I think we can all agree what makes baseball great is the emphatic calls of an ump when he gets to flamboyantly fling his arm up in the air to ring a guy up for the third out of the inning. With ABS, though, no ump is going to want to embarrass himself by having his call overturned. It already seems like the umps have toned it down from the 80s and 90s. Now I'm afraid games are going to get boring as the ump just says strike 3, and walks off the field. Will we ever get to see the likes of the great Enrico Pallazzo again? I'm afraid we won't.

Good!

Shouldn't ever even know the officials are there

#grumpyoldmanshakingfistatclouds

But it's exciting!!!1





If it takes being embarrassed to be better at your job, then they shouldn't have that job to begin with. So I say embarrass the hell out of them and make them understand for the first time in their careers that there is accountability in how you do your job. The game shouldn't be centered around their flamboyance at the expense of the quality of the product on the field.

There was a Jomboy video the other day following a Pirates spring training game where 5 calls were overturned in the first 3 innings.

When you think of missing 5-10 calls in a game of 200+ pitches, it seems like a small percentage but he broke it down removing pitches that you didn't even need an umpire behind the plate to call - pitches that were swung at, pitches that hit batters, and pitches that were so out of the zone the catcher didn't even try to frame - the percentage went up to +20% calls were missed, which is quite substantial.

It also matters on when they miss the call.

That 2-2 that makes it 3-2 when it should be 2-3 (out) changes the game. Along with the 3-2 being a walk.

My hope is that this can help 'level' the game with some teams that have good pitchers vs. good batters.

~egon