Batter size sequencing

[igor67]

Reviewing the always outstanding link report this morning and Jim mentioned the size difference between a couple of the prospects. And it got me to wondering if there is potentially a notable impact on the pitcher if you do actually have a couple of players who are actually extremely different in size? Rickey of course famously tried to manipulate the size of his zone to draw more walks, but with the increasingly more uniform strikezone calls by umpires I wonder if this is something exploitable on the margins. And if so is it hard to go from the small player to the larger player or vice versa?

[Underachiever]

Seems as if you'd make it easier on one guy, and harder on the other. For example, a 6'5 guy with a bigger zone could cause the shorter guy to get hosed on high strikes. Tall guy could lose out on low strikes. Doesn't seem like a workable consideration to me. Umpires just need not to suck.

[igor67]

I was thinking about more from the automated end, suddenly the pitcher is maybe pitching the next guy in a tighter area than normal, or missing to the smaller player

[WV Brew]

The Brewers threw about 3 fastballs down the middle belt high to Aaron Judge only to get a ball call on each one.  Meanwhile, Frelick was getting called strikes on balls at his shoulders in the same series.  It sucks to be a small market team.

[MrTPlush]

In a vacuum, Umpires are incredibly accurate at calling balls/strikes.

I doubt there is any correlation to call accuracy based on a batters size compared to the next one. 
 

 

[Samurai Bucky]

15 minutes ago, MrTPlush said:

In a vacuum, Umpires are incredibly accurate at calling balls/strikes.

I doubt there is any correlation to call accuracy based on a batters size compared to the next one. 
 

Eddie Gaedel might have disagreed... 😉

I'm not sure about MLB umpires, but a prominent high school umpire had told me the umpires are supposed to set up their eyes with the top of the zone.  I'm not sure that happens.