so what do we think about ***INSTANT REPLAY***???

is this either:
a) a sensible solution and long past due, in a limited capacity
or
b) the devils' work and the beginning of a slippery slope that leads directly to the complete electronic-ization of baseball all players being replaced by athletebots

how about we just replace the umps w/ umpbots?

i'm fine with it, personally. home runs and even plays at the plate seem fair to me.

xpost - i'll get back to you about the umpbots

Bring on the umpbots and a permanent banishment of the conditional/interpretive strike zone.

Human umpires reading digital wrist-affixed umpbot readouts would be acceptable -- might as well have the illusion of the "spontaneity" lost by imperfect/biased umpiring crews, just to appease some people.

Definitely pro for home runs and fair/foul calls. I know the thinking man's argument is for Questec-driven roboumps but I can't quite get down with that.

all who do not obey will be replaced by robofans.

The epic tilt between Rapid City and Oregon last night was a hoot, was it not?

-- destroy all human calls, Monday, August 18, 2048 3:36 PM (40 years from now) Bookmark Link

umps have issues:

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3543435

Umpires say they're unhappy that replay equipment is being installed away from the field in nearly all major league ballparks and say MLB wants to limit the number of umpires allowed to review replay monitors.

They also aren't pleased that MLB wants them to discuss the replays with umpire supervisors in New York before making a decision on whether to reverse a call. They claim MLB may not be able to provide replays for some rescheduled games.

these seem like issues worth protesting. why would the replay equipment have to be off the field? why should umps check with remote supervisors? seems silly

all nhl goal reviews are done centrally (in toronto).

if video is being used, why should it have to be done by the umpires on the scene? why put replay equipment everywhere when one place would be fine?

aren't nfl reviews done on the field, by the game's refs?

it just seems like giving up control of the game to some mysterious unseeable person in some other city is a bad step, or at least not the first step that MLB would want to take if they want to ingratiate instant replay to people who are opposed. also seems like it could potentially slow things down even more, especially if reviews need to be done in more than one simultaneous game at the same time (seems unlikely but could happen).

I want replays on all close calls. I'm in no hurry.

I am very against instant replay as a means of officiating the sport.
Baseball is a "judged sport" instrinsically.

I liked all the talk about what shenanigans the players will pull while they're hanging out on the bags while the umps try to work the remote control.

I'd like to see less video, more sensors. Take a tip from fencing. Put sensors along the top of every wall in fair ground and along every foul pole. The sensors could even trigger things.. confetti and fireworks?

an eject mechanism under the mound?

I am very against instant replay as a means of officiating the sport.
Baseball is a "judged sport" instrinsically.

it's a good idea, baseball is too fast-paced and razzle-dazzle oriented these days~

Is it a given that instant replay will slow down the game? Waiting for a call couldn't take much longer than an umpiring crew and one or two managers arguing. Just have the sausages or dots or Todd Jones at the ready for entertainment, or something.

im surprised at all the support for it here tbh... i dont like the idea. im with felicity; baseball is a judged sport, and these calls tend to even out in the end.

i guess to me its one of those "there are so many great baseball stories/conversations" about bad calls, phantom tags, foul/hr slipups, this ump sucks and lost us the game. i like that element of all sports conversation.

I like correct calls better. (but then, I've seen two Yankee world championships facilitated by blown calls)

Umps approve:

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3545338

So if instant replay is used for fair/foul and home run calls, then is there still a need for having six umps on the field during the playoffs? (this is a serious question, I think)

no.
only one all powerful robot will be required.

these calls tend to even out in the end.

over the span of years, yes. during the course of one critical game, no.

so...... get over it????

TOMORROW

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3554357

"I hope we get to throw a red hankie like NFL coaches when we want to challenge a call," Piniella said with a smile. "It would be great to finally be able to throw something out onto the field and not get ejected."

Joe Sheehan:

By rule, I have to express an opinion on this, so here goes: bring on the cameras. Replay usage on home-run calls only? Not even enough. I want it on the basepaths, on disputed catches, to call balls and strikes, and I want two cameras tracking Doug Eddings from the moment he leaves his hotel room in the morning. Baseball games should be decided by the players, not by low-paid middle-management functionaries of dubious competence and excessive self-worth.

