It would be good if they didn't put the rectangle over the actual strike zone.
Put a rectangle down in the corner and indicate the position of the pitch on that. Bring it full screen in the actual strike zone for a replay if justified.
See the problem isn't good ideas. They love good ideas. What the MLB hates is efficiency. They'll take a good idea and draw it out for years before making a decision on it.
If ABS works out well, people might also quickly get tired of the overlay. No bad calls means less of a need for a drawn up strike zone. Then they have the option to show zone graphics and 3d models of the zone to highlight particularly nasty pitches.
To be fair I was whining about bad calls since I was like, 10 on TV. The second we had HD and you felt like you got enough of a view you’d get pissed lol
The difference was without the box you didn’t know 100% if you were right or not. A pitch on the outside corner and you say it looks like a strike and I’d say it looks like a ball and we’re both right until the umpire calls it.
While you are true, I’m an opinionated bastard, I actually don’t get mad at the square, if it’s close one way or the other I don’t care unless you fuck up on a middle middle pitch.
Well yeah, if you call an obvious strike a ball or an obvious ball a strike I’m mad, but on borderline stuff I’m more permissive. The one thing I’ll never give a batter slack on is getting mad for a close call being called a strike on 2 strike counts. Everyone was taught to protect the plate when you’re down to your last strike, I don’t care if it was a quarter inch outside, you can’t leave that up to the ump/catcher framing, fight it off.
While true, he said 90%. The other 10% of us who watch alot, played, umped, etc... would still catch on to whatever camera angle and ump that particular day/game, and start complaining on close calls for our squad 😂😂🤣
It's the average strike zone for each batter over the last 50 called pitches. It's about as close of a strike zone you can get. People love to complain that it's not the actual strike zone when it's actually the strike zone based on what the umpires thihk is the strike zone.
https://streamable.com/kj7aym
It's a projection based off angles and height and close enough and yada yada, but if robo umps were here tomorrow, they would not use the broadcast strike zone. So no, it's not official.
Roughly between the shoulders and knees. Depends on the batters stance, height, etc. K zone is just an approximation of that.
The problem with k zone is that people think it 100% accurately depicts the strike zone for every batter.
the FOX national games do this stupid thing where they pump up the contrast in the square and it looks ghastly and makes it harder to see the ball cause it gets more compressed and looks weird
I saw this over the weekend when I sadly was forced to watch the Cubs on Fox. It annoyed the shit out of me the entire game. Really fucks with the eyes.
Yeah it’s awful but then again a large part of the population who watches Fox probably already has their tvs on torch mode with insane motion smoothing and doesn’t even realize how bad it is.
On the sides of the zone it’s okay but high and low it’s so bad, it’s not even close to what the considered zone is especially with hitters of below or above average height
Funny, but I think it matters less for left and right and more for up and down because I have no depth perception from the camera to tell where it crossed.
That's because umpires are terrible with batters not of average height. The k-zone is based on the umpires definition of a strike zone for each batter, not the rulebook definition.
https://streamable.com/kj7aym
The rule book also has some vague language regarding the height. Like it puts the bottom “just below the small of the knee.” Ok, what’s just below? Moreover, how can you tell where the small is when wearing long pants? For the top it bases it off the shoulders. Shoulders aren’t flat — they rise slightly to meet your neck. Where on the shoulder do you measure from?
The graphic itself doesn't bother me too much but the reaction to it from fans does. People treat it like gospel and use it as justification to try and get rid of umps. In reality, it's not super accurate, and umps are better than they ever have been
Not to mention that camera angles are from the outfield and at an angle, so people aren't seeing an honest image of where the ball actually is in the zone.
Is it me, or are networks also not showing that angle high above home plate as often? Felt like that was a good way of seeing whether or not a pitch crossed over the plate.
That’s the main thing it’s just a good reference not the gospel and as long as the ump calls consistently and not too egregious they can definitely make good calls that don’t coincide with the 2d rectangle we see.
After work I’m not trying to follow along closely for 40 pitches to try and figure out the ump’s strike zone, I just want to kick back and watch pitches hit the edge of the rectangle. Would be cool to be able to turn it off though for those games where you are really dialed in.
People just want consistency. If the ump is giving both teams the same strike zone, fine. But unless the broadcast is moving the box around, it’s very obvious when all of a sudden Ball Four becomes Strike Three in a spot that the ump called a ball for the first half of the game.
