So, what’s this I hear that next year each manager will have three challenges per game? Two before inning six and one for the last three innings? A few questions:
What types of plays can be challenged? Fair/foul? Safe/out? Ball/strike?
What will happen to the old “phantom tag” and “the throw beat him” plays where today even if the tag is a little high or the second baseman is in the area on a double play, or a slap tag hits the ground, these have been historically “out” calls. Will they now be “safe” calls on replay?
If a manager is out of challenges can he still leave the dugout to argue? What if he just wants to argue without using a challenge?
What about extra innings? Extra challenges or is it a “booth review”? Will the booth review every single close play making extra inning games last 8 hours?
I’m sure I’ll have a few more, but any ideas about how the system will work?
Managers get one challenge from innings 1-6 and two challenges for the remainder of the game, however long it lasts.
If a challenge is upheld the managers keeps the challenge; if it is rejected, the challenge is lost.
The challenge from innings 1-6 doesn’t carry over. You start the 7th innings with 2 challenges, no more or less.
Home run reviews remain as is and are outside of the new system.
Reviewable plays include safe/out and fair/foul, but not balls and strikes. ther non-reviewable calls include whether or not a player was hit by a pitch (I don’t get this either) and they’re still working out some of the bugs, but the vast majority of calls are reviewable.
Managers are forbidden from arguing a reviewable call. (I love this.) They can in some circumstances go to the crew chief and ask the umpires to help each other, or ask rule questions, but outright arguing of a reviewable call is an ejection offense, just as arguing balls and strikes is now.
This will be interesting to see how it works. Hve they actually given it the go ahead for not season, or is it going to be tried out first in pre-season?
I don’t think challenging balls and strikes would make sense. Those are judgement calls, and if you can have the technology to see where a pitch is relative to the hitter and the plate, why hae an umpire at all?
I think the fandom tag at second on a double play will be interesting. Assuming they allow that play to be challenged, I think that will be overturned for the first month, until either players start staying in the play to get nailed by the runner, or they will stop the reviewing of phantom tags and still call them out.
Personally, I hate the phantom rule. I played shortstop in high school and college, and I never cheated on that play. There is really no need for it. Maybe at the major league level, guys are running faster, and staying on the bag can be hazardous, but I just don’t see it. To me, if you execute the play correctly and you get your foot on then off the bag on a force play, and throw on to first, you shouldn’t have a problem. If you are worried about a runner bearing down on you, the easy thing to do to train players to slide and get their heads out of the way and slow down is to take the ball from the pitcher or second baseman, and throw onto first by throwing AT the runner coming at you. You may hit one of them, but the other players will get the message and get out of the way…
I don’t understand why I couldn’t challenge a hit batsman.m that seems pretty straight forward.
I have a feeling the phantom plays will be history. They are usually pretty obvious on replay, there’s no way MLB will get away with allowing an obviously wrong call stand on replay. There will also be no ‘unwritten’ rule that managers won’t try to challenge phantom calls. They’re going to give up a man in scoring position in a tight game to support some nonsense rule?
I also am in love with the idea that managers are forbidden from arguing reviewable calls. I have no interest in watching the manager complain, Earl Weaver hasn’t managed for a while now. Of course, it’s usually most entertaining after they get ejected anyway, so get the ejection out of the way early.
They do have that technology. It’s called Pitch F/X.
Why have an umpire at all? Why, that’s a really good question.
Phantom tags are actually very rare. If you watch ten MLB games there is an excellent chance you’ll see no phantom tags at all. People make a big deal about it but it’s extraordinarily unusual; MLB infielders often move so fast you think it’s a phantom tag, but on replay you’ll see they do touch the base.
I don’t see how adding replays but eliminating arguments makes the game longer.
The estimate is that a replay will take about a minute and change. An argument can take a lot longer than that. Replays also have the benefit of making the calls more accurate.
If shortening game time was an objective, there are plenty of ways to do that more effectively than allowing bad calls to go unchallenged (or unargued).
What are some reasonable ways baseball rules could be changed to shorten games? It seems to me the late inning parade of pitchers is the biggest culprit, but the ability to substitute pitchers is too fundamental.
I’m OK with the length now, but I don’t want it slowed more by instant replay. And even though I can deal with the length now, I think baseball’s popularity overall is hurt by the pace.
And yet attendance is as good as it’s ever been. People have been complaining about the pace for 60 years. And nobody complains that football games are too long, though in fact they’re longer than baseball games and have very few minutes of actual play.