With that said, the implementation here is terrible, with all of the umpires leaving the field to look at a camera. It smacks of the umpires wanting this to be a spectacle that garners attention and creates negative feedback. Create 15 New York-based jobs, have those men rotate through shifts at MLB Advanced Media's offices in Chelsea, and have the calls made from that location. Or better still, add a man to each umpiring crew who sits in the booth and makes the call when necessary. In the time it takes a manager to come out and argue, you can look at a dozen replays from a half-dozen angles and have the call made correctly.

It's a good thing that MLB is allowing technology to step in where human eyes fail. The next step is to recognize that human eyes fail almost completely at the job of making tenth-of-a-second delineations between when a ball hits a glove and a foot hits a bag, or the task of tracking a small object moving at 95 mph in three dimensions. The future of umpiring is now—-bring on the cameras.

!!!!!!

Baseball games should be decided by the players, not by low-paid middle-management functionaries of dubious competence and excessive self-worth.

Umps get nearly all the calls right, even the close ones, even the "tenth-of-a-second delineations between when a ball hits a glove and a foot hits a bag" calls. They're a LOT more competent, as a group, than officials in virtually every other major sport. And more importantly, decisions made by umps are usually not subjective, of the "do I call a foul here or not" variety. *Some* use of instant replay will be a good thing, and I'm a lot more partial to Bud's view on this than I am to Joe Sheehan and his proposal for five-hour games.

mods: can we ban joe sheehan and will carroll?

I think JS is talkin' bout an evolution

They're a LOT more competent, as a group, than officials in virtually every other major sport.

nah it's just an easier game to officiate than every other major sport.

bcz hoops refs don't call anything.

except for their bookies amirite

ha hhahaa

Last night, Tommy Hutton (Marlins broadcast) said instant replay will make games "five, six hours long."

Uh-huh.

no recollection of starting this thread.

it's a good idea, baseball is too fast-paced and razzle-dazzle oriented these days~

― cankles, Thursday, August 21, 2008 5:25 AM (1 year ago)

Posnanski:

You just can't have these missed calls and maintain your authenticity. You just can't. Not over time. And replay seems the most viable answer.* So if baseball has to give up some time and a bit of tradition to get the calls right, then I think sooner or later -- sooner -- they will have to do that.

*It may not be the only answer, though. I was talking to a baseball insider who says that baseball could fix a lot of these problems by rethinking how umpires do their job. He thinks umpires could work together better as a team (could the third base umpire have helped out on that Buster Posey stolen base), he thinks they could be positioned better, he thinks they could be trained better. I'm skeptical ... but I'm also for any answer that will get us the right calls much more often.

http://joeposnanski.blogspot.com/2010/10/bad-calls-in-baseball.html

I'm also for any answer that will get us the right calls much more often.

+1

Kahrl:

"Triple-round playoffs have all sorts of symptoms, but mostly they're a matter of scale. With so many more playoff games played in the wild-card era, every season and season after season, hardly a game goes by when one Yankee or another isn't setting some sort of record for most post-season hits or runs or full counts. It's all well and good, an act of vengeance on the record books where the present gets to blot out the feats of Octobers past, against leagues with their own historical handicaps.

But one of the other unavoidable symptoms of the simple fact of there being more post-season baseball every October is that you end up raising the odds of more Denkinger moments. Worse yet, there ends up being that much more at stake when Eric Gregg puts too much sugar on his corn flakes. The imperfect necessity of umpiring has long depended on the same basic assumption that Churchill asserted that democracy rests upon—it may well be the worst form of officiating ballgames, but for the alternatives.

That was an easy enough assertion during Churchill's lifetime. Unfortunately for the men in black in the present, mistakes don't just get made, they get catalogued and dissected. Calls for replay, however haphazardly they get dismissed by Bud Selig as a minor dissatisfaction, get better and better support for their arguments every October, because that's when the magnification on the inevitable human errors gets ratcheted up from the irked and perhaps indulgent to the understandably outraged. Perhaps worse still—for umpires, obviously, but perhaps for the game as well—the same comfortable, ready faith in technological perfectability that delivers a dubious certitude about Gamecast and PITCHf/x data informs arguments that the time for technological solutions is now."