I’m sure some fans gripe about literally any “bad call” regarding the box, but I bet most of the outrage comes from the obvious outliers that the box makes easier to notice.
That’s why I’m for robo umps. Just set a defined strike zone with a clear (ish) ball or strike boundary. Then we don’t have to play the whole game of who is calling strikes, how they are that day, who’s pitching, etc. batters can more consistently rely on how a pitch will be called every day and not having to make adjustments about where they have to protect etc.
To me it’s like a sorta annoying sound like a HVAC unit in the distance. You know it’s there,you can kinda ignore it, but when it goes away it feels so much better.
I was watching an old game on Pluto (Mariners - White Sox, great game) and it was just so refreshing to see a clean look at the game without all the *stuff*
The zone overlay, the ads, every stat under the sun. Get rid of all of it. I just need to know the count, the outs, runners on, and who’s pitching and batting.
Don't get me started on the green screen ads that they insist on, even when the outline of any player in line with it glitches out, or when the ball disappears out of the hand every single pitch.
>I was watching an old game on Pluto
You can get a television signal on Pluto? It must take ages for it to reach that far, no wonder it was an old game... 🤣
Nope, I like it. I equate it to the yellow line in football. I know it's not official, but it's a good reference for how big the umps going to let the strike zone get and whether he's consistent.
In part that's because for the last twenty years, NFL announcers have been saying every single time there's a close measurement that the line isn't official, it's just some dude in the truck's best guess.
MLB announcers will look at a called strike that's two pixels outside the box, cluck their tongues, and sort of passive-aggressively rag on the umpire for the rest of the inning. "Gosh, Bill, I don't know, the Doritos™ Locos Taco K-Zone camera in left-center field thought that was outside, but on the field I guess that's strike two." "Yeah, I mean you want to give the umpires the benefit of the doubt, but… well…"
I sorry your announcers do that. Definitely sounds annoying. The Cubs broadcast is actually pretty great at recognizing close calls that could go either way, so sometimes I forget other teams are stuck with fans behind the mic instead of professional announcers.
I live in the wrong place to have "my announcers" so it's just a grab-bag of whatever baseball I can catch. FSN, ESPN, TBS, random streaming service experiments, or wherever MLB deigns to let the occasional television broadcast slip through on basic cable without going through a six-month subscription and a cross-promotional deal.
Maybe the Cubs announcers are good about this, but that's just a general observation.
I absolutely do want that reference, I just don’t want clutter on the screen. I feel like you could give me an unofficial indication of pitch location without giving me something right in the middle of the screen the entire time.
I have a buddy that is just getting into baseball and is always bitching about calls because of that stupid box. He won’t believe me when I tell him it’s inaccurate a lot of the time.
He complained so much one day I asked him what he thought the top of the strike zone was,he had no clue other than the box 😂
Tell him K-Zone is still open to human error because there is a human with a joystick adjusting it to the height of each batter. It is locked to the width of the plate but the height no.
The top/bottom of the zone in Statcast is set by the Statcast operator when the pitch is half way to home (I doubt they're using a joystick though)
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/csv-docs
The strike zone in Statcast isn't defined until after the pitch is thrown (which is why the top and bottom can shift from pitch to pitch)
For TV zones, it probably depends on the network but it's usually based on the average of the last 50 pitches
>For TV zones, it probably depends on the network but it's usually based on the average of the last 50 pitches
Right, that's the topic at hand. Instead of a manual adjustment, they use an average.
Boog and JD have discussed it during games. It's based on the weighted line where strikes vs balls were called against the particular batter during X number of previous at bats.
I have no doubt that when the tech was first introduced that it was rudimentary and may have even involved a manual adjustment. That doesn't mean it *still* happens like that. Like any tech, it's improved a bunch over the years.
As a pirates fan it is brutal. Greg Brown will comment every single time he thinks a call goes against the Pirates based off that stupid box, without realizing a) nothing about that box is official and b) it's a 2d box ...the strike zone is not two dimensional.
I’ve been saying it since it started. It blocks your view of the catcher. You don’t get to appreciate the art of catching because your eyes are attracted to the stupid graphic of where the ball supposedly crossed the plate.
Not only that, but I think it creates unfair opinions of umpires. Before the K-zone overlay I’d yell at the TV, “That was a strike!” Only to be proven wrong after seeing the K-zone on replay. It was a humbling reminder that calling balls and strikes is difficult. But now we get to always be right, only remembering the times the ump was wrong.
