Major League Baseball is making tentative plans to experiment with instant replay in the Arizona Fall League, according to a baseball official with knowledge of those discussions.Personally, I have no issue with this. It wouldn't slow down the game in any significant sense--the umps already take their time to confer on this type of call. Replay might take a bit longer, but at least they'd get it right. As long as they keep it to something as black and white as home run calls, it seems like a good idea.
If that experiment proves practical and successful, MLB then is likely to continue the experiment next March during the World Baseball Classic and spring-training games.
If no insurmountable problems arise, baseball could begin using replay -- though only to decide home run calls -- as soon as next season.
Things like this concern me though:
All controversial calls. Plays at first. At the plate. Whether a ball is caught/trapped in the outfield. And, the most horrifying one of all, balls and strikes.
In a vacuum, Major League Baseball's "tentative plans" are good news. In the greater scheme of things, it's a much more complicated issue, as instituting replay is a very, very slippery slope.
4 comments:
what this is all leading to is the end of needing umpires at all. there will just be machines that 'watch' (for lack of a better term) the plays and make 100% accurate calls based off of the data they record. the name 'baseball' will also be changed to 'bigbrotherball'.
on a more serious note, though, i'm not sure how i'd feel if that were possible...
I see no reason why Pitch/FX cannot be used to call balls and strikes. At the very least it would be more accurate than any umpire. No more advantage given to the experienced pitcher or hitter. As far as I know Pitch/FX is not slow is it?
PITCHf/x, or some kind of automated system, is not the same as using instant replay to call balls and strikes.
We are very far from having a computer call balls and strikes; we are potentially not that far at all from a batter being able to turn to an umpire and ask for the call to be reviewed on a monitor in the dugout.
The former, when the technology is good enough, would probably be okay. The latter would be a disaster.
you all touch on things ive felt in the past... i like the idea of having instant replay in baseball but i dont see how you can draw any line.
i think we've all probably got to accept that human error is part of the game with umpires just as much as it is with players.
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