Phillies protest IR ruling

[MikeStrybel]

Originally Posted by BretMan

This "rule" (ie: guideline which does not appear in the rule book) has been regurgitated over and over again in discussions about this call.

But this is really just a cut & paste quote from a three year old MLB press release. We don't know the entire content of the material presented to the umpires or teams, how they have been instructed to interpret it or if the "official" guidelines are more in-depth than that.

Somehow, it just seems to me that an "official" league document covering such a highly controversial subject, where the outcome could have a profound effect on the game, might have something more to it than the two sentence blurb that keeps getting quoted.

I used the word "directive". There are hundreds of them issued by MLB and rarely are they in the rule book. The mechanic for handling a need to employ Instant Replay does not need to be stated rule. Mechanics are not rules.

[BretMan]

Originally Posted by MikeStrybel

I used the word "directive".

Except in the first sentence of your post: "Yes, that is what the rule says". So you actually called it both.

Originally Posted by MikeStrybel

The mechanic for handling a need to employ Instant Replay does not need to be stated rule. Mechanics are not rules.

Exactly. Are mechanics employed by the umpires protestable?