LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — It’s too early to say who’s winning what in the 2014 baseball season, but here’s one prediction about what we’ll see:
It’s going to be hairy — as is often the case any time a company enacts bold initiatives. And the end will justify the hairiness.
Amidst the standard wheeling and dealing at the Winter Meetings, Major League Baseball moved forward on two historic changes Wednesday. In the morning, executive vice president of baseball operations Joe Torre and his fellow new Hall of Famer Tony La Russa, an MLB consultant, joined Braves president John Schuerholz to discuss the expanded instant replay with general managers and managers. And in the afternoon, the Playing Rules Committee voted to eliminate home-plate collisions by putting the onus on both baserunners and catchers.
Neither innovation is 100 percent ready for next season. The owners must sign off on both at their January meetings. The replay rules must be collectively bargained with both the players and the umpires, and the Players Association must sign off on the collisions rule. If the players vote against banning collisions, the change could be instituted unilaterally for the 2015 season. Players Association executive director Tony Clark couldn’t be reached for comment.
You’d bet on both going through, however, because there is widespread agreement they’re good for the game. Adjoining that is some anxiety over how exactly it will play out.
“I think it’s well-intended,” Indians manager Terry Francona said Wednesday of the collisions ban. “I might be a little bit in the minority. I think there is liable to be more injuries with baserunners than maybe we realize.
“I guess I feel like, if you don’t want your catcher to block the plate, just tell him not to block the plate. You don’t have to enforce rules. Just tell him not to block the plate.”
“It’s a little bit of a dicey issue to work your way through,” said Angels manager Mike Scioscia, a former catcher. “But I’m comfortable in the feeling that it will be addressed, and addressed to a satisfactory level, where a runner can still be aggressive going to the plate with a hard slide and the catcher understands the need to have the ball in his possession and what he can do to tag a guy at the plate.”
As explained by Mets general manager Sandy Alderson, the chairman of this committee, a runner can be called automatically out if he runs over the catcher. Responsibility lies with the catcher, too, to clear a lane for the runner. Ejections, fines and suspensions could come into play if the offenses are egregious enough.
Yankees manager Joe Girardi and Marlins manager Mike Redmond, two more former catchers, both said they didn’t necessarily mind home-plate collisions during their playing days. But look: We know far more about concussions now, and that knowledge has placed in doubt the long-term viability of professional football. If baseball, a far safer endeavor, can cancel out one of its primary causes of concussions, that’s a victory.
As for replay, the current plan calls for managers to get one “challenge” through the first seven innings and then one from the eighth inning onward, with retention of the challenge each time the umpire’s call gets reversed.
Multiple managers emerged from their meeting wondering how much (and how successfully) they and their opponents would try to game the system, especially since a challenge must be registered before the next pitch. A manager can step onto the field to ask the umpire for an explanation of a call. Can he plod toward the ump so that a staff member has time to view the replay and offer a thumbs-up or thumbs-down? Or can a batter just tie his shoes to create that time?
There will be tensions, undoubtedly, and criticisms, for sure; MLB is calling the 2014 season “Phase 1” on the replay front, with three phases planned in all. And MLB should just keep moving forward. The alternative, not using available technology to improve the game’s efficacy, is profoundly unappealing.
“We have had a lot of meetings about it and good, healthy dialogue,” Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said. “and the game will be in a better place in 2014 than anytime prior because the evolution of incorporating technology into decisions on the field.’’
From hairiness will come a better product. Now baseball just has to brace itself for the turbulence en route to its upgrade.