Player-ump relationships to be on table

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=5662238

i would love to see balls and strikes called by pitchF/X and contested close plays be reviewed by a 'video booth umpire', i don't think it would slow the games down significantly at all. i suspect it won't happen anytime soon though unless some other semi-high-profile league like NPB starts doing it and people have a successful example to point to.

is the fangraphs crowdsourcing tool not able to livepoll mlb extra innings subscribers? i've voted in a few NY1 pat kiernan polls via my remote control.

what happened to tennis when it went from line judge to lasers? was it a big deal?

reactions were mixed at first - the technology is only accurate to like, 3 millimeters, and a couple of guys (safin, federer) made a big deal out of that. it's been overwhelmingly successful though. it's an incredibly significant improvement especially when the line in question is opposite the chair umpire and s/he doesn't feel comfortable overruling the call. and it's not like the lines are called by robots only; players appeal a call with which they disagree. really the biggest controversies are (1) abusing the system to buy yourself extra time and (2) looking to your coach's box to ask if you should challenge a call. women are bigger offenders on both fronts

it takes like ten seconds too - added match time is negligible

yeah, why not test it out in spring training or interleague? or in japan?

(thanks kk btw)

not that Apple needs to spend any more on marketing this shit, but a pretty effective sneak promotion would be umpires whipping out iPads unannounced to quickly do an on the fly HR review this postseason instead of having to leave the field.

In looking at the replay, Buck Martinez says, “Kinsler might have been out.” Then, again, the broadcast continues without additional replays or discussion about a key scoring play.

The Common Man is left to wonder why TBS would ignore such an obvious storyline in its broadcast of Game 5. And The Common Man is also left to wonder what other camera angles were available to catch the action. These were two prominent scoring plays that would have loomed over the final result until the 9th inning, when Kinsler hit his two run homer. Indeed, going into the 9th inning, the score would have been 2-2, though it’s hard to imagine Joe Maddon managing any differently at that point. To have such a brief mention of the possibility that the calls were wrong, and no additional replay is incredibly strange.

To The Common Man, it suggests that perhaps TBS was asked not to make a big deal out of potentially missed calls. This would seem to jive with an earlier play in the San Francisco-Atlanta series, where Buster Posey was clearly out at 2B, but announcers refused to acknowledge it, in spite of the video evidence to the contrary (and Posey saying after the game "it's a good thing we don't have instant replay). If this is the case, it seems likely that the commissioner’s office has made conscious decision not just to ignore the loud cries for expanded instant replay, but to tacitly suppress them by denying these voices additional evidence with which to make their case....

http://www.platoonadvantage.com/2010/10/reluctant-conspiracy-theory.html

ya. not surprising.

@joe_sheehan
Is there anything more useless than outfield umpires? An appendix? Snooki?

Outfield umps in the playoffs are like triangle players who miss their one cue in the last minute of the symphony.

Baseball had hoped to increase video reviews this season to include trapped balls, fair-or-foul calls down the lines and fan interference all around the ballpark.

The additional replay required the approval of MLB and the unions representing the umpires and the players. MLB executive Rob Manfred told The Associated Press on Tuesday that all three sides weren't able to come up with an agreement.

http://mlb.sbnation.com/2012/3/13/2868865/expanded-instant-replay-baseball-2012-cba

They're looking into having a central replay War Room next year.

http://mlb.sbnation.com/2012/5/29/3051214/replay-review-mlb-central-location-2013

Works for me.

Things are coming along according to Sheehan's post upthread from four years ago.

I used to be more pessimistic about replay but I've come around a bit, I'm really for any form of replay (used in moderation) that doesn't delay the game too much.

I want the MLB Ump Cave next door to the Fan Cave.

re "in moderation" -- I don't want a system where managers can challenge 20 ball/strike calls per game.

xpost

i can't imagine it would cover balls and strikes

no, that's for the improved K Zone in 10-15 years.

