Robo-ump overturns 5 straight pitches, a breakdown

umpire. We're getting used to the ABS

system. I just wanted to look at him and

see if there's a trend. See if there's

anything going on. The first one, first

pitch at the bottom of the first doesn't

call it a strike and the catcher's like,

"What? Uh, hold on." They quickly go

take a look. I mean, that that pitch is

smothered by the zone. It's not on the

edge anywhere. It's well in the zone

heightwise and widthwise. So, they

overturned that. I don't know what

happened on that. The next one, same

inning, he calls it a strike and the

batter's like, "No, no, no, no, no.

You're overcompensating for the last

one. That ball isn't in the zone at

all." Contras is just smiling like,

"Watch this dude." Uh, that ball missed

away and missed low. It's a ball two

ways, what was called a strike. So, it's

off to a rough start. A little fist pump

from WC there. People calling him that

these days? No. Top of the second inning

now and it's the Red Sox turn again.

First pitch of the inning. This the

second time it's the first pitch of the

half inning gets challenged again.

Doesn't call it a strike. Ranger Schwarz

is like, "Uh, dude, that is in the zone

both ways. I mean, that's in there.

You'll see that pink needs to be

touching the white." So it that ball can

stray pretty far away and still be a

strike. So, man, the first three are

kind of like not even good. That one

that looked like right down the middle

to me. It's probably not right down the

middle. And they tap again. Okay, we

finally got a ball that's on the edge. I

think that's an acceptable one. Things

happen. This is why it's here to

overturn it quickly. It's on the edge.

Called it a ball. It's a strike. Bottom

three, we've got another one. Now we

though you're overcompensating now, man.

You're trying to correct what you did

wrong. You're calling it a strike

because you got it wrong last time, but

this time it's actually below the zone.

Again, these are what we were expecting

the last two. The first three are

insane. So, the numbers always fascinate

me on this because it's like, oh, I had

five calls out of 152 pitches. Well, a

lot of those pitches were swung at,

meaning the umpire isn't needed. If the

guy swings, you don't need to call balls

or strikes. So, you take away all of the

pitches that were swung at. You take

away the one hit by pitch. And then you

take away all the pitches where the

catcher didn't even frame it. You didn't

even try to trick the umpire into

thinking it was a strike because it was

such a bad pitch. And then if you'll

allow me and if you don't allow me to do

this, that's fine. That's fine. But I

took away all like the center cut

strikes that the batter himself conceds.

That's a strike. Like, yep. Like, do you

need the umpire for that? No one's

arguing it. That's a strike. That one,

no one's arguing that's dead center. And

these aren't on the edge. They're not in

the shadow zone, so to speak. So you

take away those five, you are left with

26

calls needed to be made by the umpire in

the first three innings. He got five of

them wrong. That's 80%. Is that good?

It's such a hard job. I think it's too

hard of a job for a human to do. I'm

glad we have ABS. I think eventually

we're going to be like there's just

going to be a very quick system. If it's

in the shadow zone, we're just going to

like help the ump out and all the other

ones he can just move the game along.

Like I said, I tried to find a trend,

try to figure out what's going on here.

These are the three pitches he called a

ball and they got overturned as strikes.

Now, the two to the lefties, I kind of

understand. You'll see here, he sets up

his head on the inside with the lefty

up. And a lot of umpires do this, and

it's for safety so they don't take foul

balls straight to the face. I've talked

about this a lot over the years. The

umpires who do this are very susceptible

to wrong calls on the outside of the

plate cuz their head is on the inside

and they're looking across at the

outside. So when that ball comes, they

don't have an angle right behind the

plate. You know, angles are deceptive.

So those I kind of understand. This one

is baffling to me because he's set up on

the inside and has a perfect line.

Catcher's not in his way. That ball

comes and uh it looks like he just

froze. Catcher goes to throw it back. He

can't believe it and taps his head.

Let's take a look at this one again

because I think we're going to see this

over the course of the season. They

measured the players standing upright is

what we've been told. But then the

players crouch when they swing. So on

this pitch, it's a called strike. And

right afterwards, Contrarus is going to

stand upright. All the weights on his

left foot and he taps his helmet. So,

what I'm going to do is I'm going to

take that cutout of him standing there.

That's probably closest to him standing

upright. And then we're going to watch

this pitch again. That's where it

crosses and look at Contras's knee here.

It's crouched way down. So, if the

umpire is using that as a reference,

it's not the actual strike zone. The

umpire has to take into account where

his knee would be standing up because

that's where we got measured. So, let's

slide in the standing up contrarasis.

Draw lines at both their knees, the back

knee and then the standing knee. And you

can see that ball is above the zone

based on the knee the umpire seeing

below the zone based on the knee they

are making the ABS strike zone out of.

So batters are going to know their knee

level and their personal strike zone,

the bottom of their zone. They're going

to know that better than umpires because

they carry it with them everywhere they

go. And they know how much they're

squatting below their line or standing

upright. So, that's going to be

something interesting I think we should

look out for cuz when they go to the

review here, you can see that is below

his knee. If I drag over those two

lines, this is not actual math, but

maybe science by editing. Wow. Looks

like that's what's going on. So, I

wonder if that's going to happen a ton.

And also, I don't want anyone coming at

this umpire. It's very hard to do this.

And this is happening all over spring

training. I just chose this to make a

little video about it, but the Yankees

overturned like six. It's happening a

lot. I think it's very hard to call

balls in the shadow zone of the plate.

And it's nice that we have a

standardized system for viewers and

players to know, no, that's not a

strike, that's a strike. I know what

zone is coming with me and is happening.

That's my opinion. And if you're

interested, very quickly, in the bottom

of the fourth inning, they went to

challenge one again. This time, he

finally got it correct and the catcher

got it wrong. But at that point, they're

like, "Dude, this ump is so wrong.

anything we want, just challenge it. But

that was actually well below the zone.

The crowd gave him a nice applause for

that. So, good job by him. Welcome to

ABS Baseball. We're going to get things

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