Umpires Have a New Enemy

Back in 2001, major league umpires weren't too pleased with the revolutionary new QuesTec systems that were placed in a third of the ballparks around the league QuesTec was put in place to help establish a more uniform strike zone as the data collected would be used to teach the umpires about what they were doing right and what they were doing wrong.

As any manager can tell you, umpires don't like being told what they've done wrong. So it wasn't surprising that umpires were upset by QuesTec, and now, finally, they will be rid of the system this season. Of course, there is the new system called Zone Evaluation that will now be taking QuesTec's place. In every ballpark.

The new system, called Zone Evaluation, relies on pitch-tracking data already collected by cameras in all 30 parks and distributed through applications on MLB.com and iTunes. Zone Evaluation software will rate umpire performance more quickly and accurately than QuesTec, according to Mike Port, baseball's vice president for umpiring.

"It's an upgrade from where we were," Port said in a telephone interview. "The umpires, they don't want to miss a pitch any more than a batter wants to strike out. Where the Z.E. system will give us a lot of help is more data to help identify any trends: 'The last three plate jobs, you missed seven pitches that were down and in. Here's how one of the supervisors can help you adjust your head angle or your stance to have a better chance of getting those pitches.'"

For their part the umpires are staying quiet about the new Zone Evaluation system, with the umpire union declining comment on it. Probably under the old premise that mom taught us, if you don't have anything nice to say, say no comment and then slam the door shut and curse under your breath. At least that's how my mom taught it.

If nothing else, at least having the new system in all 30 parks will kill all the talk of umps calling games differently in QuesTec parks than in parks without the cameras. Now the man will be watching them everywhere.