BRING ON THE ROBOTS

@SBerthiaumeESPN
#Yankees Dewayne Wise dove into LF stands. Ball clanked off his glove & was picked up by fan 3 seats away. Called a catch by Mike Dimuro.

instant replay would only hamper the yankees; can't have it

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/9570618/mlb-expands-instant-replay-2014-include-manager-video-challenges

...pending owner approval at the winter meetings.

Neyer has some thoughts

Here's what UNLIMITED VIDEO REVIEW might well mean: After every close play, everybody in the ballpark -- the umpires on the field, the players, the fans, the broadcasters -- would stop whatever they're doing, and look up toward the press box, where presumably this extra umpire will be stationed. Upon him and him alone, the fate of the world rests. That's a lot of pressure, plus you're asking an umpire to second-guess his colleagues many times per game. Which won't be any fun at all.

So it wouldn't be any fun, and it would slow the game down, and it would shift everyone's attention away from the field (where it should be) to the press box (where it shouldn't be).

Now, one could add a wrinkle. The umpire in the booth might not be the final arbiter. Instead, he might quickly flag questionable plays, so quickly that perhaps nobody would bother waiting for him. If it's not immediately questionable, play continues apace. If it's truly questionable -- I'm guessing this would happen three or four times per game -- the guy in the booth could halt play, and hand things off to the boys in New York with all their high-def monitors and super-slo-mo gizmos and whatnot.

But none of this is really easy, or simple. If it was, they would have done it already.

http://www.baseballnation.com/2013/8/15/4624936/mlb-instant-replay-system-review-manager-challenges

rip managerial ejections

this is huge

In my opinion, it worked in ice hockey, fwiw.

under very limited circumstances, tho -- nashville couldn't protest matt duchene being a mile offside for instance

arizona fall league is testing instant replay challenges this week

tonight's game featured seven reviews and three reversals

To marry this change with enforcing the pitch time limit wd be cool.

Would managers challenge all walk-off plays?

people thought that would happen in tennis but it by and large hasn't, it's kind of an etiquette thing i guess

To marry this change with enforcing the pitch time limit wd be cool.

yeah, they're going to need to avoid adding 15 minutes onto game lengths. although i guess maybe televised games could do some of their precious commercials while the plays are under review.

no the public demands 8 angles in that time, even if the result is obvious.

commercials during reviews would just be additional -- it's not like they'd reduce between-innings ads

perfect!

well i shouldn't complain. more commercials are good for the game because it feeds into the trillions of tv $ that each team gets, which in turn enables every GM to occasionally go on a bender and wake up having signed a 8 year $200 million+ contract with 31 year old home run hitter

two manager's challenges per team per game. So, the human element will still blow some games!

http://www.baseballnation.com/2013/11/14/5104382/mlb-baseball-instant-replay-video-review-new-rules-manager-challenges

Just making shit up.

@BNightengale
Instant replay challenge rules continue to change: Now its one challenge in 1st 7 IP and one extra if you win challenge; 1 after 7th #MLB

so on the BP podcast today they reported a rumor that 'the neighborhood play' will not be reviewable, and Sam Miller said that wd be crap, cuz it's bad to have rules that are actually never enforced in the rulebook.

approved!

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/10305223/mlb-owners-ok-expanded-replay-2014

And baseball expects most reviews to be completed in "about a minute," he said, with occasional reviews taking up to a minute and a half.

Seems optimistic, but besides that, I'm really happy they finally did this.

What's the statute of limitations? I want them to credit the '92 Jays with that triple play, and there are two or three other postseason series they may have to play over.

btw teams can now show any replays on the videoboard.

also umpires will never leave the field! they get the word from MLB behind home plate.

Christmas in April-October

also, the NEIGHBORHOOD PLAY is not reviewable! so break them rules at second.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article/mlb/major-league-baseball-unveils-state-of-the-art-replay-center

some interesting details in here that i didn't know about (not that i've been following it that closely). it's good that they'll apparently begin to review plays before a team makes an official appeal - that should cut down on the time it takes. also,

The replay official has three possible calls. Confirmed: If replay shows clear evidence that the umps got it right. Stands: The replay was too close to tell one way or the other. Overturned: If there is inarguable evidence that a mistake was made.

