Consider this scenario:

You are MLB and you want to standardize the strike zone, which for more than a 100 years has varied from era to era and from umpire to umpire (it has also changed depending on the score, the length of a particular game or even who is batting). You deploy a new technology that precisely measures umpires’ strike zone accuracy. You use it to grade umps, which incentivizes them to conform; it takes a few seasons, but eventually it starts to work.

The strike zone that you programmed into the video technology is the one in the rulebook — it is the width of home plate and it extends from the bottom of the batter’s knees to the midpoint between the top of the shoulders and the top of the uniform pants.

The problem is that, as every fan over 20 knows, the strike zone as called in MLB games had evolved a considerable distance from one(s) in the rulebook. It was a few inches wider than the plate and several inches shorter. Umpires in the real world were reluctant to call strikes much above the batter’s belly button — especially if they were high or hanging breaking pitches.

And something else — also obvious — was happening. A few years ago, batters started uppercutting more (launch angle!) and pitchers responded by throwing more high pitches, because high pitches are harder to make contact with if you are uppercutting.

These trends are not the only factors in today’s decline in batting, but their combined effect has been more strikeouts and less offensive action.

My question is: did MLB mean to do this?

If they didn’t, then the solution is obvious: simply enforce the real strike zone as it had evolved until, say ten years ago, instead of the literal rulebook strike zone. Then we won’t need to move the mound, change the baseball or deploy other new rules to help the batters.