Robots are coming to take all our jobs, or so we’re told, but the threat is getting a little more real for MLB umpires.
Baseball announced a three-year agreement with the independent Atlantic League to become testing grounds for potential rule changes. One of them, as first reported by the fine folks at Baseball America, is to use robot umpires to call balls and strikes.
The league will use Trackman technology to make those calls, and MLB and its 30 teams will have access to the data.
But questions about the concept Friday at Texas Rangers spring training brought to light the old debate between preserving the human element of the game and using available technology to get calls right.