Robot umpires: Are you ready to see automated balls and strikes in the majors?
Robotic umpires are coming to the Triple-A level this season and may one day make their way to Progressive Field. But how effective will they really be?
The world of robot umpires in Major League Baseball grows ever closer to reality, as the concept will now be tested at the Triple-A level this season.
Cleveland’s Triple-A affiliate, the Columbus Clippers, won’t be part of the initial experiment, but it will be rolling out to the Albuquerque Isotopes, Charlotte Knights, El Paso Chihuahuas, Las Vegas Aviators, Oklahoma City Dodgers, Reno Aces, Round Rock Express, Sacramento River Cats, Salt Lake Bees, Sugar Land Skeeters and Tacoma Rainiers.
Automated umpiring has been experimented with in recent seasons, with the independent Atlantic League first dipping its toes in the water in 2019, followed by the Arizona Fall League that same year. The Low-A Southeast League got in on the action last season, and it’ll stick there for now. It sounds like fans will even be able to see robotic umps at some spring training ballparks in Florida, too – you know, whenever this lockout decides to end.
Of course, there have already been complaints about the efficacy of robot umpires and their ability to properly call breaking balls, which really just begs the question: Why are we doing this at all? No solution will ever be 100% right at all times, no matter how good the technology gets. We’ve already seen plenty of questionable decisions being made in replay reviews – is the human element here really that bad?
What do you think? Are you ready for the world of robot umpires? And, more importantly, will these robot umpires one day become sentient and help destroy the world as we know it?
What people are saying on ABG social media
“Rarely does an umpire cost a game. It is ever more rare that they do it with their strike zone. Let us have our manager temper tantrums when they feel like their being slighted by umps. Let us see dirt kicked on the plate during a meltdown. Let us have inane arguments over balls and strikes. Enough of this has already been eliminated with replay on every other call. Don’t take this away from us! How many times have we seen a ballpark come alive during those moments on nights where everyone is just kind of ho hum about being there. Those moments of crankiness bring us together as fans! LET US HAVE NUCLEAR COACHES! Say no to RoboUmps.” – Jeffrey Tangey
“Can’t be any worse than some of the umpires we have now!!” – Maxine Hutchinson
“An emphatic NO! Stop trying to remove every thing human from baseball. If the game is too slow and too flawed for some folks tiny attention spans, let’s just have a new league where no players are involved at all. Tune in to watch a two minute AI simulation of a hypothetical game with hypothetical players based entirely on metrics, officiated by algorithm, and with a mathematically perfect outcome. Then eat a virtual hotdog and let the rest of us go back to enjoying the same flawed, grass stained, chewing tobacco spitting but somehow elegant game that generations have loved for a hundred and fifty years.” – Jim Tulip
“Leave it alone, the game is better with the human element” – Larry Brown
“Horrible. One of the best features of the game is the ‘game within the game’ – some of those games within the game are the catcher shading a pitch so that what would otherwise be a called a ball, is a strike; or a pitcher working the edges through a game so what would have been a ball in the first inning is a strike in the fifth. All of that will be lost.” – John Onorato
“Not part of baseball. Will never fly.” – Thomas Cahill
“About f****** time” – Tim Robinson