Jose was showing the ump his athlete’s foot and the ump was like “go see a doctor….you’re outta here!”.
Opponents owe the baseball gods a Xmas gift for being against the Astros this season. The amount of injuries, bad calls, bad luck, and Jabreu going Guinness-suck has been keeping their inferior peasant selves believing they can compete with the Dynasty. Their reality will fully strike after the regular season ends.
Does the "overall favor" depend on the outcome after the bad call? For instance, if Machado doesn't hit a HR (or if SD doesn't score) after the wrong call, does it affect the "overall favor"?
It seemed like he got 2 timeouts in the at bat where he hit the 2 run HR. Twice he thought he had a walk and started walking to first and took a while to get back in the box.
Last night was a GREAT endorsement for robot umps. It was incompetence so extreme that it would have been indistinguishable from corruption if not for the fact that their incompetence hurt both teams. Given the technology available today, there's no excuse in allowing games to be determined based on the subjective calls of incompetent umpires. It's beyond time for an automated, objective strike zone....and every single person in that replay booth that played ANY part in that hit by pitch call on Profar being upheld needs to be terminated immediately and blacklisted from ever holding any position with the league ever again.
for those that in the know about MLB rules, umps, replays etc etc. Can the Umps at the game overrule the decision that was made by the replay crew in NY? If so, this entire crew need to be investigated.
There were a few balls and strikes that were missed, but THAT wasn't the issue. I could argue that the umpires and specifically the HPU were a major factor in the outcome of the game by making out of the ordinary and inaccurate calls. Umpires should never be thecreason a game is won or lost, especially in this age of video replay and reviews. 1) Hader called for a timer violation inaccurate and it took so much time to resolve that Hader was out of routine and spiked his first pitch allowing a run to score. Now obviously it's on Hader to throw that pitch better. But it's perfectly reasonable to assume without the delay he doesn't throw a wild pitch. 2) top of the 9th, A foul ball off of Altuve's foot is ruled in play and a ground out, ending the inning. W/ Pena on 2b and 2 outs, a base hit scores the go ahead run. Altuve gets a hit about 30% of the time. Altuve gets ejected for taking off his shoe and sock to show where the ball hit him, despite no anger or yelling. 3) Bottom 10th W/ 2 outs and the tying run on 3rd, their hottest hitter - Profar is ruled HBP when the ball never touched him. EVERYONE on the field and both dugout except the umps agree it never happened but the Astros challenge is upheld despite video showing otherwise. Profar does not get to hit. The next batter hits a hard hit grounder up the middle. Kessinger who is in for Altuve makes a great play that Jose probably doesn't. Astros win.
100%. If I was in charge, I would give the HPU a device that immediately blinks red when a pitch is located ENTIRELY inside the strike zone, and green when located entirely outside. This will permanently eliminate any egregiously bad ball or strike calls. The device would blink yellow for anything that paints the zone, and the ump can then use his judgment on whether it caught enough of the plate. This will maintain come degree of subjectivity without abuse, and pitchers can still employ some finesse in painting the zone based on how the ump is calling them. All of this can be done in less than one second, it would not disrupt pace of play at all, and greatly reduce arguments and bs.
I would seek to eliminate as much subjectivity from the officials as practical because subjectivity is another way of saying bias. Do that system and have it give the ump the proper answer that only he can see and have him pretend he saw it that way if he wants.... but get the right answer as often as possible. There's still other aspects of the game umpires will still be allowed to screw up with their incompetence that cannot be fixed like with check swings, but there's never a reason to get balls and strikes wrong if the technology available is sufficient.
One fault I see in the robo-ump is the box for each batter. On some players I saw the top part of the box under the guys chest when he was in his hitting position and the lower part under his knees. There's no perfect system, even for pitches entirely in or out of the zone unfortunately.
The technology is there. They just need to video analyze a still of each player in their batting stance and upload it to the balls/strike program. It could be similar to drug testing - randomly updating every player throughout the season. There is digital and computer records of every player at every position and batting order slot at all times anyway. Even during a PH appearance, the computer records it before a pitch is thrown. The umpire would be responsible to communicate with the official who inputs the info. We see it on the various sites as the game is being played in real time.
Before each season have every player effectively fitted for strike zone data so that you'd have an accurate strike zone for every player. All the system would be doing is giving data points for where the ball crossed the plate, so it shouldn't be difficult to give correct calls for every player.
Good idea, however, batters do adjust their position from time to time. A player could literally stand up straighter to make the chest high pitch a ball. That would also have to be worked out. But overall, something needs to be done.