The broadcast camera angle isn't straight on so you can't tell where the corners of the plate are with regards to the catcher and you can't tell where the ball is when is crossed the plate. All you see is where the catcher catches it
I like it.
Well, I like it well enough
He grown so used to it that games look wrong without it now.
It’s like auto correct on a phone. It used to get in the way and hinder me, but over time it became so normal that now it feels like going back would hinder more than help me.
I know all Bally broadcasts have it. I remember last year, through MLB TV, I believe only Boston didn't have it on their TV broadcast but I think they added it this year.
I was watching college baseball with my dad over the weekend, and they don’t have it. I go both ways on it, because I like to see the pitcher paint the corners, but it also is over emphasized for an estimate.
I want them to bring back the little picture box where you can see the overhead view of the ball crossing the plate. So satisfying to see a picture dotting up the black.
Strangely, I don’t really care whether the ball is in the square or not. For me, it’s about consistency. Literally no one is going to be perfect calling balls and strikes with the pitches we see today. “Oh that might of clipped the edge of the box”. Get out of here. But if the ump has called it a ball all game and now it’s a strike is where I start yelling at the tv. But I’m with OP. I don’t want the box up all the time.
They want more casual fans to watch games. Casual fans don’t know what the strike zone is (particularly high and low) so they will never get rid of it.
So much!! I wish it was only brought up to show how bad a call was. If umpires are 95% accurate, the k-zone is only really advising on 5% of pitches and I feel like it can be utilized on replay during those instances.
I agree. I just don’t care that much if the ump calls a strike on a pitch that missed the plate by an inch.
The K-zone draws the eye too much. Unless I’m consciously avoiding it I find myself just staring at the stupid rectangle instead of watching the pitcher or batter
Yes. I like calling the game from the couch, and this makes it academic. I don't even need them to get rid of it, necessarily. I'm not sure how this would work, or if it would even be possible, but like, maybe for [MLB.tv](https://MLB.tv) viewers, make something that would toggle it.
I've always found for shorter or taller players the box is never adjusted so a call that's low in the zone is lighting up but based on the players height it would be a ball anyways it's stupid
I don't really miss it, I'm used to the overlay now. I don't even notice when it's missing, I've gone kinda blind to it unless it's a close call.
I don't like the ones that color the zone differently, it looks weird, and I notice it more.
I hate that it isn't accurate. Left and right are, generally, fine since those are stationary. Top and bottom doesn't adjust for the batter. That needs to be fixed, we have the data.
Yes, I dislike that they put it there. Don't show it to us and let us just see the umpire's call, if that's what's official. It doesn't do anyone any good to see every bad umpire call.
It would be good if they didn't put the rectangle over the actual strike zone. Put a rectangle down in the corner and indicate the position of the pitch on that. Bring it full screen in the actual strike zone for a replay if justified.
This was literally how it was when I started watching. We only got Foxtrax on close strike 3s and questionable ball 4s
And it was perfect
Only if you had HD! We couldn't afford those
I’d recommend you for a position with MLB but I don’t think they take kindly to people with such good ideas.
See the problem isn't good ideas. They love good ideas. What the MLB hates is efficiency. They'll take a good idea and draw it out for years before making a decision on it.
That's basically what they used to do a few years ago with the replay but nah gotta butter everyone up for robo umps now 🙄
If it gets us closer to robo umps it’s worth it
If ABS works out well, people might also quickly get tired of the overlay. No bad calls means less of a need for a drawn up strike zone. Then they have the option to show zone graphics and 3d models of the zone to highlight particularly nasty pitches.
Sounds good to me
Nesn used to do that and then caved
This is what they do in Taiwan except for the full screen
Love this idea. Could expand on it by making the dot where the ball crosses red for a strike, blue for a ball without the damn box.
Getting rid of it would instantly prevent 90% of the whining about bad calls on r/baseball.
To be fair I was whining about bad calls since I was like, 10 on TV. The second we had HD and you felt like you got enough of a view you’d get pissed lol
The difference was without the box you didn’t know 100% if you were right or not. A pitch on the outside corner and you say it looks like a strike and I’d say it looks like a ball and we’re both right until the umpire calls it.
Schrodinger’s pitch
While you are true, I’m an opinionated bastard, I actually don’t get mad at the square, if it’s close one way or the other I don’t care unless you fuck up on a middle middle pitch.
