Scherzer: Thoughts on challenge system ABS
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Max Scherzer has spoken out against robot umps.
The future Hall of Famer, who made his Spring Training start for the Blue Jays on Tuesday, lamented that the human element to baseball is slowly disappearing.
He also believes umpires do a good job on the whole.
We're humans. Can we just be judged by humans?
Even though he lost the challenge, the system proved Scherzer's point.
I'm a little skeptical on this, I get what we're trying to do here, but I think major-league umpires are really good. They're really good. So what are we actually changing here? We know there are going to be strikes that are changed to balls, and balls that are changed to strikes.. So we're going to basically be even. So are we actually going to improve the game? Are the umpires really that bad? I don't think so.
Scherzer's comments come into conflict with the perception of many fans who feel that the quality of umpiring - particularly behind the plate - has declined in recent, even though studies have shown that that might not be the case.
During his post game interview, he started painting an imaginary canvas, painting a picture of how life has been with human umps. This included the up-and-down positioning of the catcher's glove.
That's kind of how we've always played baseball,» Scherzer said. «That's kind of what looks normal. You know, when you get to this (robot) world, if we're going to sit there and say it's a laser zone, then we don't care about if a pitcher hits his spot or not.
The system has been in effect in the minors for a few years now and many younger pitchers are used to it. Perhaps Mad Max just needs time.
