ARLINGTON, Texas -- Bryce Harper has an idea. He wants balls and strikes calls to be as accurate as possible.
The Phillies superstar, doing press ahead of Tuesday's All-Star Game in Texas, acknowledged that a challenge system for balls and strikes -- which uses ABS and has reached Triple-A this season -- could work "if it's done the right way." But he has a different idea too.
"I enjoy the human aspect of the game, I do, it just has to be done the right way and I don't know what that would be," Harper said Monday.
"But the one thing I think, if you're a really good umpire, I think you should get paid more and that you should umpire more than one game per week behind the plate. Even if we don't have the challenge system, if the better umpires are behind the plate all the time, I think it's better for baseball."
Umpires are graded by the league office, a division headed up by Joe Torre in his role as special assistant to the commissioner. Better grades mean more postseason assignments, obviously, but this is an interesting idea. If they were going to put the best balls/strikes callers behind the plate more often, that would invariably mean some of the lesser umpires -- at least in terms of strike zone accuracy -- would be used behind the plate sparingly or even not at all.
As for the graded pay system, that's also interesting. Would it incentivize the lesser balls/strikes callers to improve their craft even more than simply shaming them for missing calls? I'm not sure. Let's be honest, umpires always want to get things right anyway. You aren't gonna find an ump who is awful at calling the strike zone who doesn't care and doesn't want to be better.
Still, it's an interesting idea.
When Harper was ejected in the first inning of a game in May for arguing balls and strikes, he offered up the following after the game: "I wasn't trying to get thrown out. Was just having a conversation. There are guys who are professionals in this league. They understand it. I guess [home plate umpire Brian Walsh] didn't understand it."
Under Harper's proposed system, it's very likely Walsh wouldn't have been behind the plate for game, given that he's relatively new and hasn't scored out well behind the plate. Would that fix everything? Maybe not. But incentivizing people to be better at their jobs never hurts.
