One of the most important parts of baseball for years has been the umpires.
Umpires in baseball determine whether pitches are balls or strikes and have been a staple of the game for decades. While important to the game of baseball, umpires are still humans and have made many game-changing mistakes.
This has led to many people pushing for the use of robotic umpires that would call every pitch accurately.
Changing to robotic umpires would mean baseball as we know it, with an umpire behind the plate, would no longer be the same, although the robotic umpires would get every call right.
There have been mixed feelings about robotic umpires across the MLB community, and many have been torn about the idea.
“I think that robotic umpires getting one-hundred percent of calls right would totally change the game of baseball, having human umpires who make some mistakes that change games adds a different element to the game in my opinion,” sophomore Justin Whitehead said.
The MLB has made many major changes in the past couple years such as the pitch clock, which restricts how long a pitcher has before they pitch the ball.
This helped significantly reduce the length of baseball games this year, which has been a complaint of baseball fans across the world for years.
Changing to robotic umpires however, would be the biggest change to the game in recent memory.
“I think that human umpires add an aspect to the game that you can’t replace,” sophomore Michael Oreb said.
“I can’t imagine baseball without human umpires, I personally think that it should stay the way that it is right now.”
Although it sounds like an enormous risk to switch to robotic umpires, the MLB has been testing robotic umpires in the minor leagues since 2019.
The minor league robotic umpires have been better than the major league human umpires with a correct call rate of 93% compared to the human umpires who had a correct call rate of about 92.50% this year.
As of right now, robotic umpires most likely haven’t shown enough to make the drastic change from human umpires.
Whether or not the MLB will eventually add robot umpires remains to be seen, but there will definitely be pros and cons.
“I think that human umpires are a traditional part of the game of baseball, however, the introduction of robot umpires would help with more accurate calls once robotic umps are perfected,” sophomore Nicholas Yanney said.
Although robotic umpires will not be in the major leagues this year, the MLB will begin to test robotic umpires in their highest level of the minor leagues.
Robotic umpires could begin in the MLB a couple years down the line once they are perfected.