plus improvement is easier the worse a unit is to begin with, and the Lion's D started this season from about as bad a starting point as you could. Or another way to put it: They still won't be able to play beyond their talent level, but that could still be better than it looked last year.

YES! An outlet/GFCI tester is definitely something that should be in every kitchen junk drawer.