If you did want to speed it up, you have four options, really:
Do anything that benefits the pitchers. Fewer baserunners, shorter games.
Reduce the length of TV commercial breaks.
Create and enforce a rule that batters can’t keep stepping out of the batter’s box for no good reason.
Reduce pitching changes (though some means other that directly helping pitchers out.)
The best option, to my mind, is 3. The habit of batters to take interminable pauses between pitches was not common 30-40 years ago and could be done away with.
Yep. Batters stepping out are a prime example of one player’s or team’s interest of the moment (in this case, disrupting the pitcher’s rhythm and control of pace) being directly, unambiguously contrary to overall fan interest. Nobody goes to the yard to watch batters stepping out over and over.
Conversely, while the occasional pitchers’ duel or no-hitter is fun, any revision which had the effect of substantially reducing baserunners across the board would make for a worse game (indeed, I think we could stand to see more baserunners). People do go to the yard to see running, and runs, and the tension of runners-on, and the drama of put-outs made or attempted on the paths.
Football is a different beast. Its a made for TV product, and the vast majority watch it on TV. people that go to the games are there to tailgate and drink, which makes it an all day-event for many. I can’t stand going to watch a football game live, its one of the most boring things a human can do. But on TV, its pretty fun to watch.
Baseball is just the opposite. It’s already unwatchable on TV. The only games I can stand are playoff games…
Still, replay is a must. You can’t show a replay over and over at home and in the stadium on the jumbotron and not change a play on an obviously blown call.
Baseball umpires are assholes anyway. With replay, they will lose some of their power and arrogance.
I see “replay creep” coming into play here like in the NFL. Just wait for the first game that in the bottom of the 14th inning a winning run scores on an obviously terrible call and the manager is out of challenges. An exception will be first made for extra innings and then for all scoring plays. Pretty soon every ground ball will be reviewed.
I also see stalling happening. Say it’s a bang-bang play at first base and the runner is called safe. When will the time for challenging end? The next pitch? What’s to stop 38 consecutive pick-off throws to first (or adjusting his glove, complaining about the rosin bag, doing gardening on the mound, etc.) while the manager hires forensic experts to analyze the replay before wasting a challenge?
Or say a pick off throw ends the challenge period. If the runner at first knows he was out, what’s to stop him from taking off for second under the guise that he will be called out anyways on review and might as well try for a bad throw? What if there was also a running at third who might score in the run down?
Baseball doesn’t have time outs and a clock, and these are just a couple of possible unintended consequence. There are probably a thousand more.
I think you are analyzing this way too much. There will have to be a limit on when a play can be reviewed. But I don’t see every play being analyzed. Maybe I’m wrong, but I can see home runs and plays at the plate being reviewed, but if they are going to continue to let phantom outs at second on the double play, are managers going to waste their replay on a close play at first? Even if he does, he only gets so many.
There are still going to be blown calls and games that are lost because of them. As you mention, a manager uses his challenge in the 10th inning, and the umps blow a call in the 14th. Oh well. Welcome to the rules. At least we are permitting some of the mistakes to be corrected. And the hope is, a manager won’t waste his challenge on a bad call at first if he knows he might need that challenge later. Its a gamble, but it is his choice ultimately, and he will have to live and die with it. I’m not challenging something petty unless it leads to a run or a runner in scoring position.
How many games even require one challenge? Not that many. Maybe umpires will become guns by and start blowing close calls. Maybe this will turn into a mess. You certainly lay the groundwork for some real problems. I just think it may be too early to pronounce the system as bad until we get to see it in practice.
I don’t understand the timing of the challenges. Isn’t a run (or a missed tag, or a hit batter) worth as much in the 2nd inning as it is in the 8th? Or are they going to change it so that runs in innings 6+ are worth twice as much as runs earned in 1-5? Because that’s the only way this retarded rule makes sense.
I agree. Managers should start every game with the expectation of husbanding their resources to go (at least) nine; if challenges are to be a managerial resource, they should start the first with all they are allowed. I could maybe see adding one at the moment a game goes to extras, but there’s no logic at all to changing it up earlier than that.
My understanding is that some parks have a policy against in-house replays of bad calls–seen to be bad on TV replays–to avoid riling crowds against umpires. But they do show replays otherwise. So if a close call goes against the home team, and is then not shown, you might suspect a bad one!