SAN RAFAEL, Calif.—21st-century baseball with a computer calling balls and strikes feel much like 20th-century baseball (you know, with a human behind the plate). There appear to be two main differences. The first and most obvious is volume. Machines aren’t good at giving that classic umpire grunt, so you still need a warm body.
The second? Accuracy. “You face [Hall of Fame pitcher] Greg Maddux, and he’d get a foot off the plate,” recalls Eric Byrnes, former Oakland A’s player and current baseball analyst. “So if we have a chance to get it right, if we have a chance to get a pitch every time, why would we not?” Byrnes was the man behind Tuesday night’s historic technological feat. On a picturesque evening in Marin County just north of San Francisco, the San Rafael Pacifics faced off against the Vallejo Admirals in what was billed as the first professional baseball game to be called by a piece of technology rather than a person. In this minor league showdown, the ball-and-strikes umpire role was played by a mounted three-camera tracking setup synced with a computer.
(Two cameras are mounted at each end of the upper corner of the grandstands behind the plate; the third sits in the center field.) The devices comprise a system better known by its commercial moniker: Pitchf/x. It was soon dubbed #RoboUmp on Twitter. “I’m not looking to eliminate any umpires, not one. If anything, we’re essentially going to add an umpire,” Byrnes noted. Accordingly, two standard umpires were still on the field, and another was behind the plate. That’s the standard setup of the Pacific Association of Professional Baseball Clubs, an independent league in the San Francisco Bay Area (considered a Single A equivalent). But rather than his usual duties, the home plate umpire largely remained silent, only calling foul balls and any potential plays at the plate.
Byrnes, for his part, gave the technology a voice. Mic’d up during the game; he’d “STRI” E” wit” an umpirumpire’so and flatly call “ball” wit” every outside pitch. And unlike a traditional referee, Byrnes could occasionally let some personality in. “Just” caught the outer corner, dude, and I’m timing just nicked it.” Val”ejo AdmirAdmiral’sd baseman Joshua Wong told Ars that he was encouraged by the Pitchf/x tests he saw before the game. “I feel”l like it speeds the game up more. It gets the hitters to swing at more pitches,” he “said. “It’s”It’s for the game. Just being more accurate and having better calls will help us more.”
MIN”STRY OF INNOVATION / BUSINESS OF TECHNOLOGY
For the first time, sensors and a computer play umpire in a pro baseball game.
Pitchf/x, a system you may have seen on ESPN, gives the home plate ump an easy night.
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By Cyrus Farivar – Jul 29, 2015 3:58 am UTC
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Eric Brynes watches the pitch monitor on a screen from behind the home plate.
Cyrus Farivar
FURTHER READING
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SAN RAFAEL, Calif.—21st-century baseball with a computer calling balls and strikes feel much like 20th-century baseball (you know, with a human behind the plate). There appear to be two main differences. The first and most obvious is volume. Machines aren’aren’t at giving that classic umpire grunt, so you still need a warm body.
The second? Accuracy. “You “ace [Hall of Fame pitcher] Greg Maddux, and he’d he’d foot off the plate,” rec,” tells Eric Byrnes, former Oakland A’s parser and current baseball analyst. “So” we have a chance to get it right; if we have an opportunity to get a pitch every time, why would we not?” Byr” es was the man behind Tuesday nightnight’soric technological feat. On a picturesque evening in Marin County just north of San Francisco, the San Rafael Pacifics faced off against the Vallejo Admirals in what was billed as the first professional baseball game to be called by a piece of technology rather than a person. In this minor league showdown, the ball-and-strikes umpire role was played by a mounted three-camera tracking setup synced with a computer.
(Two cameras are mounted at each end of the upper corner of the grandstands behind the plate; the third sits in the center field.) The devices comprise a system better known by its commercial moniker: Pitchf/x. It was soon dubbed #RoboUmp on Twitter. “I’m “Is looking to eliminate any umpires, not one. If anything, we’rewe’rentially adding an umpire,” Byr” es noted. Accordingly, two standard umpires were still on the field, and another was behind the plate. That’That’sstandard setup of the Pacific Association of Professional Baseball Clubs, an independent league in the San Francisco Bay Area (consiit’sdered a Single A equivalent). But rather than his usual duties, the home plate umpire largely remained silent, only calling foul balls and any potential plays at the plate.
