![]() Today, and in the coming days, a lot of stories will be written about what happened in 1994. Thirty years which had already seen numerous skirmishes and at least one protracted battle between the sides but which broke out into full-scale war in August 1994. It was the culmination of nearly 30 years of acrimony between the players and the owners, fueled by distrust, deceit and resentment. The 1994-95 strike, however, was about far more than that. Then, perhaps, a strike could’ve been easily averted. If only it were about the players and the owners not seeing eye-to-eye on a competing set of proposals in a given round of negotiations. If it worked there, why wouldn’t it work in baseball? Why ruin what had been a wonderful, historic season to date with a work stoppage? Why were they striking anyway? The owners said they were going broke! All the owners were asking for was a salary cap, just like football had, and football was thriving. They were millionaires who wanted more money to play a kids’ game than any of the rest of us would see in our lifetimes, the story went. Most people, however, blamed the allegedly greedy players almost exclusively. Most of us who were old enough to pay close attention to the strike at the time probably remember the response to the strike by fans, the media and the general public as, at best, a “pox on both your houses” kind of thing, with the players and the owners both being blamed for the disappearance of the National Pastime. The 1994-95 Major League Baseball Strike had begun. And there would be none for the rest of the season, with nearly 950 regular season games cancelled along with the playoffs and World Series. But on Friday, Aug- 25 years ago today - there were no games at all. Pretty typical for a Thursday, which is often a travel day. “Could be one of the dumbest things baseball could do,” he said.On August 11, 1994, there were nine games. And critically to umpires’ reputations, he says television graphics overlaying the strike zone frequently mislead fans. Rich Garcia, a major league umpire from 1975-99 and ump supervisor from 2002-09, faults the ABS system for not being as accurate at matching human calls as the strike zone usually is applied. “You want that strike called if you’re hitting the inside lower box or quadrant or the top quadrant,” he said. “It has to cover all four quadrants,” he said. Texas manager Bruce Bochy, a veteran of nearly a half-century of pro ball, favors a three-dimensional zone. “ You want to know what the zone is at all times, even if it’s a little funkier, a little different.” “I enjoyed it because it was consistent,” said Yankees center fielder Harrison Bader, who played five games at Triple-A this year. ![]() Home runs runs increased from 2.9% to 3.2% in full ABS and 3.3% in challenge.Įach team gets three challenges, which can be made by a pitcher, batter or catcher. Walks climbed from 10.2% last year to 12.7% with robots and 11.5% with the challenge system.īatting average rose from. It gets a little funky,” said Mike Vasil, a 23-year-old New York Mets pitching prospect who played at the University of Virginia.Īccording to MLB data, strikeouts at Triple-A dropped from 23.3% of batters with human umpires last year to 22.2% this year with automated umpires and 22% when humans were used with the challenge system. “Last year in the Florida State League, the 19 inches, I was getting some calls I wasn’t even getting in the (Atlantic Coast Conference). ![]() Any part of the ball crossing that zone results in a strike. MLB reduced the width of the computer strike zone from 19 inches to 17 this year, matching the width of the plate. But the specifics of what two-dimensional shape you use and what the dimensions of that shape are, I think are still in flux.” “It also allows whatever zone we use on the field to match the representations of the zone that we provide to fans and players and coaches and everybody else. “We like the two-dimensional nature of it. “The two-dimensional zone has minimized the number of pitches that feel wrong to people, particularly when it’s at the middle of the plate because you’re not catching quite as many of those breaking balls down and also those balls that clip the back of the plate,” Sword said.
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