Or one in the opposite batter's box.
Well yeah, if you call an obvious strike a ball or an obvious ball a strike I’m mad, but on borderline stuff I’m more permissive. The one thing I’ll never give a batter slack on is getting mad for a close call being called a strike on 2 strike counts. Everyone was taught to protect the plate when you’re down to your last strike, I don’t care if it was a quarter inch outside, you can’t leave that up to the ump/catcher framing, fight it off.
While true, he said 90%. The other 10% of us who watch alot, played, umped, etc... would still catch on to whatever camera angle and ump that particular day/game, and start complaining on close calls for our squad 😂😂🤣
Considering how many fans boo at pitches they can’t even see, I think that might be a bit generous lol
Yeah idk how many times I’ve heard a stadium boo a call that was right from the TV box.
I take pictures in the MLB app and post them on our GDTs complaining
Would make it worse. Source: watching LSU play this weekend without the strike zone box and listening to my friends complain.
So much this
Yeah, people wouldn't see the obvious errors and then talk about them. That's the way to fix the problem, just hide the information!
It’s not the actual strike zone.
It's the average strike zone for each batter over the last 50 called pitches. It's about as close of a strike zone you can get. People love to complain that it's not the actual strike zone when it's actually the strike zone based on what the umpires thihk is the strike zone. https://streamable.com/kj7aym
It's an approximation. And a 2D one at that, which isn't how a real strike zone works.
What you see on the screen is 2D. The actual tracker is 3D, they show the side view every once in a while.
What is the actual strike zone? Because that seems fairly nebulous. Do you draw on your screen for every batter and compare them?
It's a projection based off angles and height and close enough and yada yada, but if robo umps were here tomorrow, they would not use the broadcast strike zone. So no, it's not official.
What would they use?
Roughly between the shoulders and knees. Depends on the batters stance, height, etc. K zone is just an approximation of that. The problem with k zone is that people think it 100% accurately depicts the strike zone for every batter.
If you compare it to the actual called balls/strikes by umpires, it's pretty damn close.
People complaining about the strike zone is also part of what lead to umps being far better than decades past. 90s strike zones were absolutely wild.
It’s so true
The whole robo-ump discussion would disappear within a season lol
Well never mind, now I like it.
But then how will I know whether or not to be mad?
That’s easy, we’re always mad
the FOX national games do this stupid thing where they pump up the contrast in the square and it looks ghastly and makes it harder to see the ball cause it gets more compressed and looks weird
I saw this over the weekend when I sadly was forced to watch the Cubs on Fox. It annoyed the shit out of me the entire game. Really fucks with the eyes.
Yeah it’s awful but then again a large part of the population who watches Fox probably already has their tvs on torch mode with insane motion smoothing and doesn’t even realize how bad it is.
The box where it’s just a faint grey outline is nice, blends in with the catcher if you’re not looking for it
Yep. Field of Dreams game didn’t have it and it was wonderful.
Yes I’m so over that thing and people thinking it’s accurate
On the sides of the zone it’s okay but high and low it’s so bad, it’s not even close to what the considered zone is especially with hitters of below or above average height
Funny, but I think it matters less for left and right and more for up and down because I have no depth perception from the camera to tell where it crossed.
Yeah, I'd be happy without the box but it would be great to have the dots showing where the pitch was when it crossed the front of the plate.
I swear each broadcast has a different depth too. There’s some games where it seems like it’s a foot in front of the actual plate
That's because umpires are terrible with batters not of average height. The k-zone is based on the umpires definition of a strike zone for each batter, not the rulebook definition. https://streamable.com/kj7aym
The rule book also has some vague language regarding the height. Like it puts the bottom “just below the small of the knee.” Ok, what’s just below? Moreover, how can you tell where the small is when wearing long pants? For the top it bases it off the shoulders. Shoulders aren’t flat — they rise slightly to meet your neck. Where on the shoulder do you measure from?
Neither is the actually calling of balls and strikes.
The graphic itself doesn't bother me too much but the reaction to it from fans does. People treat it like gospel and use it as justification to try and get rid of umps. In reality, it's not super accurate, and umps are better than they ever have been
Not to mention that camera angles are from the outfield and at an angle, so people aren't seeing an honest image of where the ball actually is in the zone.
Is it me, or are networks also not showing that angle high above home plate as often? Felt like that was a good way of seeing whether or not a pitch crossed over the plate.
