College strike zone, Sheeeesh

[JayW]

Quick little Google search add to the discussion
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MLB Umpires Missed 34,294 Pitch Calls in 2018. Time for Robo-umps?

After analyzing 4 million Major League Baseball pitches from 11 seasons, researchers at Boston University learned that younger umpires are more accurate in calling balls and strikes and 2-strike counts favor pitchers over hitters, among other fascinating findings.

www.bu.edu

* Learn to be a better hitter!

If a pitch is close enough to be an arguable ball or strike, it’s close enough to be hit hard. I see way too many batters look at close pitches. Take your 3 hacks. Be a hitter, not a watcher.

 

[Tatonka]

If a pitch is close enough to be an arguable ball or strike, it’s close enough to be hit hard. I see way too many batters look at close pitches. Take your 3 hacks. Be a hitter, not a watcher.

This. Too many times I see players (especially both my P/DD and my C/DD) "playing" umpire and take a close pitch that they surely feel is a ball only to get rung up. Whether the zone changed, it was a missed call by the ump or they just flat our read it wrong, they need to attack their zone and hit those pitches.

 

[JayW]

This. Too many times I see players (especially both my P/DD and my C/DD) "playing" umpire and take a close pitch that they surely feel is a ball only to get rung up. Whether the zone changed, it was a missed call by the ump or they just flat our read it wrong, they need to attack their zone and hit those pitches.

Constant battle with my DD. When I pitch to her, she swings hard at every pitch because it doesn’t matter if it’s a ball or strike. In a game, she suddenly thinks she’s an umpire. Walks are failures unless the pitcher is throwing it over your head or rolling it.

 

[BillyB]

I'm just not seeing what some of you are saying. Zones have been wide in almost every televised game I've watched and from multiple angles.

 

[softballparent60]

What conferences are you watching? I have been watching Pac12, ACC, and SEC games and the strike zones look very tight.

 

[Lance Steckler]

I'm ok with wide or narrow, short or tall. just be consistent for the game and for both teams!!! Sure, wider versus narrower impact the game more or less, but as long as consistent and same for both teams, minimal complaining to do.

 

[Cal Citt]

This is more in line with what I (believe) that I've seen at the DIII games I've attended personally and watched on video. It has mostly seemed smaller than the DI and DII games I've watched (not live) this year. The zone has also at times been too "fluid" and at times seemed to be called at the glove not over the plate.

In my day, a pitch was called as it passed by or over home plate. Of course, some batters would set way back from home plate and an occasional blue would call a pitch as it passed by the batter, NOT home plate. Advantage to the smart batter. I see it happen nowadays.


For what its worth, what I observe on TV this season is a narrow strike zone.

 

[radness]

Even from reading these posts
'inconsistency'
is still the most consistent factor of balls and strikes.

Whether that's the Umpire calling the strike zone or how people perceive it to be.

 

[Luke]

The strike zone is not the width of the plate (which is 17 inches). By definition, in EVERY rule-set, if ANY part of the ball touches any part of the plate, a strike shall be called. Because a softball is 3.8 inches wide, the strike zone is actually 24 inches wide and not 17 inches.

More strikes ought to be called, not less. So, when a ball a thrown in the “river” (the area between the plate and the batter’s box chalk line, more than likely it should be called a strike…because part of the ball touched part of the plate.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[4KidsDad]

I haven’t seen a drop ball called a strike that the catcher caught below the knees this year.

From Referee Magazine - January 2020
"So, we were watching her throw drop balls and watching catchers "funnel it" and I was telling myself those are going to be low. We set up a pitching machine with a string at knee level and set the machine to throw drop balls. I actually got back and caught them, and I was struggling to catch the drop balls and make them look like strikes. It was clearly a strike but being caught below the shin guards of the catcher. One side is going to go crazy if you call that a strike and one side is going to go crazy if you don't call it a strike. The reality of it is it's a strike. We did it 50 times. This was a machine replicating it over and over. We brought 35 campers through it. It was a drill we ran in a camp that absolutely changed the way I think about the catcher receiving the ball....how something in a drill can change the way you think about things."

NCAA Women's College World Series umpire Tom Meyer