The early MLB season is often ripe for obscure storylines brought on by tiny nuances to the game. In a season with 162 games, hundreds of pitches, and plenty of tedium, the smallest things wind up really mattering. Some years, it's foreign substances applied to baseballs for extra grip. This year has already brought on the bat shape discussion.
Now? A change of 1.25 inches is completely unsettling pitchers and catchers.
The Athletic's Jayson Stark, Ken Rosenthal and Eno Sarris released a reported piece on Thursday night detailing MLB's strike zone and how it appears to be being called differently this year than in prior seasons. Notably, the league has not given a directive to umpires to call smaller strike zones, but it did agree on a new collective bargaining agreement with umpires that changed how home plate umpires' balls and strikes are graded. Previously, the CBA gave umpires a two-inch grace zone on all four sides of the zone. This season, that grace zone was reduced to 0.75 inches, a 62.5% reduction.
Pitchers and catchers, as well as managers, expressed frustration over the perceived strike zone shrinkage in the aftermath of the adjustment in The Athletic's article. Travis d'Arnaud, catcher for the Los Angeles Angels, said that, "Every [umpire] across the league [has shrunk their zone].”
To reiterate: the strike zone remains unchanged, but the league's grading system appears to have had behavioral impacts with how picky umpires are with balls and strikes. It's a classic case of, "measure what matters."
The MLB says it discussed the changes with managers at the December winter meetings, but several of the managers The Athletic spoke to said they had no recollection of such a change, despite at least one, Padres manager Mike Shildt, labeling it something that would have been on his radar to make sure players and coaches knew of the change.
The report shared that a competition committee meeting on Friday is expected to touch on the impacts of the change.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as MLB Players, Managers Frustrated Over Recent Change to How Strike Zones Are Called.