Why Baseball's Automated Strike Zone Is a Necessity, Not a Suggestion

The San Francisco Giants saw their season come to a premature conclusion on Sunday, largely due to the subpar efforts of home plate umpire Rob Drake.

According to Umpire Auditor, Drake made 27 incorrect calls during Sunday's game.

Alongside the image posted above, Giants' insider Alex Pavlovic tweeted: "Rob Drake was awful all afternoon. Ended the game (and season) on this pitch. Bring on the robots."

While it is easy to blame San Francisco's demise on a bad strike call rather than assessing their failures as a whole (the team wasted golden opportunities to clinch a postseason berth on Thursday and Friday), it isn't as though one poor call ended their season.

All three of Austin Slater's strikeouts (including the one that eliminated San Francisco from postseason contention) came on pitches that Statcast registered as balls.

In the seventh inning, Drake also rung up Mauricio Dubon on a pitch inside; in the eighth, he rung up Evan Longoria on a pitch below the strike zone.

This isn't to suggest that every strike called against the Padres was completely fair -- notably, Giants' reliever Kevin Gausman received a strike three call in the ninth inning that appeared to be off the plate.

However, isn't it time that we revisit a discussion of the automated strike zone?

A Boston University study found that MLB umpires missed 34,294 ball-strike calls during the 2018 season, an average of 14 per game.

And it isn't getting better.

The Giants fell 5-4 in their season finale on Sunday -- a result that could have been massively different if the bats weren't repeatedly taken out of their hands due to human error.

Poor umpire calls have typified baseball for over a century, and while some fans will argue that it's part of the game, it seems counterproductive to ignore the 21st century technology that we have at our disposal.

A look at professional sports across North America shows that technology can (and should) be implemented.

The NFL has allowed its officials to have their calls challenged for decades. While the transition hasn't always been effectively implemented (Alexa, search for the 2019 pass interference replay review), allowing coaches the ability to challenge certainly helps limit egregious errors. To this day, the league reviews all scoring plays to ensure their legitimacy.

Meanwhile, the NBA has adopted a replay review of its own, allowing coaches to challenge one personal foul call per game, and reviewing all questionable out-of-bounds plays automatically in the game's final two minutes and in overtime.

Even the NHL continues to remove pivotal goals if a coach's challenge deems a player on the scoring team to be offside.

If MLB continues allowing managers to challenge plays that determine whether a runner is safe or out, there's no excuse for neglecting the most fundamental call in the game: balls and strikes.

Giants' color commentator Mike Krukow refuted this suggestion in his appearance on "The Murph & Mac Show" on Monday morning.

Krukow said, "Hell no. No chance. Never. I'll go down to my grave saying that. The umpires are such a great part of this game."

I respectfully disagree with his take. While the umpires should be involved, the players must ultimately be responsible for determining the winner of each game.

If you can place a runner on second base in extra innings, you can certainly make an adjustment to ensure that teams aren't wrongfully eliminated on poor strike calls.

For now, Giants fans will begrudgingly root for the Milwaukee Brewers (who secured the 8-seed due to a tiebreaker) to overcome the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Wild Card Series.

What are your thoughts on the automated strike zone?

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