This has been a controversial topic as of late. Some people feel very strongly about it, while others don’t care. In this article, I am going to break down the question “should we use robot umps?”.
Just to clear up on what a robot ump is, a robot ump is an ump that gets every single call right. It would replace regular umps, and there would be no need for video review.
Personally, I think that there are some good and bad umps. Angel Hernandez is bad. Joe West is bad. The bad umps get calls wrong, while the good umps get them right. There’s a big difference between a good and a bad ump that even someone who was not familiar to the game could tell.
There are much more good umps than there are bad umps, and I think that in general most umps get calls right. Because of this, I don’t think that there’s any reason to force 100 people to lose their jobs. Plus, the human element is what makes baseball fun! Without humans playing and umping the game, fans would lose interest easily.
So I think that we shouldn’t implement robo-umps.