It will interesting to see if averages for the next hitter who isn’t a pitcher after an intentional walk go up or down or neither. Ok, will it make a difference in the psychology of hitting if he doesn’t have to stand there as long thinking about how they are giving the guy in front of him a pass to get to him?
“Give me 2 seasons where the umps only call the zone that’s in the books and we’ll see if maybe we need to tweak it for more hitting.”
I wish we could do that. But the reality would be if it was just imposed next season 2 hour long 13 inning 1-0 games would be the norm. Relief pitching plus the legit high strike would make games short and ugly. It would take years for players to come up adjusted to it, and current players would take longer maybe. And teams are going to play their contracted players in the meantime.
I think besides the ump union, maybe the biggest reason they resist the legit electronic strike zone is it would kill offense for a long while and maybe permanent. The last time they had a more legit strike zone called by umps the relief pitchers weren’t used like they would be now.
Freegards
I don’t think actually calling the strike zone as written would damage the offense. For one thing everybody would actually know where the zone is, so batters would know better which pitches to watch and which to swing at. For another, it’s not like the umps’ zones are bigger, they’re just different, some call them a little more to one side or the other, some shrink the vertical, some grow it. It’s all pretty random. Consistency would help both sides, then the teams wouldn’t spend the first 3 innings figuring out this guys zone. Or studying tape on them, the league should have panicked when Schilling said he studied ump tapes to get a handle on their zone.