A lot of the point of baseball is to argue about it, because it has been around for so long. The majority of that was good. Is it better to trade for whom or to attack with two strikes? There were arguments about baseball at a bar or in the stands. A fantasy draft is just an argument. You never run out of material when you play baseball. A close friend of mine will still break down all the wrong lineup choices Gene Lamont made in the 1993 ALCS, and he is at least a facsimile of a functioning human. He's not the only one.
It is understandable that those arguments have become poisonous. A lot of these are about how the product sucks now, or why it doesn't suck, or how the game is being ruined by those who run it. It's an echo chamber because of the zeal with which everyone defends and bullhorns their favorite point or idea.
The question of how balls and strikes are called may be at the center of it all. The outcome of the game is dependent on the pitch being delivered and how it becomes. In a year where we may get an automated strike zone that can call balls and strikes that only have one moving part, I can't believe we can't come up with something that can call balls and strikes that only have one moving part. Everyone likes to know who is telling them that the technology isn't there.
After watching Doug Eddings last night, one can't help but wonder how bad things can be.
One of the worst home plate displays was put up by Eddings. It wasn't like watching a person drown. It was like watching a person who was overwhelmed by the current drown out in the pool. Homer decided to pull his arms out of the tarpit with his face.
It is one thing to be consistently bad, but another to have your strike zone as defined by Eddings. The data is raw.
The last stat on the chart is very confusing and very brain- melting. Over a third of the calls were balls. That's 25 of 70. We don't have anything that would do better.
Maybe you want to watch a video. Maybe you aren't a statistics person. There is no problem.
He missed a lot of calls. The edges of the zone that only Eddings could see were moved throughout the game. It's one thing to be bad, but hitters and pitchers will tell you they can get through it if the zone stays there all game. Several of the pitches were balls but Eddings had been calling strikes all night and then decided they weren't anymore. The pitchers, catchers, and hitters were stumped. Doc Ellis had a different idea of the zone. Eddings was making it up as he went along. You can't market correct midgame when you've been bad. You have to ride it out because hitters and pitchers are used to that.
It went from a baseball game to a performance art piece that everyone was confused about. Eddings hung over the game in a strange and confusing manner. If the point was to question our existence and what exactly had brought us all there to be, then bravo, Doug. I don't know what to make of it.
The technology that is currently available is better than this. It would make sense to keep the zone in one place. I don't care if that place is different from what we're used to. Years and years of watching different umps Pollock painting their way through games builds that expectation. It can't be the way.
Bring whatever you have to us.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
