Something better than Instant Replay

[Birdinal5]

They should just create a computer that simply judges the winner based on previous stats. No need to bother with games, just extrapolate! Based on previous years and the talent still playing games in the minors: They've announced that the Cardinals have won the World Series in '10, '11, '19, '23, and '30. Cubs had a chance in '16 but a robotic Bartman intercepted the game result printout and "accidentally" changed the 4-1 series result to 4-7 with a sharpie. No questions were asked since the computer hadn't been wrong since a bug allowed it to award the '12 WS to the Washington Senators.

[Derwood]

and the first time the thing breaks or malfunctions......then what?

 

how can we play a game at night what if the lights break

 

true, huge sodium-arc stadium lights are the exact level of sophistication as a laser tracking system

[seanimal]

I'm sorry Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.

[bcl412]

This is such an interesting discussion. The fact that machines would never make mistakes when making calls would probably be good for the game but for some reason, I don't like it. The thing is though, can we really guarantee that the machines wouldn't make mistakes. I haven't known a piece of technology that has preformed its task perfectly all the time.

[jersey cubs fan]

I gotta disagree there MasterBlaster. Getting rid of the umpires altogether would be ridiculous.

 

It would no longer be baseball. Thankfully, I doubt very much your ultimate vision of baseball will ever come to pass.

That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Baseball is a game where a pitcher throws a ball and a hitter tries to hit it where the defense aint. The umpires have nothing to do with the game itself, they are merely a necessary evil brought in because players can't be trusted to accurately or fairly police themselves.

 

Getting rid of umps would not take anything away from the game.

[bukie]

Calls that can be completely objective without player interaction would be easier to handle electronically. These would be obvious calls such as balls and strikes, fair/foul balls, and HR/not a HR calls over the wall.

 

Calls that are somewhat subjective or require player interaction are still much more easily managed by a human umpire. For example, safe/out calls, catch/not a catch, fan interference, fair/foul off a player.

 

There's still plenty of room for human interaction without being so dependent on human error for critical issues that would just as easily be handled electronically.

[bukie]

They should just create a computer that simply judges the winner based on previous stats. No need to bother with games, just extrapolate! Based on previous years and the talent still playing games in the minors: They've announced that the Cardinals have won the World Series in '10, '11, '19, '23, and '30. Cubs had a chance in '16 but a robotic Bartman intercepted the game result printout and "accidentally" changed the 4-1 series result to 4-7 with a sharpie. No questions were asked since the computer hadn't been wrong since a bug allowed it to award the '12 WS to the Washington Senators.

 

Yes, that's the next logical step in the argument. Well, either that or that's a fantastic strawman you've built.

[Derwood]

i can see something similar to Grand Slam tennis events, where you have both human "judges" as well as the laser system.

[CubFanPhilly]

i can see something similar to Grand Slam tennis events, where you have both human "judges" as well as the laser system.

 

Exactly. And the human calls the fault half a second after the tone. Makes their job easy, doesn't it?

 

It'd be a hell of a lot more consistent, but less interesting IMO.

[chuckywang]

I think MasterBlaster has a good point. I want calls to be RIGHT. I don't care about deception or whatever. Just get the call right. That is the ultimate goal.

 

However, some calls are subjective like when a 2nd baseman interferes with a runner on the basepaths or fan interference on a playable ball. Those calls need to be made by human interpretation.

[MasterBlaster]

I would think the players want the calls to be right as well. I just don't see any benefit of blown calls, even if half of them go our way. The White Sox would not even have went to the WS if not for one of the most outrageous blown calls I've ever seen. Even if we can't totally get rid of Human umpires, it's best to minimize their impact.