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Problem is, umpires stopped calling the rule-book strike zone decades ago.
Rarely were pitches above the belt called strikes, giving pitchers an increasingly smaller vertical target. At the same time, the strike zone began to creep east and west as pitchers tried to work off the plate to compensate. As a result, walks increased, run totals increased, earned run averages increased and, to the chagrin of all involved, time of games increased. An attempt in 1999 to enforce the rule-book strike zone failed, but baseball officials finally decided enough was enough. With all umpires working under the Major League Baseball umbrella after their disastrous resignation scheme backfired, Alderson decided the time had come to return uniformity to calling balls and strikes.