See also: umpire scorecards Same story there. It's fine as a generalization. Everything else is simply rage bait.
That’s the main thing it’s just a good reference not the gospel and as long as the ump calls consistently and not too egregious they can definitely make good calls that don’t coincide with the 2d rectangle we see. After work I’m not trying to follow along closely for 40 pitches to try and figure out the ump’s strike zone, I just want to kick back and watch pitches hit the edge of the rectangle. Would be cool to be able to turn it off though for those games where you are really dialed in.
People just want consistency. If the ump is giving both teams the same strike zone, fine. But unless the broadcast is moving the box around, it’s very obvious when all of a sudden Ball Four becomes Strike Three in a spot that the ump called a ball for the first half of the game. I’m sure some fans gripe about literally any “bad call” regarding the box, but I bet most of the outrage comes from the obvious outliers that the box makes easier to notice.
That’s why I’m for robo umps. Just set a defined strike zone with a clear (ish) ball or strike boundary. Then we don’t have to play the whole game of who is calling strikes, how they are that day, who’s pitching, etc. batters can more consistently rely on how a pitch will be called every day and not having to make adjustments about where they have to protect etc.
I can’t remember who, maybe fox? Used to just show a graphic of the k zone after controversial/close pitches and strikeouts and stuff. I liked that
To me it’s like a sorta annoying sound like a HVAC unit in the distance. You know it’s there,you can kinda ignore it, but when it goes away it feels so much better.
I was watching an old game on Pluto (Mariners - White Sox, great game) and it was just so refreshing to see a clean look at the game without all the *stuff* The zone overlay, the ads, every stat under the sun. Get rid of all of it. I just need to know the count, the outs, runners on, and who’s pitching and batting.
Don't get me started on the green screen ads that they insist on, even when the outline of any player in line with it glitches out, or when the ball disappears out of the hand every single pitch.
>I was watching an old game on Pluto You can get a television signal on Pluto? It must take ages for it to reach that far, no wonder it was an old game... 🤣
[Pluto.tv](http://Pluto.tv) it's like free web-based streaming cable. They have an MLB channel that just plays old games
No I understood what you were doing it was just a bad joke
Yeah I hate it. You can see the movement on pitches way better without the k zone.
Yes, the k zone isnt catastrophic, but it's unnecessary, and i do have a certain nostalgia for the days past when it wasnt there.
I definitely miss baseball without the overlay. :(
Yes. I hate it.
It doesn't really bother me, but I wouldn't mind if it faded out while the pitcher was starting their delivery.
I feel like it sometimes obstructs the view of the ball off the bat too
I don't care because I don't obsess over it.
Neither do I but it's also much better without it.
Nope, I like it. I equate it to the yellow line in football. I know it's not official, but it's a good reference for how big the umps going to let the strike zone get and whether he's consistent.
In part that's because for the last twenty years, NFL announcers have been saying every single time there's a close measurement that the line isn't official, it's just some dude in the truck's best guess. MLB announcers will look at a called strike that's two pixels outside the box, cluck their tongues, and sort of passive-aggressively rag on the umpire for the rest of the inning. "Gosh, Bill, I don't know, the Doritos™ Locos Taco K-Zone camera in left-center field thought that was outside, but on the field I guess that's strike two." "Yeah, I mean you want to give the umpires the benefit of the doubt, but… well…"
I sorry your announcers do that. Definitely sounds annoying. The Cubs broadcast is actually pretty great at recognizing close calls that could go either way, so sometimes I forget other teams are stuck with fans behind the mic instead of professional announcers.
I live in the wrong place to have "my announcers" so it's just a grab-bag of whatever baseball I can catch. FSN, ESPN, TBS, random streaming service experiments, or wherever MLB deigns to let the occasional television broadcast slip through on basic cable without going through a six-month subscription and a cross-promotional deal. Maybe the Cubs announcers are good about this, but that's just a general observation.
I absolutely do want that reference, I just don’t want clutter on the screen. I feel like you could give me an unofficial indication of pitch location without giving me something right in the middle of the screen the entire time.
I have a buddy that is just getting into baseball and is always bitching about calls because of that stupid box. He won’t believe me when I tell him it’s inaccurate a lot of the time. He complained so much one day I asked him what he thought the top of the strike zone was,he had no clue other than the box 😂
Tell him K-Zone is still open to human error because there is a human with a joystick adjusting it to the height of each batter. It is locked to the width of the plate but the height no.
