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by NaOH·10mo ago·view on hn ↗
Some numbers: A typical MLB game sees about 292 pitches thrown. Of the pitches called a ball or strike—so ignore any pitches fouled off or put in play—93% are called correctly by umpires. That's equivalent to umpires missing a call every 3.6 batter appearances.

So in terms of volume, this isn't much. In terms of potential effects, it becomes a question of how well players utilize their teams' two challenges (teams retain challenges if they correctly use them, but only the batter, the catcher, and the pitcher can request a challenge).

It all becomes an interesting question in terms of strategies. A catcher when he's batting? Does he want to risk one of his team's challenges as a batter that he might want for his pitcher? A mediocre hitter in a low-stakes situation? Does he want to risk one of his team's challenges? What about a really good hitter in a low-stakes situation? Lots here for teams to consider, and since it's up to the players to decide on a challenge (not managers or coaches), teams will have to determine their approaches such that players can make decisions without assistance.

1 comments
This obscures the fact that umpires are worse than 93% when the pitch is close to the boundary of being a ball or a strike (shadow zone). Obvious balls and obvious strikes are obvious, but umpire accuracy when it is close is only 81%, and their accuracy was even worse 15 years ago.

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/strike-three-lets-check-in-on-um...

Right, but as that article notes, the numbers show it's an average of 4.5 pitches per team in the shadow zone in each game. And those pitches are not clear-cut instances where players will be confident in challenging, more like 50/50. So what remains is how teams decide to let their players use this finite challenge resource.