PHOENIX — “It was a joke!”
“The worst umpiring I’ve seen behind the plate since Little League.”
“I couldn’t believe that strike zone. It was unbelievable.”
Those were a few of the comments I got from Rockies players after their loss to Pittsburgh on Monday night at Coors Field. Throw in a few colorful words not fit for a family newspaper, and you get the flavor of the Rockies’ ire toward home plate umpire Lance Barrett.
The players, of course, wouldn’t let me use their names. They didn’t want to get fined.
By the end of their 6-1 loss to the Pirates, the Rockies had struck out nine times, six looking. Barrett, making himself the center of the show, ejected manager Walt Weiss and left fielder Ryan Raburn.
If ever a group was ready to embrace the idea of an automated, computerized system for calling balls and strikes, this was it. Right? Wrong.
Major-league ballplayers are a stubborn, traditional bunch. The closest anyone came to giving a thumbs-up to an automated strike zone was star third baseman Nolan Arenado.
“I guess I’d be interested in trying it out in a spring training game,” he said. “I don’t know, it would be kind of crazy. I mean, the game is changing in so many ways, and I like replay. But umpires are a classic part of the game, I don’t think you want to mess with that.”
Raburn, 35, was adamant in his opposition.
“I came up before replay, and I don’t like all of the changes,” he said. “I don’t like the new slide rules, I think they have softened the game. I don’t want the game changed too much. I like the game as it is and I think the more technical we get, the more we lose the human element.”
The counter argument is that baseball would be a better game if the strike zone was consistent, fair and not subject to the ups and downs of an umpire’s call. According to proponents of an automated strike zone, the technology already is in place. One system, called Pitchf/x, uses three cameras to record “the full trajectory of live baseball pitches to within an inch of accuracy,” according to Sport- vision, the company that developed the technology.
Fans sitting at home, watching a Rockies game on TV, can see for themselves how accurately balls and strikes are called.
Baseball writer Dan Szymborski, well-known for his sabermetric approach to the game, penned an . He spelled out why the game needs an automated strike zone.
“The difference between a ball and a strike is massive, which means getting it right is important,” he wrote. “In 2015, batters put up an .815 OPS after a 1-0 count and a .609 OPS after an 0-1 count. For 2-1 versus 1-2, that’s an .873 OPS versus a .423 OPS.
“That .423 OPS on 1-2 isn’t all that impressive, but it beats the .000 OPS for batters who are walking back to the dugout after an erroneous strike three. If human error can turn Josh Donaldson into a Triple-A hitter or a Triple-A hitter into Josh Donaldson, it strikes me that we should probably try to eliminate that human error. (Sorry about the pun.)”
Weiss, decidedly old school in many ways, is a fan of replay. He does not, however, want computers and cameras determining balls and strikes.
“I like replay and I like getting it right,” he said. “But I don’t want to get to the point where it gets weird, where you take the human element completely out of the game.
“There are nuances that are brought to the game with the umpire behind the plate. You’ve got to know the guy’s strike zone. You put that into the equation when you’re a batter stepping into the box or when you are a pitcher taking the mound.
“You have to know what corners to hit, what the bottom of zone is, all of those subtleties. I don’t ever want to lose that.”
Veteran first baseman Mark Reynolds put his own, unique spin on the topic.
“I don’t want Pitchf/x back there behind the plate,” Reynolds said. “That’s part of the fun, barking at the umpires. The fans love it, they get to see guys yelling at umpires, and managers get to cuss guys out. Do we really want to lose that?”
Patrick Saunders: psaunders@denverpost.com or @psaundersdp
Spotlight on …
James Shields, RHP, Padres
What’s up: When San Diego signed “Big Game James” to a franchise-record, four-year, $75 million contract before the 2015 season, there were high hopes the Padres would be postseason contenders. That never came close to happening last season and the Padres don’t have a prayer this year of contending. They entered the weekend in last place in the National League West. Shields is scheduled start against the Rockies on Monday night at Petco Park.
Background: Shields is off to a bad-luck start. The 34-year-old lost his fourth game of the season Tuesday night when San Diego lost 1-0 to San Francisco. He gave up just one run and three hits in seven innings, and although he has four quality starts in five outings, he remains winless. San Diego’s anemic offense has provided him just 1.2 runs of support per start.
Saunders’ take: Despite the lack of run support, Shields has not been the ace the Padres were looking for when they signed him. In his last start, he struck out just two while walking four, and his strikeout-to-walk ratio is at a career-low 1.6 this season. Shields’ contract does not include a no-trade clause, but he will be able to opt out of his contract after the 2016 season. That makes a mid-summer trade possible, but even if he sticks with the Padres through the end of the season, the rising salaries for starting pitchers, combined with next winter’s shallow talent pool, means Shields just might be enticed into free agency for one more big payday.
