Prepare for a lot of butt-hurt from SEC Umpires
Baseball America reporting that NCAA has approved ABS usage when available
- Thread starter Willow Grove Dawg
- Start date
I wish them all an unhappy retirement. The sooner the better.
What "serious competitive imbalance" would this create?
I’d be supportive if it is applied to every single pitch. If an umpire wants to stay behind the plate and act like a fool or incompetent, let them. If it is based on a challenge system where we can only challenge one or two pitches a game, while a step in the right direction it is still open to PLENTY of bias/corruption.
Love it in MLB. It's given me more respect for the MLB guys and how accurate they actually are.....I'm not thinking I'll feel the same about the college umps.
I think it will quickly result in every pitch being called by ABS. Home plate ump only there for plays at the plate.
Let umpire make every call, let the replay booth buzz all incorrect calls. Replay will get 15-20 seconds or more between each pitch. Home ump pulling for UGA squeezing our pitcher “Ball!!! 1-0” BZZZZZZZT “strike 0-1 next pitch.” Next pitch “ball! 1-1!” BZZZZZZT “strike 0-2 next pitch” I think viewership would skyrocket. If a home plate umpire wants to act biased or corrupt… let them make a fool of themselves.
The thing I love most about internet message boards is the number of deranged people just a comment away. @DesotoCountyDawg you have a fanclub.
Didn’t see this asked yet….did they approve the 8-minute or the 7-minute version?
No retirement. They still have enough to make them useful. HBP, foul tip, plays at the plate, foul off of batter, catcher/batter interference, offer on bunts, pitch clock violation, balks, Once they get over the initial indignity they will probably be happy to get that off of their plate. No pun intended.
Why would you purposefully want somebody to get humiliated based solely on their occupation? I hope that it proves they are better than what we thought they were. If it doesn't then it just validates that we need to use a better system now. The only humiliation I would see is on calls that are missed where the ball is completely in or out of the zone. The ones where the ball just nicks or barley nicks the strike zone have to be incredibly hard to get right.
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I believe the sentiment comes from how so many of them seem to umpire with a belligerence akin to Eric Cartman with a badge.
Plus some of them seem to have a bias in certain situations. Just call everything straight up. Got to assume that all SEC officials for all sports have some sort of bias based on observations gathered over the last 71 years.
In other college baseball news, the SEC is likely to implement the 3-batter minimum rule for pitching changes and limit pick-off throws to 2. Both very good rules that work great in the majors.
Because we've all seen enough baseball to know they're a bunch of arrogant dicks.
If one of them happens to be a competent, humble guy, I'm sure he'll take it in stride.
The 2 pickoff moves rule is incredibly stupid and I disagree on it working great in the majors too.
I think he’s referring to small schools/leagues that don’t have the resources to implement it.
I’m sure you’ll see ABS in the SEC, ACC, Big 12 next year, but beyond that I wonder what leagues even have the infrastructure to do it.
That doesn’t create an imbalance though. They’ll just have to use umpires only.
My guess is the ball-strike system used will be based on whoever is hosting the game. For neutral site tournaments in MLB stadiums, my guess is they’ll use it.
I guess you can make an argument that it’s an uneven experience for teams that have to pop in and out of using it.
Say you’re Lipscomb who we played in the regular season and NCAAT. They may play a weekend series or two or midweek games against teams that have ABS in their home stadium…. And then not see it again for the duration of conference play…. And then lo and behold you make the NCAAT and you’ve got ABS to reckon with again.
I don’t think it’s a huge issue but I see a little bit of that argument.
I think throwing over to 1st a dozen times when the batter is a foot away from the base is stupid and wastes a lot of time.
I guess I kind of view it from a player’s perspective, you want ABS to be available whenever it’s possible….no matter what league you’re in.