While this is going on, teams will now be allowed to show close plays on their video boards. If calls are confirmed or overturned, the technician will then forward the decisive angle to the stadium so that it can be shown on the scoreboard as well as on the television broadcasts. To further add transparency and fan-friendliness, a written explanation of the decision will be posted on MLB.com.

Good review of some of the possible complications and loopholes:

http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/45345/instant-replay-what-can-go-wrong

The bigger potential issue will be stalling by managers. This wasn't a big deal in spring training because nothing was on the line, but I suspect we'll see some strange shenanigans once the real games begin. When issuing a challenge, a manager is supposed to leave the dugout and issue his challenge to the umpire (there will be no flag tossing as in the NFL). But there appears to be a gray area here.

If a manager goes out to argue a call, how long before the umpire demands to know whether he's issuing a challenge? Teams will be allowed to monitor replays from the clubhouse and have some sort of relay system to alert the manager on whether to challenge, so I suspect we may see a lot of arguments in which the manager keeps looking back into dugout for the bench coach to scratch his armpit.

Fredi Gonzalez has gone out to argue/stall 3 times tonight and gone back in without any challenges.

I guess we'll see "clarifications" on that part of the rule soon where they limit the number of times a manger can leave the dugout, but they could just have the on-deck batter stall and go back to the dugout three times to switch bats or tuck in his shirt.

I thought a manager had 30sec to issue a challenge?

Still a few bugs to be worked out. (Braves score 2 runs on a ball Freddie Freeman hit off his own foot into fair territory -- the umps didn't see it and it's not a reviewable play.)

I'm not sure what the hell happened there... it looked like it hit the dirt right next to his foot, but the bounce sure was funny.

Bryan Price wouldn't take "call stands" for an answer, gets tossed in 1st vs. Braves.

Yikes--Baseball Reference includes challenge-related data on a manager's page:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/managers/willima04.shtml

Formulas and year-end awards to follow.

baseball-reference has been going nuts with awesome new stuff lately <3

Don't get me wrong, I'm always in favour of new data, it just seems weird that the page goes right from the most basic stuff imaginable--wins, losses, divisional rank--to challenges. Is there nothing else about a manager between here and there worth keeping track of? Average innings from a starter, sacrifices, pinch-hitters, shifts, trips to the mound--about a million things, I would think.

"We have begun to examine the Crew Chief Review in tonight's Reds-Marlins game, which resulted in a violation of Rule 7.13, the call being overturned and a run scoring on the play. We plan to discuss this situation further with the appropriate parties tomorrow, and we will communicate with the Clubs after our discussion about this play."

http://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2014/8/1/5959739/reds-marlins-instant-replay-review-blocking-plate-rule

I know this isn't exactly enlightened analysis, but this was certainly much more fun than watching guys stand around a phone, waiting to hear back from New York.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx7-8w4QD64

"He's gotta get out the way! He's gotta get out of the way!"

cardinals vs reds

there was a force out play at 2B, the runner appeared to beat the throw, and the fielder appeared to be off the bag when he caught it anyway. call on the field was out. it was reviewed. they declared him to be...out.

he was clearly safe. like, not in that too-close-to-call gray zone, but clearly, without-a-doubt safe. so ???

Pitcher Chris Young otm:

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/why-mlb-needs-to-keep-exploring-ways-to-improve-pace-of-play-021308998.html

"The biggest thing I'd like to see is the automatic strike zone," Young said. "It's the single most important aspect to the game and the most subjective aspect. Umpires do an amazing job, but they're human beings, and there's a margin of error there. To me, that would speed up the game dramatically.

"Half the time now it's guys stepping out of the box, asking where the call was. It doesn't eliminate the home-plate umpire. You still need him for check swings, plays at the plate. It makes his job easier. And you know what you're going to get. I know when I step off the mound, half the time it's to think, 'OK, don't get wrapped up in the call.' I gather myself, compose myself. But it takes a minute. We're human beings. We get focused on what we consider a missed call."

