Implement a challenge system, MLB

[mbyron]

The premise of this whole discussion is that a missed call costing a pitcher a perfect game is the end of the world. I'm not convinced that it's worse than replay.

[dash_riprock]

Originally Posted by mbyron

The premise of this whole discussion is that a missed call costing a pitcher a perfect game is the end of the world. I'm not convinced that it's worse than replay.

Bravo mb. And it wasn't even close to a perfect game. A perfect game is 81 strikes.

[Jurassic Referee]

Originally Posted by dash_riprock

Bravo mb. And it wasn't even close to a perfect game. A perfect game is 81 strikes.

Naw, a perfect game is 25 ejections before a pitch is thrown....aka a Joe West wet dream.

[bisonlj]

The biggest issue you'll find with replay is it starts to make many of your rules much more technical. Think of how technical a catch/no catch is now in football. You will end up with the same thing on what constitutes possession of a catch by a fielder either on a fly ball or a play like the Detroit game. And I guarantee the force play at second as they turn a double play would become reviewable. Slippery slope.

[MrUmpire]

Originally Posted by dash_riprock

Bravo mb. And it wasn't even close to a perfect game. A perfect game is 81 strikes.

No. 27 pitches.

[bob jenkins]

Originally Posted by MrUmpire

No. 27 pitches.

1 pitch, and 51 batters switching batter's boxes when the pitcher is ready to pitch.

[dash_riprock]

Originally Posted by bob jenkins

1 pitch, and 51 batters switching batter's boxes when the pitcher is ready to pitch.

Hahahaha.

FED: 1 pitch and 35 batters switching batter's boxes.

It is possible for a pitcher to throw a 54-hit complete game shutout and not retire a single batter.

[MD Longhorn]

1) Do away with cameras in the tunnels and add a 5th official (for review) to every game. Rotate responsibilities ... 5-man crew.
2) ONE challenge per team - failed challenge = ejection.
3) No more managers/coaches coming out to argue. You want to come out, it's to make a challenge - anything else is quick ejection. Any sustained arguing is a 1 week suspension. (There is NO REASON MLB allows these protracted "Look-at-me" productions from it's coaches. It's asinine).
4) Reviewable items:

Plays at a base or plate where there is no subsequent play and the ball was caught.
Catch/no catch where there is no subsequent play.
Left early / missed base.
Fair ball can be changed to foul (but not vice versa).

Reviews may be initiated by the booth before the next pitch, unless the coach comes out of the dugout for any reason (otherwise, coaches will come out to delay the game to give more time for review).

[rookieblue]

From Bruce Weber, author of As They See 'Em, published 4 June in The New York Times. Pretty much sums up my views, as well.

June 4, 2010

The Perfect Asterisk
By BRUCE WEBER

The egregious call at first base by the umpire Jim Joyce that cost a Detroit Tigers pitcher, Armando Galarraga, the chance to be only the 21st major-league pitcher to have tossed a perfect game has unleashed consternation on the land. History is denied! Incompetence reigns! Something must be done! Expand instant replay!

Nah.

First of all, history wasn’t denied; it was made. Galarraga’s magnificent performance last Wednesday will always be the perfect game with the asterisk, the one every commentator mentions whenever perfect games are mentioned, the tainted perfect game and thus the most famous perfect game of all time.

Second, Joyce’s bungle — and oh, man, it was a beaut! — has hardly reigned. A sturdy baseball citizen who has served in the big leagues with distinction (which for umpires is to say without) since 1989, he was reduced to tears by the fact of his ill-timed mistake and its being trumpeted on front pages and television broadcasts around the world. You think that’s not being held accountable?

And something must be done? Why? Umpires have been ingrained in major-league baseball since the inception of the National League in 1876, somewhere approaching 200,000 games ago, and it’s likely that the umps have botched a call or two in every one of them since then. Somehow this has not eroded the fan base or undermined the integrity of the competition, which is something that the players and the owners have periodically done.

That reality, in fact, should tell us something about the nature of baseball, which is the least programmatic, the least technological of games. It doesn’t even have a clock. The fields have widely varying shapes and sizes, and the primary battleground between offense and defense — i.e., the strike zone — is a box of air with dimensions that have proven impossible to specify. There is a lot less science in baseball, a lot more art, than in any other sport you can name. (Golf and soccer nuts, just pipe down.) It’s an irony that only in baseball do there exist perfect games.

