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April 1

Would anyone be helped if standing up didn't enlarge MLB strike zones?

Which would allow more scoring or longer home runs?

A: Robo umps that follow the current rulebook to the millimeter

B: The same except zone is the same dimensions as A regardless of crouching or standing up and right-down-the-middle is halfway between the same top and bottom as A

How much would B help? Only a little? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 16:54, 1 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That calls for speculation. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:37, 1 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Biomechanically someone should know if being able to stand however you like yet still get the average rulebook zone for 2022 players your height would help say power hitters. Versus getting the rulebook zone that shrinks if you bat like this. I've always wondered if they could hit any better if Statcast ordered the umpire to say ball or strike so he could call a stance-agnostic zone with 7 heights involved instead of 4. Maybe they could massage umpire's skin less than 0.001 seconds after it touches zone. For pace of play. (left scalp or shoulder or ear canal speaker instead of foot for reaction time, right side for ball) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:08, 2 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I know, the strike zone will continue to be vertically unique for every batter based on when he assumes his normal batting stance. Given that, standing up as your normal stance creates a taller strike zone than a crouching stance does. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:57, 2 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't want to display the image (would not be justified by the fair-use rationale), but this seems relevant. Veeck's gag would not have worked with a one-size-fits-all strike zone. Deor (talk) 11:58, 3 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It would if the zone was an extrapolated best-fit math curve for the plot of ~162x30x150+ (~729,000+ (1+ year)) regular season points with latitudes equal to their rulebook zone height and longitudes equal to the standing height of the batter on that pitch. Only a whole number of regular seasons where there was still an incentive to balance comfort and zone smallness but the game has already reached modern form (presumably not before NL got DH cause being forced to hit with negative batter WAR has a different optimal strategy than DHing. Don't know if adding the last pre-universal DH year for more years would even materially change the curve) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 13:35, 3 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]