Byrnes, for his part, gave the technology a voice. Mic’dMic’during the game, grunthe’dRIKE” w”th an “empire’s umpire’s flatly calls “ball” wit” eve”y outside pitch. And unlike a traditional referee, Byrnes could occasionally let some personality in. “Just caught”t the outer corner, dude, and I’m talking just nick it.” Vallejo “admiral’s Admiral’seman Joshua Wong told Ars that he was encouraged by the Pitchf/x tests he saw before the game. “I feel li”e it speeds the game up more. It gets the hitters to swing at more pitches,” he said.”It’s good. “It’sthe game. Just being more accurate and having better calls will help us more.”
Cyrus Fa”ivar
Former Oakland A’s player A’sic Brynes acted as the human voice of the computer-called balls and strikes.
Old tech, a new experiment
Pitchf/x isn’t an insertion. It has been used behind the scenes for a decade to record pitches’ precise location and trajectory. It’s alreaIt’ssed in all 30 Major League Baseball parks for analytics and online and television broadcasts. If you’ve seeyou’venday Night Baseball game on ESPN, you’re famyou’rewith Pitchf/x’sPitchf/predecessor system by a now-defunct company, whose product was called PitchTrax, which debuted as far back as 2002.)
In many ways, Major League Baseball has historically been averse to adding technology. Unlike other sports that have embraced computers or cameras for scoring confirmation or play reviews, MLB instant replay only debuted in full during the 2014 season. But when it comes to utilizing a RoboUmp for something as integral to the game as pitcher-hitter interactions, technology must cope with uncertainty. Consider MLB’s inheMLB’sy relative definition of the strike zone:
The STRIKE ZONE is that area over home plate, the upper limit of which is a horizontal line at the midpoint between the top of the shoulders and the top of the uniform pants, and the lower level is a line at the hollow beneath the kneecap. The batter’s batter shall determine the Strike Zone. The batter is prepared to swing at a pitched ball. In other words, it’s roughish space over the plate measured from the armpits or letters across a player’s cplayer’sthe knees. It changes from hitter to hitter. And as any good pitcher knows, it may slightly vary with every umpire. Identifying where that space is in a split second, particularly in the lower or higher corners, is more art than science. Catchers also play a role by attempting to frame a pitch by quickly adjusting their gloves after the catch to indicate to the umpire that the ball was caught in the zone.
Umpires do their best, but they make mistakes. Heckling and coaches’ coaches wouldn’t the game if they were always perfect. For its part, Pitchf/x’sPitchf/defines a strike as any ball that touches the strike zone—which likely means that some players won’t like won’t they see thrown at them. “I’m sure “I’m people around baseball will be watching the debut of this new system to see how it goes,” Jacob Po” Renke, a producer at the Society for American Baseball Research, emailed Ars. “There will” always be some kinks to work out, and it will be intriguing to see how the players respond (especially to calls they don’t like the idea of using an automated system to call balls and strikes has been discussed for years. It’ll finally have a real-life example to see how it works for the professional. However, many factors still would have to go into implementing this system at a major league or the affiliated minor-league level. This system is very dependent on precise technology, and even the Pitchf/x system that MLB has used for nearly a decade now continues to have hiccups and glitches that require human intervention.”
Pomrenke” pointed out that most software problems have been relatively minor. Grantland outlined a few such errors from this setup in 2013, and most had to do with miscalibration. For sensors and software to replace human umps, fans and the MLB would have to be “willing t” accept a much smaller amount of inexplicable error in exchange for a larger amount of explicable error,” Dan Broo”s, founder of Pitchf/x repository and BrooksBaseball.net, told Grantland at the time.
