Dodgers Team News

Dodgers: Justin Turner Prefers Umpires Over the Electronic Strike Zone

The Dodgers have featured Ross Stripling on their Instagram live feed every week in a segment called Live from Sunset Strip. This week, Justin Turner joined Ross Stripling to talk like after baseball, clutch hitting, and plenty of other baseball related things. 

One of the topics of conversations brought up by Dodgers fans in the chat was an electronic strike zone. The elimination of the human aspect of balls and strikes has been talked about for a while now, and the COVID-19 pandemic has made it a much closer reality than we all thought. Stripling brings up a good point about how it would help hitters. 



I think it’ll benefit hitters more than pitchers because I think you’ll know where the strike zone is every game…if the hitter knows exactly where the strike zone is every game, he’s really gonna master that zone. And I feel like if anything it benefits you guys a little bit more but I’m not necessarily opposed to it. 

It makes sense, given the unpredictable nature of umpires in today’s game, But the Dodgers infielder had a surprising take on the use of electronic strike zones. 

It’s tough, there are a lot of kinks to it. How are you going to have an electronic strike zone for- and I don’t know if I’m allowed to say this name on here- Jose Altuve and Aaron Judge, ya know? Like, how are you going to change the strike zone for those guys? I trust the umpires, I know they make mistakes…but I respect the crap out of those guys and everything they do. I know they’re trying, and they’re not trying to mess up. I would love to stay with our umpires…

On one hand, it’s a little bit surprising that Turner would prefer the human element of balls and strikes. After all, he has one of the most inconsistent strike zones in all of baseball, seemingly changing every night. But there might just be a little bit of a baseball purist left in the Dodgers’ third baseman, who would like to see some of the game he knows to stay the same. 

MLB News: LeBron James’ Company to Produce Series on Astros Cheating Scandal

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button