>because there is a human with a joystick adjusting it to the height of each batter. Lol it would be hilarious if it worked like that
It is afaik 😀
Pretty sure it's calculated based on a strike zone formula applied by a computer and not just some random dude playing Frogger.
The top/bottom of the zone in Statcast is set by the Statcast operator when the pitch is half way to home (I doubt they're using a joystick though) https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/csv-docs
If that was true, how would you explain that the box exists before the first pitch is thrown to any batter?
The strike zone in Statcast isn't defined until after the pitch is thrown (which is why the top and bottom can shift from pitch to pitch) For TV zones, it probably depends on the network but it's usually based on the average of the last 50 pitches
>For TV zones, it probably depends on the network but it's usually based on the average of the last 50 pitches Right, that's the topic at hand. Instead of a manual adjustment, they use an average.
Google it
Boog and JD have discussed it during games. It's based on the weighted line where strikes vs balls were called against the particular batter during X number of previous at bats. I have no doubt that when the tech was first introduced that it was rudimentary and may have even involved a manual adjustment. That doesn't mean it *still* happens like that. Like any tech, it's improved a bunch over the years.
As a pirates fan it is brutal. Greg Brown will comment every single time he thinks a call goes against the Pirates based off that stupid box, without realizing a) nothing about that box is official and b) it's a 2d box ...the strike zone is not two dimensional.
NPB does it exactly like that, very elegant and much more info in that box
I’ve been saying it since it started. It blocks your view of the catcher. You don’t get to appreciate the art of catching because your eyes are attracted to the stupid graphic of where the ball supposedly crossed the plate. Not only that, but I think it creates unfair opinions of umpires. Before the K-zone overlay I’d yell at the TV, “That was a strike!” Only to be proven wrong after seeing the K-zone on replay. It was a humbling reminder that calling balls and strikes is difficult. But now we get to always be right, only remembering the times the ump was wrong.
College World Series games are doing it. Especially the ones on ESPN+. It’s amazing.
Yes especially when it doesn’t even matter cause the ump can’t see it and it’s up to them.
I wish it was optional. When will TVs add this feature?
I had the same thought. Optional k-zone and optional commentary while we're at it.
Yes, because it's not even accurate, and it's ugly to look at.
i like it bc it lets me act like an armchair umpire
You can do that without it too
The broadcast camera angle isn't straight on so you can't tell where the corners of the plate are with regards to the catcher and you can't tell where the ball is when is crossed the plate. All you see is where the catcher catches it
The box isn't 100% accurate either. I'd rather have a cleaner looking broadcast.
No, I vastly prefer watching baseball with it
[удалено]
They don't have it for college baseball, so yeah, I've seen enough games without it.
[удалено]
Because it’s way easier to tell where the pitch crosses the plate
Are you talking about that dot they throw up there? I feel like that thing is off fairly often
It’s pretty correct considering it would be hard for it to be wrong
It doesn’t look like it always highlights where the ball crosses the plate, sometimes they place it where the catcher catches it
I don’t see that to be the case from what I’ve seen
lol dude what the hell? Calm down man.
Wow, you really sized up that whippersnapper. I’m sure between the 2 of you they are the one who will lose sleep over this.
I like it
Me too. Especially if the camera angle is off center.
No. I like it, sorry. Without it I can’t make heads or tails of what’s what. I’ve become completely reliant on it.
I honestly vastly prefer it. Watching older games feels naked to me now. I’m sure at one point people probably said the same thing about the scorebug
The scorebug doesn't get in the way of the action. The k-zone is located at the literal focal point of the entire game of baseball.
Me likey ;)/
I like it. Well, I like it well enough He grown so used to it that games look wrong without it now. It’s like auto correct on a phone. It used to get in the way and hinder me, but over time it became so normal that now it feels like going back would hinder more than help me.
What's the status on local broadcasts in regards to this issue?
I know all Bally broadcasts have it. I remember last year, through MLB TV, I believe only Boston didn't have it on their TV broadcast but I think they added it this year.
I was watching college baseball with my dad over the weekend, and they don’t have it. I go both ways on it, because I like to see the pitcher paint the corners, but it also is over emphasized for an estimate.
I want them to bring back the little picture box where you can see the overhead view of the ball crossing the plate. So satisfying to see a picture dotting up the black.
