The MLB is introducing an automated ball-strike system at this year’s All-Star Game.
Perhaps the most human of the big-league sports is opening the field of play to robots. Major League Baseball (MLB), we learn from the AP, is introducing an automated ball-strike system at this year’s All-Star Game, scheduled for the evening of July 15.
The system is not new, having been used in the minor leagues since 2019, nor should we expect to see an android behind the catcher at home plate. Rather, it’s a review system. Each team may exercise two “challenges” per game when it feels wronged by the call on a pitch, and will retain any challenge it is vindicated on.
However limited the system, it’s curious that baseball – whose pitching game is grounded in psychology, judgment, chance, error: in faking out the batter and the umpire alike – should take this turn into exacting tech. After all, umpires in baseball have been something for players to deal with for as long as there have been umpires. They are part of the field, part of the game’s very backdrop. Most live balls that hit umpires remain live balls (cf. page 26 of the rules). And bad calls are part of the lore.
Anyhow, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred expects that MLB’s competition committee will be considering the system for regular-season play.