And ultimately, I think there should be universal adoption for anyone that wants to play at the D1 level. The system used in MLB / MiLB costs like $100k per stadium as a one-time cost for, I think, 12 hawkeye cameras. Anyone who can’t afford that really has no business fielding a high-level college baseball program.
That’s not even considering the fact that the upper tier schools are all dumping around $5~$7 million per year into NIL and revenue share for baseball, so those tiny schools already have much more difficult decisions they need to make, anyway.
Seriously? Both of those sound absolutely terrible.
The pick-off rule - You’re basically saying if he goes 0 for 2 in picking off the runner, the runner essentially gets a free base because he can take as big of a lead as he wants after the 2nd attempt with no fear of consequences. I can’t even begin to wrap my mind around that stupidity. It will be like little league with every runner on base trying to steal on every pitch.
The pitching change rule - changing pitchers for one batter matchups (left on left or right on right) in high leverage situations has always been a huge part of the strategy in baseball. Why take that out? I know in our better years with Butch and Cohen, we did that a lot and got some big outs from back end of the pen guys in those situations.
Both of those proposals scream “we want even more runs scored” even though offense is already at an all-time high in college baseball.
No, you can throw over a third time and if he's out, he's out, but if he's safe, it's a balk. There are consequences if you blatantly get a huge lead.
They're both being used in MLB and are working well.
Not to mention that what this rule doesn't do is reduce the number of serious throws over to first. Most throws to first are "just to let the baserunner know that you know he's there." I think the fact you know he's there is a given. Either make a serious throw to first or pitch to the batter.
nobody throws over a dozen time when the runner is a foot away.
The minimum batters faced rule was to stop the whole LOOGie movement in MLB, which it nicely did. We don't have it as bad in college, but I'm fine with it offhand.
The max pickoff attempts I don't like, but I agree with what it's trying to fix, which is symbolic pickoffs where they're just resetting the pitch clock. Feels like there should be a better way to address that.
The max pickoff attempts I don't like, but I agree with what it's trying to fix, which is symbolic pickoffs where they're just resetting the pitch clock. Feels like there should be a better way to address that.
That’s still way too big of an advantage for a fast runner who can take big lead on the 3rd attempt and still get back. After the 2 attempts, that runner is still going to take a bigger lead, and force the pitcher to either take a huge risk in throwing over, or going to the plate with a fastball that’s up in the zone, and the hitter will know this. It’s an impossible position to be in for the pitcher. Terrible rule.
Here’s the thing, if you don’t waste your attempts over it’s not that big of a deal. Heck with analytics most teams would rather leave him inn1st anyway. We’re not seeing any major outcries over that rule in mlb.
There’s no outcries yet because there’s not enough data, and not enough players who have been able to exploit it in the “everyone just hit HR’s or strikeout” era. Players that do those 2 things at a high rate and players that steal a lot of bases tend to be mutually exclusive.
Pitchers pick-off attempts are successful less than 2% of the time, even after this rule change. If you go 0-2 in pickoff attempts with a fast runner, and there’s less than 2 outs, it’s about as much of a guarantee as possible that the runner will end up with a virtual free pass to 2nd base.
And what qualifies as a “wasted attempt” anyway? A runner is going to start out with a modest lead just to time up the pitcher and get a grasp on how far off the bag he can get safely. First pickoff attempt, he’ll get back easily. Second attempt - bigger lead, it’ll be closer, but he’ll still get back. 3rd attempt, he gets the biggest lead imaginable, and now there is nothing the pitcher can do about it. Those first 2 attempts aren’t “wasted”, they are part of the cat and mouse between pitcher and runner that has always been part of the game.
It’s a horseshít rule that only helps TV networks, plain and simple. There was no other reason to adopt it. Give guys like Chandler Simpson a few years and see what his stolen base rate looks like after 2 pickoff attempts.
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I would think that if someone hates the "home run and strikeout era," he'd be glad to have a new rule that makes it a little easier to steal bases and adds value to a different type of player?