Check Swing Appeal Still a Coin Flip?

[UofO Ducks]

I think the check swing appeal is much better this year. it seems to be about 80 to 90% accurate.

[Pared]

Quote: Originally Posted by snowmizer

I'm amused by the seeming prevailing belief that there is some objective standard to determine whether a checked swing call is "right" or not. There may be no more subjective (aka. random) call in the sport. If the base umpire feels that it was an attempt to strike at the ball, it's a strike. Another umpire, or the same umpire later in the game, could easily call the identical motion differently. It's like trying to define obscenity.

Exactly. This variance NEEDS to be in the game because that's how it is in the sport.

To expect there to be a finite, 1:1 definition of a check swing being a a strike or not undermines the sport of baseball.

[nemesis04]

I thought last years implementation of the different levels of check swings really cleaned this area of the game up. In all honesty you know when you went too far, you may not like it but you know!

[KiDLiQuiD]

That's odd. I've noticed a tremendous improvement over last year.

[nomo17k]

I cannot be for sure of course, but I feel the decision is based on all three factors, i.e., how far you actually went, ratings, and randomness. Early in my RTTS career I was striking out on most of my check swing appeals, but as I have racked up good ratings I get called out less and less. Still I see quite a huge randomness factor as well. So my guess is it may not be entirely a coin toss, but random factor is very huge, which is actually a realistic design as people here say. There might be too much of random factor, though.

[Raskal]

Also, as far as I know last year the rating that helped check swing was Contact, but this year it has been moved to Discipline. I like this a lot, as discipline felt useless if you controlled the at-bat (I'm sure it had an effect when simming though).

[Maxflier]

I'll be turning them off again this year if they weren't improved. And the "human element" is still there because it is still up to the home plate umpire to call it if I went around.