Major League Baseball Joins the 21st Century

Baseball is a curious sport. It has old, deep-rooted traditions that don’t make a lot of sense to a lot of people. I’m a huge fan of the sport and grew up learning the ins and outs of the game. One of those deep-rooted traditions is that umpires have full discretion over all calls in games. While it’s been admitted that umpires are fallible as humans, that human element is joyously celebrated as a charm of the game. This kind of thinking has led to many, many, many wonderful manager tirades over the years. Despite how awesome it is to see a manager flip his shit, it’s about damn time that MLB has joined the 21^st century and instituted replay. This replay is far from perfect and a few managers have already voiced, to put it mildly, their displeasures with the current system. Jayson Stark and Tim Keown wrote well thought out articles over on espn.com, with Stark praising the system and Keown suggesting that it needs changed. I tend to agree with Keown but my views are a little more extreme. Here are my thoughts on how MLB can improve their medieval version of instant replay.

Put replay monitors in the actual stadiums:

The NFL does it and they (according to public perception) get more things right than MLB. Currently there is a team of replay officials sitting in MLB headquarters in New York who review every play. When a play is challenged during a game, umpires put on their little headsets and talk to an official in New York who tells them what the correct call should be. Talk about taking the power away from the umpires. This also increases the time that it takes to review plays. The only question is who would be reviewing plays in the stadiums? Simple…

Hire extra umpires and place them in a stadium booth to view plays:

The umpires’ union would certainly go along with this deal as it would add extra jobs by creating teams of six umpires instead of the current five. Hell, you could also have each team employ a replay official (don’t tell me owners don’t have the money to do this). The replay official from both teams could join the replay umpire in the booth or you could even have an employee of MLB in said booth. Not only would this speed up replay calls, but also it would allow the umpires the chance to see the game from a different point of view. I’m one to believe that this would increase umpire quality.

And finally…

Stop letting managers decide when to challenge a call:

As it currently stands, managers have 30 seconds to decide whether they want to challenge a call or not. Like NFL coaches, most MLB managers already have too much on their plates and most of them mess that up! Try pointing out a manager who can correctly manage their bullpen, pinch-hitters, and their line-up cards. There are a few who can do it, but most of them are like Andy Reid mismanaging timeouts. Instead of adding this task to the manager’s job description, let the replay umpire and officials in the stadium booth tell the umps on the field when to review a play. Have the crew chief wear a buzzer (or home plate umpire if the crew chief is in the booth) and have the replay umpire and officials buzz him if a reviewable call needs to be corrected. This would speed up the time of replays and slow down the pace of the game much less than the current system.

As I mentioned before, I, like most baseball fans, enjoy seeing a manager flip his shit when arguing a call. Thankfully, managers will still be able to go out and talk to the umpires about disputed calls. They’ll still put on a show. All have, always will. I wouldn’t deny them the ability to do this. Just don’t let them have the burden of deciding what plays to actually challenge.