This is the main reason that so many baseball fans are so gaga over statistics, because the game’s ambiguities create a hunger for measurement, for exactitude where it doesn’t exist, and it’s the main reason that baseball is the most written about, most discussed, most intellectually parsed game there is.

It’s also the main reason that instant replay feels more like an intrusion in baseball than it does in tennis or football or basketball or hockey, each of which has adopted some form of video review to re-evaluate some officials’ calls. But the prime responsibilities of officials in those other sports have always been to recognize infractions and assign blame, and umpires don’t do that. And it’s worth noting that those responsibilities — calling penalties, faults and fouls — are largely unaffected by instant-replay rules.

The role of umpires in baseball is much more integral. They aren’t observers passing judgment on the legality of given actions so much as filters through which the action passes; nothing can happen — a strike, an out, a run scored — without their imprimatur. They have no prime responsibilities, just the responsibility to see and acknowledge everything, which is why the technological usurping of any one of them feels especially sullying.

Besides, instant-replay review isn’t about improving umpiring or improving baseball; it’s about improving television, which more and more controls how the game is administered both on the field and off. The implementation of instant replay last year to assist on tricky home run calls was welcomed by many umpires, and I don’t suppose it has ruined anything. But it tastes funny, and it feels like the first sign of a heartbreak, the first loose thread on a brand-new sweater that is waiting for the inevitable tug.

I know the argument: The world has evolved, technology has evolved, and baseball has evolved. As long as we can get it right, why not get it right? Well, for one thing, we’d never have had the part shocking, part anguishing, part cosmically comic final moments of the imperfect perfect game last week; nor the very poignant aftermath as the participants confronted the consequences and one another; nor the eruption of passion and debate among millions of baseball fans.

Is our pursuit of finality, the properly placed decimal point, the world record sans asterisk, ultimate victory even in the fundamentally inconsequential arena of sport, worth trading in all of that? (While I’m making this point, why do we need a Bowl Championship Series? Isn’t it more fun to argue over who’s No. 1?)

Insist, if you must, that the umpires are a problem. But the problem is so much more interesting than the solution.

Bruce Weber’s book “As They See ’Em: A Fan’s Travels in the Land of Umpires” was recently published in paperback.

[GA Umpire]

I like his book and this quote. It sums it up for me as well. Can't argue with anything he wrote. He does what so few of us can do: Put things in writing pretty well.

[grunewar]

"I doubt it, but I wouldn't ever say never," the baseball commissioner said Monday night at the site of the draft at MLB Network studios. "It's worked out well. Look, I am a traditionalist, but I also want to do what I think is best for the sport."

Read More: Selig to continue to look at expanding replay - MLB - SI.com

[Tom H.]

Originally Posted by TwoBits

With no less than a dozen cameras at every MLB game, why not have a replay challenge system similar to the NFL? You get two challenges a game, and if you get those right, you get another one. This would aid in getting the call right and may actually speed up the game by eliminating needless arguing between managers and umpires.

R U An umpire......?????? not good for the game!

[DLH17]

Originally Posted by TwoBits

With no less than a dozen cameras at every MLB game, why not have a replay challenge system similar to the NFL? You get two challenges a game, and if you get those right, you get another one. This would aid in getting the call right and may actually speed up the game by eliminating needless arguing between managers and umpires.

no no no no no

arguing in baseball is part of the game...a fun part at that

it is what it is - a game officiated by human beings - for better or worse. and, i think it's for the better all of the time.

[TwoBits]

Originally Posted by Tom H.

R U An umpire......?????? not good for the game!

Amateur umpire for the last 23 seasons ranging from youth leagues to summer college leagues. I still fail to see how getting the right call is not good for the game.

[GA Umpire]

Originally Posted by TwoBits

Amateur umpire for the last 23 seasons ranging from youth leagues to summer college leagues. I still fail to see how getting the right call is not good for the game.

The correct term is "get it correct". They got the correct call based on what Joyce saw. It has nothing to do with getting the "right" call. It has everything to do with getting the "correct" call which is the call the umpire(s) makes during the play. The call which influences the outcome of the play and the game.

The call was correct b/c his mechanics were correct. He saw the play correctly from his angle. He correctly called what he saw. It was the "correct" call.

If using IR, why have umpires at all? I still wonder why they have football referees still. Just sit behind a screen and watch the game. Easier to call with today's technology. All they are there to do is let the coaches vent their frustrations to during the game.