What is the official strike zone for a pitched ball?

[Doug Romrell]

I would argue that there are RELATIVELY few umpires who have good enough judgement to call "the official" strike zone. And, it's been my experience that there are more umpires that call an smaller strike zone than there are ones that call a larger strike zone than the official one. Go figure.

 

[coach james]

Weird...
I always thought it was somewhere between here and there, but only as high as this, and sometimes as low at that. Unless the umpire is left handed, and then its totally different.
Bottom line.... umpires, strike zones, and snow flakes...

 

[GOINGDEEP]

What I've seen this spring that caught my attention is those higher rise balls aren't getting the strike call like in TB or HS. What I also notice is the "better" batters are laying off of them because the zone has literally shrunk. ( that was my reason for asking the ump where the zone was )

Which brings up my next question. Where the rise is very effective in pre-college, is it still "worth" learning over another pitch? And yes I realize the rise is still a good pitch in college, as long as you can face batters who chase.

 

[Rocketech1]

What I've seen this spring that caught my attention is those higher rise balls aren't getting the strike call like in TB or HS. What I also notice is the "better" batters are laying off of them because the zone has literally shrunk. ( that was my reason for asking the ump where the zone was )

Which brings up my next question. Where the rise is very effective in pre-college, is it still "worth" learning over another pitch? And yes I realize the rise is still a good pitch in college, as long as you can face batters who chase.

I think that is a legitimate concern. The high strike zone in college is very small and somewhat neutralizes the effectiveness of the riseball. Of course, some will point out that Dallas Escobedo, who leads the PAC-12 (and maybe nation) in strikeouts, is a riseball pitcher, but IMO she is the exception to the rule. It sure seems like offense is taking over the game. How many runs has Oregon scored, my goodness. Half swings and being fooled on a pitch still result in going yard....

 

[Greenmonsters]

What I've seen this spring that caught my attention is those higher rise balls aren't getting the strike call like in TB or HS. What I also notice is the "better" batters are laying off of them because the zone has literally shrunk. ( that was my reason for asking the ump where the zone was )

Which brings up my next question. Where the rise is very effective in pre-college, is it still "worth" learning over another pitch? And yes I realize the rise is still a good pitch in college, as long as you can face batters who chase.

NCAA - the top does seem a littler lower IMO, but there will always be hitters that can't help but chase the high heat! It just looks too tempting and goes so far when they do catch up to it. IME the trade off is that the river is wide and the strike zone quite often extends to the oppo batters box line (which is 2 balls off the plate).

 

[doublenickel]

No, it would not.

There is another rule that says if a pitch strikes the ground before reaching the plate, or touches the plate, then it cannot be a called strike.

In slowpitch it is a strike if it hits behind the plate, if it hits the plate at all it is a ball.

 

[GOINGDEEP]

I think that is a legitimate concern. The high strike zone in college is very small and somewhat neutralizes the effectiveness of the riseball. Of course, some will point out that Dallas Escobedo, who leads the PAC-12 (and maybe nation) in strikeouts, is a riseball pitcher, but IMO she is the exception to the rule. It sure seems like offense is taking over the game. How many runs has Oregon scored, my goodness. Half swings and being fooled on a pitch still result in going yard....

Yes, there will always be exceptions to the rule. Admire them ( I do ) but I'm not convinced the masses ( mortals ) should fall into that is the pitch to learn. This spring season has shown me batters are being trained/educated to let it pass at the college level.

 

[GOINGDEEP]

NCAA - the top does seem a littler lower IMO, but there will always be hitters that can't help but chase the high heat! It just looks too tempting and goes so far when they do catch up to it. IME the trade off is that the river is wide and the strike zone quite often extends to the oppo batters box line (which is 2 balls off the plate).

I don't know about you, but I learned in college baseball the zone widens on the corners, ours also shrunk from the top. Has/is fastpitch following suit?

 

[Vertigo]

In slowpitch it is a strike if it hits behind the plate, if it hits the plate at all it is a ball.

Not always necessarily the case. When I played slowpitch with arc, they used a pitching mat behind the plate, so a strike was anything that hit the plate or landed on the mat. Another slowpitch team I played for it was a strike if it landed behind the plate.

 

[SoCal_Dad]

Which brings up my next question. Where the rise is very effective in pre-college, is it still "worth" learning over another pitch? And yes I realize the rise is still a good pitch in college, as long as you can face batters who chase.

Some pitchers throw a "low rise" within the NCAA strike zone. I believe Ricketts is/was one.