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Questec Interview (December 18, 2003)

Posted 11:01 a.m., December 21, 2003 (#6) - Stu
The strike zone is defined as : "The STRIKE ZONEis that area over home plate the upper limit of which is a horizontal line at the midpoint between the top of the shoulders and the top of the uniform pants, and the lower level is a line at the hollow beneath the knee cap. The Strike Zone shall be determined from the batter's stance as the batter is prepared to swing at a pitched ball. (For diagram of STRIKE ZONE see page 23.) "

The Questec guys says: "If you were to see the operator in action, you would realize what a non-issue this is. The operator sets the top line at the top of the belt buckle. This eliminates any eye-balling he/she would have to do in order to set the top of the strike zone. The system then lifts the top of the zone to set it at 2.5 ball widths. "

Shouldn't the upper end of the strike zone vary depending on the height of the players or the stance? Rickey's crouch would have no effect on the strike zome if the upper limit is set a 2.5 ball widths without regard to where the shoulders are. What am I missing?

As to the ten adjustments for the ten called pitches, Questec emphasis that the pitches are only called pitches. He says this in two different ways ("Finally, to clarify one of your points, a batter's strike zone is set and adjusted for every called pitch he sees. If he has three at-bats in a game and saw a total of 10 called pitches, we will adjust the strike zone 10 times"). This seems very clear that it is only set for every called pitch. Is the guy jusy sloppy? If not, why is set after the pitch?

Finally, has anyone seen Questec track a pitch? Some of the tracking devices on TV are two dimensional. Obviously Questec has to be three dimensional. How does the viewing (if that is the right word) or grading done? Is the full tracking shown? Does it simply give a "in/out" determination? What is the criteria for determining if a pitch is in or out of the strike zone? I doubt a person looks at each pitch individually because that would bring in the human element to the grading system, but how is a strike/ball determined? Can anyone help me out here?

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