Interesting bizniz at the Cubs-Braves game -- on a passed ball or wild pitch, Camargo came home but was called out on the tag. The replay seems to show him pretty clearly safe, but the call was upheld by the replay official. Joe Simpson flat-out accused them of covering for the ump's shitty call ("protecting the brotherhood"), which had Chip Caray trying to calm the waters in the next half inning.

wasn't there a reversed replay call involving the A's about a week ago that everyone was mad about? i don't think recall umps are "protecting the brotherhood" but the wording about needing clear and definitive proof to overturn (or however it's phrased) gives them a convenient reason to not overturn (i didn't see camargo being "pretty clearly safe" in the replay personally, but i am a cubs fan obv)

That was one of the WORST replay reviews I’ve ever seen.

Conclusive?
Definitive?
Call on the field meant nothing? pic.twitter.com/50Phgtbo43

— Brodie Brazil (@BrodieNBCS) May 12, 2018

that's the reversal i was referring to

“Out” pic.twitter.com/5ahcXzqh4W

— Josh Reddick (@RealJoshReddick) September 10, 2018

starting to think instant replay is bad for the game

I bet the 1985 Cardinals wd disagree

we just had a Very Bad use of replay erasing whit merrifield in kc-bos

Not a fan of this sh1t. You lose a call go cry to your grandma

Red Sox challenge call that Whit Merrifield is safe at 2B in the 1st; call overturned, runner is out. Powered by @Mitel. pic.twitter.com/MRCn2rvu0z

— MLB Replays (@MLBReplays) August 7, 2019

starting to think calstars is Billy Martin

i agree that that's dumb, but it seems like the problem isn't instant replay but the idea that you have to maintain constant contact with the base to be safe

yeah idk if instant replay is really good for the game or not but giving managers the ability to challenge any safe call where it looked like his hand might've briefly slid off for 1/100th of a second is definitely bad

if the replay crew can't tell if you were off the bag while watching at full speed, then you should be safe. none of this frame-by-frame crap. why would you emulate the one thing everyone hates about the NFL

or just change the rule so that a split-second loss of contact doesn't keep you from being safe

this wd be easily remedied by saying there's a "safe zone" above the bag if your foot comes off for a split second, or somesuch

guys i don't know much about baseball but I'm pretty sure one of the rules is that one is "safe" when touching the bag

* at 2nd or 3rd base
* except for a period after the play has determined to have ended but the next play has yet to start
etc etc

there are already exceptions to that rule

i don't want a safe zone, and if you are tagged while off the bag you should be out -- if the ump sees it. make whatever happens after the runner's initial contact with the bag unreviewable

this shit is getting out of hand and really soils the spirit of the game

except for a period after the play has determined to have ended but the next play has yet to start

you mean when time out is called?

etc etc

what is the etc? it's not complicated. stay on the bag!

Yeah I hate replay with the fire of a thousand suns but if the guy's tagged while off the bag he should be out, replay or not

i have to say i think replay works pretty goddamn well in baseball, particularly relative to other sports. Hawkeye in tennis is the only system that's better but that's just because the judgment calls are so much simpler.

Hawkeye is great because it's so fast - what does it take, like 10-15 seconds? If MLB replay was fast I'd love it. But it's unbearably slow.

(better than NBA replay though, that's for sure)

what is the etc? it's not complicated. stay on the bag!

the times when the runner's forward motion causes their hand to slide off the bag for 1/20th of a second. in general I hate the idea of using replay to overturn plays that never would've been called that way in real time.

hawkeye is almost instantaneous iirc

anyway i would like to point out that i was otm four hours ago

btw fuck the spirit of the game, that sounds like George Will

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/31240968/braves-rip-embarrassing-call-home-plate-keyed-phillies-win

definitely looks like they fucked this one up

MLB replay system would be a hell of a lot more accurate if the crew in New York didn’t know what the call on the field was.

— Lane Adams (@LA_Swiftness) April 12, 2021