My people.
My people.
My people.
Yes. I watch my countries independent league from November-February and there's no rectangle zone which I enjoy way more
The K stands for inaKKurate.
Nope.
Yes, I hold on to bad calls so much longer now. I miss the ambiguity
I hate the K-zone graphic. It started around 10 years ago they started putting it in
The K Zone has been around since 2002
That's even worse
But you didn't see it every single pitch of every single game
Strangely, I don’t really care whether the ball is in the square or not. For me, it’s about consistency. Literally no one is going to be perfect calling balls and strikes with the pitches we see today. “Oh that might of clipped the edge of the box”. Get out of here. But if the ump has called it a ball all game and now it’s a strike is where I start yelling at the tv. But I’m with OP. I don’t want the box up all the time.
They want more casual fans to watch games. Casual fans don’t know what the strike zone is (particularly high and low) so they will never get rid of it.
I reallllllllllly like the ABS system in AAA. It’s the best of both worlds imo.
So much!! I wish it was only brought up to show how bad a call was. If umpires are 95% accurate, the k-zone is only really advising on 5% of pitches and I feel like it can be utilized on replay during those instances.
I agree. I just don’t care that much if the ump calls a strike on a pitch that missed the plate by an inch. The K-zone draws the eye too much. Unless I’m consciously avoiding it I find myself just staring at the stupid rectangle instead of watching the pitcher or batter
And can we go back to the straight from center field camera? We had it for like a decade, what went wrong?
Head in the sand, fingers in the ears, singing "lalalla can't see the mistakes"
Stupid comment, I said keep it but move it out of the way
You get so used to it I was watching college baseball and it felt weird without it but I wasn’t complaining.
Yeah, added some ambiguity to the umpires calls
It would be good if there were robo umps and the overlay was not necessary because we would just know of it was a strike or a ball based on the call.
Yes. I like calling the game from the couch, and this makes it academic. I don't even need them to get rid of it, necessarily. I'm not sure how this would work, or if it would even be possible, but like, maybe for [MLB.tv](https://MLB.tv) viewers, make something that would toggle it.
My issue with it has always been that the strike zone is a 3D area, so overlaying a 2D square onto the screen can't possibly catch every strike.
I've always found for shorter or taller players the box is never adjusted so a call that's low in the zone is lighting up but based on the players height it would be a ball anyways it's stupid
Considering the k zone is very altered and not the true strike zone? Yea.
Nope, I love it, would never wanna go back.
Yes. Hate it. I can see the strike zone.
I don't really miss it, I'm used to the overlay now. I don't even notice when it's missing, I've gone kinda blind to it unless it's a close call. I don't like the ones that color the zone differently, it looks weird, and I notice it more. I hate that it isn't accurate. Left and right are, generally, fine since those are stationary. Top and bottom doesn't adjust for the batter. That needs to be fixed, we have the data.
Yes, I dislike that they put it there. Don't show it to us and let us just see the umpire's call, if that's what's official. It doesn't do anyone any good to see every bad umpire call.
Nope! I hated it when it was introduced, but I’m a full convert
Honestly.
They need to go back to having it in the corner of the screen instead of over the plate. Win win for everyone.
Absolutely. I yearn for a day when we could customize these displays ourself
Half the time the zone on TV isn't accurate. Thats when people start bitching and complaining
I agree unfortunately I think it’s here to stay.
Yup, every time I watch a game. It’s inaccurate bs.
Yea I hate it, but I also don’t support robo umps and like the chaos of inconsistent strike zones so it’s a pretty unpopular take
No I agree. I like knowing where the pitch was, but I think that could be done better. Even just a visual put up after close pitches.
I can't see how you simply don't ignore it? Its not a big deal.
I could not live without it.
Nope. Just you.
you're just nitpicking. watch the game.
This response is weirdly defensive. Why this is such a sensitive topic for you?
you're the one who is sensitive. don't try and flip your weakness on me. watch the game and stop crying.
This is like the most neckbeardy comment I've seen in long time lol
which shows the difference between mlb and this sub. a bunch of dumb chads
I wonder if you actually think you're not coming off as sensitive in this exchange 😂
You know that just makes you look way more sensitive lmao 🤣
the 12 year old still saying lmao. pitiful
why are you being so goofy 🤪
given your name you should be quiet
🤪
They're *trying* to watch the game. But it's being covered by a literally meaningless graphic.
YES