Patrick Semansky/Associated Press
Recently, MLB and the players union considered a plan to bring baseball back as early as May amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
The plan—which reportedly included such tweaks as playing all games in Arizona, having players sit six feet apart in the empty stands instead of the dugout and banning mound visits—is questionable at best.
But it features at least one alteration MLB should permanently embrace when games eventually resume: the robot umpire. Or, more accurately, the automated strike zone.
In 2019, the independent Atlantic League implemented TrackMan technology, which analyzes pitches via a three-dimensional radar mounted above home plate and feeds ball and strike calls to a flesh-and-blood ump via an earpiece.