For someone who rarely speaks out or tweets, Ke'Bryan Hayes sure did make a buzz on social media Sunday night by calling for the implementation of the Automatic Balls and Strikes system (ABS).
He had reason to be upset. Ahead in the count 3-1 in the eighth inning Sunday, Hayes took an A.J. Minter fastball that appeared to be off the plate, but home plate umpire Bill Miller called it a strike. Hayes whiffed on the next pitch, and what would normally be a walk was instead a strikeout.
"Some umpires really don’t care," Hayes tweeted out. "3-1 call not even close. I hold him accountable after the game walking off the field and his response is 'I gave you a chance to hit a homerun” that tells me you don’t care at all. No accountability. Bring the ABS please @MLB."
Some umpires really don’t care. 3-1 call not even close. I hold him accountable after the game walking off the field and his response is “🤷🏽♂️ I gave you a chance to hit a homerun” that tells me you don’t care at all. No accountability. Bring the ABS please @MLB pic.twitter.com/sgncakv8v8
— KeBryan Hayes (@KeBryanHayes) September 10, 2023
Hayes declined to elaborate further on his tweet Monday.
Umpire strike zones have been a common discussion point in the game ever since there's been a game, but it's come under more scrutiny in recent years. The implementation of a strike zone on many TV broadcasts -- including AT&T SportsNet -- has made missed calls easier to spot. And in a time when reviews and umpire challenges can rectify most bad calls, balls and strikes still remain subject to human error.
It doesn't seem to matter much that umpiring has actually consistently improved year by year. Since the advent of pitch tracking 2008, missed calls on strikes out of the zone has actually been more than halved:
DATA VIA BASEBALL SAVANT
With that said, being upset that over 5% of calls are wrong is a very reasonable take as well.
A uniform strike zone could be a blessing or a curse for the Pirates. On the one hand, no team has taken more called strikes on pitches out of the zone than them (513, an average of roughly 13 for each three-game series). That's a particularly tough blow for this offense because one of their strengths is their zone recognition.
The Pirates have swung at just 25.1% pitches out of the strike zone, the lowest percentage of any team these past two seasons. Among hitters with enough at-bats to qualify for Baseball Savant's leaderboards, Jack Suwinski (17.9%), Connor Joe (18.5%) and Andrew McCutchen (18.6%) all rank in the top 10 of the league in chase rate.
The Pirates have one of the lowest swing percentages in the league (45.3%, 28th in baseball), so it's reasonable to assume that selectiveness is creating some bad calls, but it's hard to find much fault with not swinging at pitches out of the zone.
On the flip side, the Pirates have greatly valued pitch framing with their catchers for a decade now, and their 21.6 framing runs saved -- per FanGraphs' estimation -- is the best in baseball. Delay, despite a stint in the minors and serving almost exclusively as the backup in his time in the majors, is eighth in baseball in framing runs saved (7.5 runs over 431 innings).
"I feel like if we go to ABS, I may be out of a job," Delay joked to me.
It's a bit much to say Delay's major-league job is dependent on pitch framing, but he did get a taste of what the game could be like when one of his greatest skills is made null.
The International and Pacific Class AAA leagues have used ABS and a challenge system this year, going with the automatic zone on Tuesday through Thursday games. On the weekend, hitters, pitchers and catchers can challenge a finite number of calls in a game. The second option still makes pitch framing a skill because it can either force a team to burn a challenge or decide if it is a situation worth flipping a strike. Hayes' call Sunday, for example, would be a clear time to challenge. If it was the first inning, it may have been worth keeping the challenge.
There's an extra layer of strategy in those weekend games of when it's time to use those challenges, but like on-field replays, it would at least give a chance to rectify the truly bad calls.
"The thing we're looking at, as hitters, is whether it's a 2-1 ball game in the ninth or 10-0 game in the ninth, the strike zone stays the same," Joe was telling me. "Not saying that the umpires do it on purpose, but the strike zone opens up in those situations, and that's known around the game. To know there is a consistent strike zone every pitch would be nice."
In theory, the strike zone would be consistent. In practice, it's consistently inconsistent. Talking with pitchers who have bounced between the majors and minors, they brought up how there isn't a clearly defined zone in-game, and the zones will change based on the ballpark.
In the majors, knowing the umpire's strike zone is part of the scouting work for a game. In the minors, it becomes that ballpark's ABS.
"It's tough finding the top of the zone because it changes on the hitters," Cody Bolton said.
If there is any consistency between the minor-league strike zones, it's that they are not the same size as the majors' zones.
"The zone has been the same for 100 years, and now it's getting smaller," Andre Jackson said.
Hitters can challenge on the weekend using that ABS, but the zone is still smaller than what we have come to know as the zone.
"It still has its flaws," Delay said. "I don't think it's a perfect system at all. The zone seemed really small. Talking to umpires in between, they agree: The zone in Triple-A is smaller than the big leagues right now. I don't think that's ever been the case in history."
"I noticed hitters' approaches were different having ABS for three days," Jackson said. "The game was a little different as the week progressed."
The product of that smaller zones are higher walk rates, fewer strikeouts and more runs scored. The major-league game has struggled to find that sweet spot of offense for about a decade now, starting with the introduction of allegedly "juiced" baseballs. This would be a big boost for hitters again. Unsurprisingly, the pitchers polled in the Pirates' clubhouse generally weren't in favor of it coming to the majors.
Jackson was an exception, though, even if he agrees it's going to be tougher for pitchers.
"There are a couple of pitches a game that make you go, 'Man,' but at least you know it's being called objectively," Jackson said.
If one is looking for a consistent, accurate strike zone, ABS isn't there yet. It does seem like an inevitability for the majors down the road, though. Umpires agreed to help develop this system as part of their 2019 collective bargaining agreement. They have one hand on the wheel, and it's responsible to assume it's going to be brought up when that five-year work agreement needs to be renewed.
If one is looking for accountability with the zone, though, you can't get too mad at a machine. What it comes down to is whether baseball is better or worse human error.
