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Baseball Freak Echoes is a blog that captures the resonance between numbers and stories.
Beyond scores and stats, it explores the lingering questions and emotions left after the game.
From NPB to MLB, we echo the voices of baseball that extend beyond the diamond.
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2025/11/04
[Column] 🥎前編:「魔境」NPBのストライクゾーンに、AIがやってくる ?! 🥎 Part 1: The AI Invasion of NPB's Strike Zone (The Uncharted Territory)
🥎 Part 1: The AI Invasion of NPB's Strike Zone (The Uncharted Territory)
—The Invisible Box and the All-Too-Visible Future—
Watching an MLB broadcast, a rectangular box outlining the strike zone is displayed as if it were a video game screen. The presence of this "visible box" allows fans to instantaneously judge whether the umpire's call was correct.
In contrast, this box rarely appears on NPB broadcasts. Within this "invisible box," the umpire's discretion often dictates the flow of the game, and players compete while reading that unspoken "atmosphere."
This difference is not merely a matter of broadcasting style. It reflects a cultural divergence in the approach to baseball as a sport. While MLB prioritizes "transparency," NPB has traditionally relied on "human sensibility."
However, MLB is now seriously pursuing the introduction of ABS (Automated Ball-Strike System), colloquially known as the "robot umpire."
In practice, ABS uses high-performance cameras and radar installed in the stadium to track the pitch trajectory in millimeters relative to a **three-dimensional virtual strike zone** determined by the batter's height. The AI instantaneously judges whether the pitch touched this "box," and the information is relayed to the umpire's earpiece. This "digitized, box-shaped zone" is the most significant point of conflict with the "humanistic zone" that has long operated in the NPB.
This technology, which could be fully adopted as early as 2026, begs the question: What kind of wave will it send through the NPB's so-called "Makyō" (uncharted territory) strike zone?
The NPB zone is wide. In particular, the judgment of pitch height is susceptible to the umpire's "human interpretation." Considerations like avoiding dangerous high pitches and subtle adjustments based on the batter's stance have made the zone ambiguous, but this ambiguity has also created room for NPB-style strategic maneuvering.
The catcher's framing skills and the pitcher's art of making a "borderline pitch" look like a strike—these are the craftsmanship and beauty inherent in NPB baseball.
But what if AI eliminates that very ambiguity? At that moment, baseball might become a world purely governed by "technology."
MLB has chosen not to fully automate every pitch call (the "full automated" system), but rather a "challenge system," where the AI's ruling is used only when a player or manager challenges the human umpire's call. This approach is filled with a delicate sense of balance, aiming to reduce errors while retaining the "human element" of baseball.
If NPB were to introduce AI, the zone that has been operated by "human discretion" for so long would transform into the rulebook's "box-shaped zone."
The consequences for NPB baseball would be profound:
Catcher framing would lose its meaning, and pitchers would be required to master a technique that responds to the zone's precision, not the umpire's tendencies. The psychological battle with the umpire would vanish, replaced by a battle against data.
The wave of AI is a black ship shaking the "human element" of the NPB. The choice of how to handle the "invisible box"—that decision will determine the future of baseball.
And another question arises: To what extent is an umpire's "miscall" permissible? If that one pitch can change the momentum of the game, affect a player's career, and influence the umpire's own evaluation—.
Next, Baseball Freak will delve into the "Cost of the Miscall."
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