MLB Decides To Expand Replay Rule With Challanges

It came down yesterday in Cooperstown, in what commissioner Bud Selig called an "historic moment." Major League Baseball that during the 2014 season will likely have a dramatically expanded replay system, that will also include managers challenge and a central review office to help with the process. According to the program outlined, there is about 89 percent of the plays in baseball that can be considered "reviewable" meaning they can be challenged by a manager. Of course there have been no specifics announced as to what is reviewable and what isn't, but we do know for a fact that balls and strikes are not a reviewable. Also with the managers they are allowed three challenges per game, one through the first six innings, and two from the 7th inning through the conclusion of the game.

So what will happen is if the challenge is issued by the manager, he has to let the nearest umpire to him that he is going to challenge a call. Then either the home plate umpire or crew chief will use a nearby communications center, somewhere near the backstop or camera bays, which has a direct, secure line to the MLB Advanced Media offices, which are located in Manhattan. This central office, will have umpires and technicians that will monitor each game to provide an instant ruling on the play. Of course this whole system has to meet approval with the umpires union and the players union, which will vote on this during meetings in November. Once this goes through, if it does, the umpires will be trained during fall ball and spring training to make sure it works right, before they put it into use during the 2014 season. According to the outlined plan for this system, it will take a total of 90 seconds to review the calls, as compared to three minutes, which is how long it takes now on home run calls.

This system adds in some influence from the NFL and the NHL. Baseball is using the challenge system from the NFL and the video review system from the NHL. Will this system actually work? I have no idea. On paper it looks like something that could possibly work. How it looks on paper and how it translates to on the field, could be two different things.

So that's how the system is supposed to work. i will give baseball a lot of credit for trying to figure out a way to eliminate the errors that are made in making some calls. Umpires are human, they are going to miss calls. It's not possible to be able to nail every call right, but this system at least will help get calls as close to accurate as possible.

Sure there are those positives with this system. At the same time there are also negatives involved with this system. First things first, why does somebody watching a game in New York City decide a game in LA between the Dodgers and Pirates? I mean it would make a little more sense to have somebody have the same capabilities to do that from inside each major league park. That decision doesn't make much sense. I feel the same way about using the war room in Toronto in the NHL. Having somebody make a call quickly from inside the park will make things go faster, I feel, than having to go through the City.

There's also a problem I have with allowing managers to challenge plays. And there/s a few reasons. One is they could use a challenge as an excuse to buy time to get a pitcher warmed up in the bullpen. That's just one small idea,. Here's the big problem I really see with the challenge. What would happen to the challenge if you should lose the challenge? If you win it you get the challenge back again. In the NFL, if you challenge a play and lose it, then you lose a timeout. Right now in baseball, if you lose a challenge, then you don't really lose anything. Again this ruling could change between now and the start of next season, but as it sits right now there's nothing in place if you lose a challenge. I really think they should lose something, like say a mound visit. See most teams get two mound visits before they really have to pull a pitcher. If you challenge a play and lose that challenge, then you lose a mound visit. So if you lose a challenge then when you go out to the mound, as a manager, then you have to take the pitcher out, regardless. There are so many different ways this ruling can be put to use, so its going to be really interesting to see how this thing plays out over the next few months and so on leading into next season.