MORE SUPPORT FOR HAVING COMPUTERS CALL BALLS AND STRIKES. I posted here a few weeks ago about how all the balls and strikes in an independent league game had been called by a computer. Now Cork Gaines on the Business Insider website has published this article entitled “It is time for Major League Baseball umpires to stop calling balls and strikes.” Gaines acknowledges that with the new computer technology, umpires have improved their accuracy on balls and strike from about 83% in 2008 to about 86% now.
Despite the improvement, Gaines identifies “two glaring problems”. First, umpires still call 21 or 22 pitches wrong in the average game. That is too many.
Second. “sports have a huge problem when fans can more accurately make a call at home than an official can make at the game.”
I think the second point is going to create increasing pressure for change. What seemed only remotely possible only a little while ago now looks much more likely.