Yeah, I think the continuum for how much technology can help fairly obviously varies inversely with the complexity of level of interpretation involved in the task. As I already acknowledged, Butters provided good examples where I think the tech was probably a plus. It sounds like ya'll believe that balls and strikes falls into this range and if so, well, great. Maybe it could be used there without causing significant problems. But we should also be willing to reckon with the idea that it sometimes makes sports shittier, and be cognizant that more "accurate" calls through technology has led to some of the worst parts about sports (replay review). If we can use a more cut and dry case (a race to a finish line or wall touch) to analogize why its ok for balls and strikes, its rhetorically fair to use a more complex case (who the ball is out on in NBA) to explain why it might suck.
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ButtersA glass of some milksRegistered Userregular
Alright, if you say so. As a person who works in computer vision, im skeptical there wouldnt be issues. But, I haven't even watched a baseball game in years, so ive probably already crossed several "American football fan explaining to soccer guy how to fix shootouts" thresholds by now. Yall want robots umping your balls and strikes, who am i to say no. I hope it works out great.
I work in automation that includes vision systems too.
Yeah the tech behind pitch tracking is ancient and works damn near perfectly. The change to robots would no doubt effect the game significantly but so did steroids, the subsequent crackdown on steroids, baseball humidors, foreign substances, etc.
There is still room for officials to handle plenty of other rulings that technology isn't good at. The best example to me is out-of-bounds calls. Photo-eyes and laser sensors systems aren't reliable for hard border tracking outside of a controlled environment and officials (at least in the NBA and NFL) have proven to rule out-of-bounds calls very accurately.
Yeah the tech behind pitch tracking is ancient and works damn near perfectly. The change to robots would no doubt effect the game significantly but so did steroids, the subsequent crackdown on steroids, baseball humidors, foreign substances, etc.
There is still room for officials to handle plenty of other rulings that technology isn't good at. The best example to me is out-of-bounds calls. Photo-eyes and laser sensors systems aren't reliable for hard border tracking outside of a controlled environment and officials (at least in the NBA and NFL) have proven to rule out-of-bounds calls very accurately.
I'm talking more about calling whether or not someone stepped on or over the line while in possession. The judges' job in football is basically 50% watching the line in their area of the field and they are very rarely overturned in review. I trust a pitch tracker much more than a line vision system because almost nothing in ambient conditions could mimic being a baseball as it travels through a designated monitoring zone. But a ton of different things could get in the way of a court or field borderline monitor so I wouldn't want to automate something like an out-of-bounds ruling.
Alright, if you say so. As a person who works in computer vision, im skeptical there wouldnt be issues. But, I haven't even watched a baseball game in years, so ive probably already crossed several "American football fan explaining to soccer guy how to fix shootouts" thresholds by now. Yall want robots umping your balls and strikes, who am i to say no. I hope it works out great.
I work in automation that includes vision systems too.
Well, I think I'm willing to conceed your point that a laser system could reliably articulate the position of a ball in a variety of conditions with enough time resolution and reliability to get it right all of the time within a tolerable room for error. However, the position of the ball, even if perfectly known, is not all that goes into calling a ball or strike, right?
Get ready for tons of lawlerly discussions about how the strike zone is defined. Is it elbows to knees? Which part of elbow, which part of knee? In what stance? At what point in time? Ooo, now that we have made rules to define all of that, now we get the baseball Harden whose game is predicated around tricking the strike zone analysis. I'm going to love the swinging stance based around crunching and uncrunching at specific moments to get manipulate the strike zone measurement. Get ready for 10 minute replays that show that a guy took an exhale before the ball left the pitchers finger tip and that shrunk his frozen zone enough for something to be a called ball. Let's not even talk about what precise moment a ball has "crossed the plate". When we have access to all of this information, and it becomes part of the definition, that's what everyone will spend time thinking and arguing about. And it's not fun, imo, and detracts from the game.
Like, I'm just trying to say that all of this precision doesn't end the bullshit uncertainty or improve the "spirit of fairness" that results so much of the time. In many cases, perhaps most, it just makes the arguments become more minute and technical, and allows people to succeed by studying and exploiting technicalities, rather than just trying to be awesome at sports.
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ButtersA glass of some milksRegistered Userregular
Exploiting technicalities is as big of a part of baseball as itching your crotch. The steroid era existed because there wasn't an explicit rule against it and wasn't tested for. This year's foreign substance controversy was all about what players could get away with before the world realized spin rates on pitches had tripled in recent years. Don't even get me started on the Astros' sign stealing scandal. Gaming the system will always exist and I don't see any reason to believe using an automated strike caller (which I believe uses targeted radar not lasers) would make it any worse than it already is.
It's not that it would make it worse, per se, its that it could make the arguments around it more minute and technical, and so in the end, more irritating. I am also still willing to accept the possibility that it could be a good thing and wouldn't have any of those issues. I'm just saying there are many possible futures with this one, and the recent history of things like this have usually detracted from what I personally like about the game. Of course there are many different ways to enjoy about sports and ymmv.
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I work in automation that includes vision systems too.
well most of the time
I'm talking more about calling whether or not someone stepped on or over the line while in possession. The judges' job in football is basically 50% watching the line in their area of the field and they are very rarely overturned in review. I trust a pitch tracker much more than a line vision system because almost nothing in ambient conditions could mimic being a baseball as it travels through a designated monitoring zone. But a ton of different things could get in the way of a court or field borderline monitor so I wouldn't want to automate something like an out-of-bounds ruling.
Well, I think I'm willing to conceed your point that a laser system could reliably articulate the position of a ball in a variety of conditions with enough time resolution and reliability to get it right all of the time within a tolerable room for error. However, the position of the ball, even if perfectly known, is not all that goes into calling a ball or strike, right?
Get ready for tons of lawlerly discussions about how the strike zone is defined. Is it elbows to knees? Which part of elbow, which part of knee? In what stance? At what point in time? Ooo, now that we have made rules to define all of that, now we get the baseball Harden whose game is predicated around tricking the strike zone analysis. I'm going to love the swinging stance based around crunching and uncrunching at specific moments to get manipulate the strike zone measurement. Get ready for 10 minute replays that show that a guy took an exhale before the ball left the pitchers finger tip and that shrunk his frozen zone enough for something to be a called ball. Let's not even talk about what precise moment a ball has "crossed the plate". When we have access to all of this information, and it becomes part of the definition, that's what everyone will spend time thinking and arguing about. And it's not fun, imo, and detracts from the game.
Like, I'm just trying to say that all of this precision doesn't end the bullshit uncertainty or improve the "spirit of fairness" that results so much of the time. In many cases, perhaps most, it just makes the arguments become more minute and technical, and allows people to succeed by studying and exploiting technicalities, rather than just trying to be awesome at sports.
Electronic strike zone, I am coming around on this idea
Legit cannot believe they hired that asshole
i mean, mark cuban is a fuckin' idiot so i don't know why you can't believe he made a dumb decision