interesting subject matter, especially given all the controversy between the umpires and mlb over the last year or so. this latest position by the commish's office, coupled with the union busting and putting the umps under the auspices of mlb, seem to me to be part of a deliberate strategy by the owners to influence the umps into making changes to the game to make it more marketable and profitable. shorting the lenght of games fits right in there.
to this end, i have been tracking umpire stats this year anf there appear to be several long-time umps who in years past have been neutral or "over" umps that have now become "under" umps, greatly raising their so/walks ratio and lowering runs/game averages in comparison to years past. wonder how much of that is adjusting for the "new" strike zone and how much is no longer wanting to rock the boat with the owners and the commish's office (who apparently are one and the same these days). these guys were under a lot of stress when they were all canned and many suffered extreme finacial hardship. wonder if there is a mentality now prevailing of not wanting to rock th boat any more?
gsp, with regards to the strike zone adjustments this year, i believe that mlb's intention was to do nothing other than increase the stike zone in order to speed up play. while there was talk when the stike zone height was increased to also encourage the umps to stop calling the phantom corners, imo in light of this new info on mlb's continued focus on game length, that was just a smoke screen to disguise their real agenda.
