The Future of Baseball?

Over the last few months, the baseball world has been submerged in controversy when the Houston Astros were punished for using technology to steal signals from the catcher and relay them to the hitter. While this is obviously not allowed at any level of baseball, the scandal does bring in a hot debate about the use of technology in baseball.  

Ever since computers and new processing systems have been created, the tradition of baseball has overpowered the advancement in technology but more recently the topic has picked up again with players and fans split on the issue. But while the news was mostly focused on the MLB (major league baseball) it also concerns high school baseball with one of the most proposed options being an electronic home plate where the sensors will sense the ball and send the correct call to a handheld device which is currently being tested in minor league baseball. 

While the electronic plate seems like it is a no brainer to use, there are still issues to consider. The reason to use the electronic plate is because during a game many calls are called incorrectly and if the strike zone is automated then there would be very minimal missed calls and the game would not rely on the umpire ability to make a call. It has been proven that umpires made 34,294 incorrect balls and strike calls in the MLB. That’s 14 per game! That amount of incorrect calls can and will affect the game in a negative way. 

Joe Diblasi commented on the prospect of electronic plates saying, “it just makes too much sense not to do it. It would fix the way umps decide games just because they couldn’t get the call right."

English teacher Mr. Mainuli played college baseball. He says, “I don‘t love the idea of an electronic strike zone. I think there's a human element in the art of pitching that works with opening the zone and deceiving the hitter and umpire. There’s also pitch-framing too, which is a valuable skill for young catchers."

On the other side of the debate is that there are judgment calls. Junior Joey Demarais said, “when pitching, if you throw a pitch an inch or two off of the strike zone that should be a strike and if pitchers don’t get that call it will make everything a lot more difficult for the pitchers.”

The strike zone depends on the height of the person so you would need to put the height for every player in the machine and if a player lies that would give an extreme advantage to the hitter which would be very easy in the major league but in a less organized high school game things can get very hectic. 

James Lagos, director of baseball operations at Brand New Ballgame said: “I agree. In high school baseball, every coach will try to get the biggest advantage so if making your players height smaller to make the strike zone smaller is one of those advantages and every coach or player would do it.”

So, while this technology will not be implemented in high school baseball for a long time it is still a very interesting prospect to think about how it will affect the game in other ways, especially in this new generation where tradition isn't held as highly these changes are very much possible and I wouldn't be surprised if we see them in the next 10 years.