Former umps watch their brethren deal with ABS and feel sympathy, pain

What is a strike?

The answer to that question has traditionally been easy for MLB umpires: A strike is whatever I say it is.

However, amid the introduction of the automated ball-strike challenge system, highly experienced former MLB umps are critical of baseball’s newest technology.

Citing their own observations and conversations with those currently still in the job, the consistent criticism has been simple: What’s a ball and what’s a strike has changed, and they don’t know how, exactly, to call it.

“The strike zone has never been an exact science,” said longtime former umpire Gary Darling. “They’re flipping pitches that are missing by a tenth of an inch, in a system that’s not exact anyway. … As much as baseball wants to define the strike zone, it’s still not defined.

“Guys that I’ve talked to that are still working, they’d rather just let the computer call (everything). Then you don’t have to worry about anything,” Darling added, noting that the opinion was not universal.

The Athletic spoke with five recently retired umpires with a combined 161 years of experience at the big league level.

Joe West, who has umpired more games than anyone in MLB history, said, “My problem is that they haven’t proven it’s as accurate as they say it is.”

Jim Joyce, who has umpired three World Series and three All-Star games said he’s talked to other active umpires, and, “They feel the strike zone has changed.”

Major League Baseball disagreed with the notion that strikes and balls were harder to call, noting that years of testing and refining went into the process before it was implemented. More importantly, MLB said that early data actually reflects an increase in umpire accuracy.

Umps have been accurate 93.5 percent of the time, which is up 0.9 percent from last year, which an MLB spokesperson said was also a record year for accuracy.

The Athletic also requested an interview with a current big league umpire but was denied. Current umpires are generally restricted from doing interviews without the league’s permission.

However, former umps are under no such restriction, and many of them have kept in touch with those currently working the plate. Conversations abound regarding the new system.

“I know because I’ve talked to some of them,” said longtime umpire Dale Scott. “They’re adjusting to what the machine is going to call a strike. … As an umpire, what you’re trying to do is not get overturned.

“Obviously it’s close to what the normal strike zone is. But the problem is when you’re talking about 1/10th of an inch, being close doesn’t really help.”

The ABS system measures balls and strikes from a two-dimensional plane set in the middle of home plate. Before, it was a three-dimensional assessment, made from when the ball crosses at the start of home plate.

In the past, umpires measured balls and strikes from the shoulders to the knees. Now, the top of the zone is 53.5 percent of a player’s total height, and the bottom of the zone is 27 percent of the player’s total height.

“If you can figure out where 53.5 percent of my height is on my chest, good luck,” said ex-MLB ump Brian Gorman. “… I don’t know what your height is, and I don’t know how to do the math.”

It’s an impossible calculation to get exact by the naked eye. The one-inch buffer given to umpires in their evaluations now seemingly requires perfection by a different standard.

“I guess I’m old school,” West said. “Because I believe that umpires have their specific little strike zones that may be an inch off here or an inch off there. But I think the biggest thing is the consistency of the guy behind the plate.

“To my knowledge, the system hasn’t been proven perfect,” West said. In fact, it is clear that at the extremes, the system is not perfect.

There have already been numerous instances of umpires having high profile, viral incidents with the ABS system. On Sunday, umpire CB Bucknor — notably not a stranger to criticisms over his home plate calls — experienced something of a humiliation ritual.

He was overturned on back-to-back strike three calls on Eugenio Suárez. Both times, he rang up the Reds slugger; emphatically going into his punch out motion, only to have it negated.

“Outside,” bellowed Reds television broadcaster John Sadak as the ball call was shown on the video board, his voice remaining loud amid the crowd’s audible roar. “The loudest cheers of the game — the Reds have hit two homers — come on back-to-back challenges!”

Getting yelled at and criticized has always been a part of umpiring. But in the past, it was done to argue calls. Now fans are loudly celebrating the umpire’s very public failure.

“Social media doesn’t do it justice either,” Gorman said. “Because people just sit on their computer and they spew their opinions and they think everything’s right. That same person will go out to the parking lot and can’t find their car for half an hour.”

The umpires acknowledge one important thing, however, and it’s that the goal is always to get the call right. And ultimately, while the challenge system might add more temporary humiliation, it will also limit the risk that one of their calls costs someone a game.

West, who is critical of the implementation in its current form, believes that umpires will make the adjustment. The more games behind the plate, the better feel they’ll have for what’s a strike and what is not. ABS is not universally detested by those wearing blue.

Joyce called the challenge system “the best scenario right now.” He says “best” not because he loves it or even wants it. It’s because the general aim of ABS is to get more calls correct, and because MLB is only using it to challenge calls, not call games universally.

Joyce is “all for” instant replay, as you might imagine. He said it, said it again, then said he wishes there was expanded replay. When your 30-year career is associated with costing a pitcher a perfect game with two outs in the ninth — when Joyce judged that pitcher Armando Galarraga didn’t reach first base in time to preserve a perfect game — replay is your best and most trusted friend.

But replay, in Joyce’s mind, is not the challenge system. “Your bread and butter for MLB umpires is plate work,” he said. He’ll need more time to see if ABS is something he can get behind.

Whether or not it is, however, won’t really matter.

“The technology is here now,” Joyce said. “And we’ve been saying all along, be careful what you wish for. And now we have it. Because now that it’s there, it’s not going away.”