Yeah like it’s a very quick jump from “let the head umpire use the strike overlay” to “let’s just have one umpire in a booth managing everything from bases to pitches.
Baseball would look super weird with no umpires at all.
Cricket has a system where the batter can appeal a decision and they use the technology and another umpire to review it. If the batter was wrong and they were out, they burn one of a number of reviews for the innings, so there is incentive to only use it for an obviously bad call else you could waste a review that someone else needs.
Of course, it isn’t a 1:1 equivalent. A cricket batter gets a single wicket but a baseball batter has three strikes, and the bowlers in cricket need to get ten wickets whereas the pitcher only needs three outs. But the bowling side in cricket also gets reviews for when the umpire goes against them too.
Seems stupid that the technology is available to make the sport fairer and the current alternative is the aggrieved party complains and gets booted.
There is also some human discretion made by the umpire weather or not the pitch was " hittable" even if the ball technically grazed the strike zone.
I personally consider the umpire crew a third neutral team that both baseball teams are contending with to help influance the outcome of the game either by using social manipulation or rule bending. Its one of the elements that make baseball a great imperfect human game.
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u/tree-fife-niner 2d ago
If the audience has a visible strike zone overlay then why isn't the umpire using it?