Has ABS made Altuve a better hitter knowing he can challenge so he is more patient? He seems to have done a 180 and I am here for it, he is taking pitches at a higher rate than ever.
This can be a complex issue. Any book needs to be a novel. Score, where in the lineup, situation, count, inning, exactly how close is it? How good is this umpire? How good is this pitcher? All of these factor in and I'm sure there are more. A run in the first inning is just as important as one in the 7th or 8th, so I don't like excluding the early innings. Especially considering how many games have finished without using them all. I do, however, think there need to one set of rules for the first challenge and then a tighter set once a challenge is lost.
Crucial spots aren't always in the late innings. In the 3rd inning bases loaded 2-strike count and there's a ball called a strike. You want to challenge that. The more rules you set, the more missed opportunities you're creating.
How much do you trust your players? What is the baseball I.Q. of a player. Am I giving different instructions to Yainer Diaz than Alex Bregman? You bet I am. It would be really nice for your catcher to be a high baseball I.Q. guy.
Absolutely. Even a rookie like Zach Cole who seems to know the strikezone well, I trust more than Yanier. Similarly, if I'm allowing pitchers to do it, I'd trust a clinical Greg Maddox or Justin Verlander way more than, say, Framber Valdez who's more prone to just an emotional challenge.
I feel like Maddux would have adjusted. Maybe not quite as dominant but still really damn good. Tom Glavine, on the other hand, would have struggled a LOT more.
Another factor is how good your player is. I'm fine with Yordan challenging a 50/50 pitch because if he's right, the damage he could do is huge. On the flipside, I'm less interested in Nick Allen in challenging a likely wrong pitch unless its ball 4, because he's probably going to get an out regardless so the upside vs downside is much less.
They both would likely be just fine and just ad dominant. Dallas Keuchel dominated in the era of the box being there, and hitters tendencies/averages/contact rates/etc. have only gone down year after year. And Keuchel didn't have the stuff that Glavine had or the precision/stuff that Maddux had (minus maybe the 1 peak CY year). (plus Maddux and Galvine were battling super-human roiders and still getting them out... they even made a self-deprecating commercial about it).
The Braves don’t beat us if ABS was full time. Glavine and Maddox didn’t have to throw the ball over the plate ever. Maddox would have had the stuff to actually get us out throwing strikes. Glavine would have been a scrub without his expanded strike zone.
The system should be for every pitch using augmented reality. That’s the bottom line. It saves time. It eliminates the last pitch of the World Series inevitable delay. It’s a near perfect system. Use it. Times change. The umpire is not needed.
Sure, different players should have different rules. That said, obvious challenges should always be made by competent players because challenge opportunities are random and likely not pivotal moments. Also, pivotal moments are typically pivotal because of how things went earlier in the game.
Obviously this is all hypothetical, so anything we state here is just our best guess, but I disagree on Glavine. He had good control, but so much of his effectiveness was predicated on living on the (waaay) outside of the zone, with occasional pitches inside that would result in weak contact. But that was because players felt like they had to really lean out to protect those outside strike calls that he would routinely get. If he loses those outside 1-2 inches, I think hitter approaches would have been much more similar to any other pitcher and he would have lost effectiveness. Again, this is off my memory of watching him pitch against the Astros. I never felt like he had elite stuff, just great placement and favorable umpiring. Maddux, on the other hand, could throw pitches in the zone and still induce weak contact with how much his stuff moved and how good he was at mixing up location/pitch type. I think he would still be HOF.
Again, I’ll use Keuchel in this era (without getting those extra 1-2 inches) as a prime example of how dominant one can be with precise control. Glavine had better stuff than Keuchel. Now if you want to say hitters of those eras were better and would demolish Keuchel (and get to Glavine if ABS was there), I could see a potential correlation… but I’ll take any pitcher of the steroid era, with any system, as they’d be filthy dominant in today’s high K, lower batting avg. world.
I got a survey after game 2 on the ballpark app. Said I liked it, it didn't take too long, and that it should be used more.
