SAN FRANCISCO — Justin Verlander understands the strike zone as well as any pitcher in the game, possessing a photographic memory forged by 20 seasons at baseball’s highest level. He noticed something peculiar in recent weeks. His teammates did as well.
The strike zone — or rather, the buffer zone — is smaller. And no one told him or his teammates about the change.
According to a report by The Athletic, Major League Baseball changed how it grades home-plate umpires which, in turn, has resulted in a tighter strike zone.
Umpires previously received two inches of leeway on calls outside the zone on all sides of the plate when they were graded. Now, the “buffer zone,” which refers to the area just around the zone, has shrunk from two inches to three-quarters of an inch on all sides — inside and outside the strike zone. The result has been fewer pitches on the edge of the zone being called strikes.
It’s a change has caught several Giants players by complete surprise, creating both confusion and frustration.
“This just exacerbates the problem between MLB and players, too,” Verlander told this news organization. “There’s a lack of trust and a lack of communication. Rob Manfred runs around every spring training saying, ‘It’s not us. We’re open. We want to talk. We want to have a great relationship with you guys.’ Then, they do everything behind closed doors and don’t include us in anything — in the game that we play and make our livelihood doing.”
While the buffer zone is smaller, the rulebook strike zone remains the same. There are other factors that play into the zone feeling smaller — younger umpires, for example — but the reduced buffer zone has caught players off guard.
The league claimed, per the report, that it communicated the upcoming change to all 30 managers, all 30 front offices and the players’ union, then sent a memorandum to every team once the league and the umpires completed their agreement. But when this news organization asked multiple Giants, not a single person said they were made aware.
Earlier this season, catcher Sam Huff recalled asking fellow catcher Patrick Bailey if he felt the strike zone was smaller. Bailey and Huff both agreed that, yes, the zone felt smaller compared to previous years. Robbie Ray, the second-most experienced pitcher on the Giants behind Verlander, agreed that the zone feels smaller as well.
“We saw that story,” said Verlander, who has a 2.76 ERA over his last five starts. “The league said they notified everybody, and everybody said, ‘We never heard anything.’ They talked to all the people that were supposed to be notified, and none of them had heard anything. So, somebody’s lying.”
A lack of transparency between the players and the league isn’t uncommon. Verlander pointed to the league’s failure, for example, to communicate that it was using different baseballs in different years. But transparency is far from the only point of contention.
The reduced buffer zone hasn’t had a noticeable result on the run environment. In 2024, the league-wide batting average was .243 with an 8.2% walk rate and 22.6% strikeout rate. This season, the numbers are almost exactly similar: .243 batting average, 8.8% walk rate, 22.0% strikeout rate. Umpire accuracy this season is also the highest its ever been in the Statcast era.
Still, Verlander looked at the large-scale ramifications.
To Verlander, the art of starting pitching is already on the decline. Starters are throwing fewer innings, incentivized to max out instead of learning how to pitch deep into games. In Verlander’s opinion, the reduced buffer zone will only exacerbate the problem, which Verlander described as a “band-aid on a bullet wound.” That is, a smaller buffer zone will advantage pitchers with “bigger stuff” who can throw their pitches in the zone and disadvantage pitchers who paint corners.
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“The other way around is you say, ‘OK, [expletive] it. We’ll take the guy that throws 101 with a good breaking ball and have the catcher set up right down the middle and throw as hard as you can and go two times through the lineup and then we’re on to the next guy that throws 100 out of the bullpen.’ That, to me, is not the game of baseball that I know and love, and I don’t think that’s the game the fans want.”
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