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Game 29, Mariners at Tigers
Baek v Robertson.
Yup.
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Twittah
That robot can’t get lefties out though. =/
Cars are pretty much a necessity in this day and age. I shudder to think that walking, talking robots would be a necessity in the next.
Sheesh, doesn’t anyone watch movies around here? The laziness of humans will be the downfall of the world!
not the hubris of the blinkered scientist?
This is such an enjoyable team to watch when they decide to hit.
Also, if anyone wants Exhibit A for why RBI is a stat that should never be involved in an objective evaluation of a player: Through 29 games, Ritchie Sexson is on pace for 112 RBI. If he were to continue at his current hitting rate, he would also be one of the 8 worst everyday players in the AL (based on min. 100 PA thus far), on pace to be about 20 runs below replacement over the season (by VORP).
It’s not that I expect Sexson to hit as poorly as he has thus far all season long, but to hit as poorly as he has (167/274/392) and to still be on pace for well over 100 RBI is the perfect example as to why 100 RBI is not a meaningful benchmark.
except perhaps to Sexson, who considers it his job to drive in runs ….
Yes the hubris of the blinkered scientist, in an attempt to make it easier for humans to do everything.
245 — as technology advances? We’re there now. Electronic officiating wouldn’t make the game go slower, it’d make it go faster.
As someone else pointed out, instant replay for the truly contested
calls on the basepaths would be faster than the current system of having the managers jaw with the umpire until they get thrown out.
For ball/strike calls, we’re not talking about instant replay. We’re talking about taking the Questec/Enhanced Gameday system of cameras and connecting them directly to the scoreboard and an electronic receiver for the umpire to hold in his hand.
Look, the players — professionals who’re paid millions of dollars, rigorously selected from a worldwide talent pool, and tossed aside when they lose half a step (unless they play for the Mariners) — have a hard time telling for sure if its a ball or a strike. You think umpires, who are selected from a cast of maybe thousands and kept on the job into their fifties, can really tell if that slider caught the corner of the plate or not? They can’t. A computer and ten cameras can.
Well, it is Sexson’s job to drive in runs; it’s not his job to be an objective evaluator of talent. It’s just madness when you hear front office people still his 100 RBI as a meaningful number to justify someone as a “veteran run producer” or whatever other nonsense they want to trot out.
Imagine how many RBI’s he would have just hitting .220 or something less awful but still below his career averages.
Don’t look now, but this team is now 15-9 in non-forfeits (i.e. games not started by Jeff Weaver.)
Even a pretty mediocre fifth starter would have given up 20 less runs than Weaver, so you could argue that 17-12 would be a reasonably achievable record so far had they started the year with Baek instead.
Smoke and mirrors? Maybe, but it sure seems like the team is better than we give it credit for.
Imagine where the team could go if they replaced HoRam…
Indians 3 innings away from putting the M’s in 1st BY THEMSELVES. Who ever thought that the M’s and Brewers would be in 1st at the same time while the Yanks were at .500?
Nope, it’s all square now in Anaheim.
Doh, Anaheim wins.
The Angels just won. So the M’s were in first place for about 90 minutes.
We’re still tied for second in the wild card standings.
Tonight I have but one prayer – Please Dear Lord, don’t let Weaver suck tomorrow.
Holy crap. Francisco Cruceta? Did we DFA him now last year for a reason?
267 – Cruceta is too dumb to know he was taking anything illegal.
266
Believe me, God is the ONLY one who can enable Weaver to “outduel” Verlander tomorrow
Pray hard
Umpires or machines? I’ll take a human any day. They don’t just make calls, they run the game. They enforce the subtleties of the rules. Spend time behind the plate and you work with ’em. Some are dicks, but You can influence most of them if you’re polite. So they miss a call. With most you can tell them that they missed it. Umps talk with players about baseball and other things. It’s a good thing. Some pitchers are great with influencing umps. That makes them more valuable pitchers. How would you interact with a machine? That’s not baseball- that playing against your Playstation. Baseball is way simpler. That’s why I appreciate the raised right hand for a strike. I get it. Players know that some calls get blown. Most know they even out. It’s just the way baseball and life is.
What a rant. Sorry. It just seems so clear to me.
I’m sure Morse is happy that Cruceta now wears the minor-league Shriveled Balls of Shame.
Not that anybody cares what I think, or likely will read this since it’s already past midnight and there’s another game in about 9 hours, but….
There was a time when a call was a call, frozen and unchangable. But lately — especially in the postseason — we’ve seen more conferences where the umps get together and reverse a bad call. I don’t think anyone can seriously argue that this is a bad trend. And now that the barrier to reversing a bad call has been broken, I don’t see how it would hurt the game, or slow it down, if there was a 5th (or 7th, in the postseason) umpire sitting up in a booth with the video feeds and a radio connection to a little earpiece in the ears of all the other umps. Most of the time he wouldn’t do anything, but when necessary he would whisper “Uh, I think you guys better have a little conference on that call” or “You know, everybody watching on TV knows that was foul/fair/a homerun/safe/out.” There wouldn’t be any of the tedious NFL “further review” where the official on the field has to stick his head under a hood to watch endless replays, and there wouldn’t be any automatic review of any play. Ultimately the umps on the field would make the call, but in cases where they missed it there would be one more set of eyes giving them a little feedback.
You know, if subtleties are so important, let’s just get rid of the foul poles. How can you interact with a foul pole? That’s not baseball, that’s playing against your Playstation. The foul poles — and heck, the foul lines too — should be judgement calls. That would be way simpler. The umpires can just eyeball it; we shouldn’t be using these cold, mechanical objects to determine whether a ball is foul or a homerun. And maybe it gives the batters the chance to influence whether umps call a ball foul. Afterall, the umps don’t make a lot of money and the players do. And bribery is only human….
270: Again, your argument amounts to this is the way I’m used to. Everything you say is about how you like it more, not how it’s better to have humans. Those arguments are only going to mean somethig to other people who are used to the mistakes, feel a nostalgia for the way it’s always been, and don’t want anything fundamental to change, even for the better.
Because they have to be; no one had bad calls being part of the game as part of baseball’s plan.
For which no one can give a good reason. A lot of emotional pleas, some of which I’m sympathetic to, but I haven’t seen one actual argument for why mistakes make the game great.
When Arthur Rhodes was forced to groove the ball to Alfonso Soriano because the previous pitch, a beautiful curve over the middle of the plate, was inexplicably called a ball, and Soriano followed with a game-breaking home run, the biggest blow in ending Seattle’s best season, I sure didn’t think that terrible call was part of what makes the game great.
One question. Would you call balls and strikes with a “perfect system”? If so, how would it be accomplished? I can’t even fathom the technology it would take to get that going with 100 percent accuracy. Also, calls in baseball are immediate and keep the game moving. If a system were designed to be as accurate as possible the amount of time needed for a call would be greater than with a human. I have no problem with the idea, just questions about its practicality. Plus, it would look really weird not having Blue out there.
How would it be accomplished? Any number of ways, but in this hypothetical example it doesn’t matter. Magic, say. It’s entirely possible, if you’re interested, to do this today. It is doable, but it requires a lot more than Questec, say. And any such system would, in order to be practical, have to call them as fast or faster than a human umpire. I assume, since in this hypothetical, that it’s perfect and 100% accurate, that it can also make immediate calls.
There’s no need to get rid of blue entirely if you’re just using it to call balls/strikes, though. The home plate ump does a lot more than than.