MLB

Expanded replay coming to MLB in 2014 season

PARADISE VALLEY, Ariz. — Expanded instant replay, featuring a challenge system for managers, is 100 percent happening in the 2014 baseball season. The labyrinthine process took its final step Thursday at the quarterly owners meetings, where the 30 teams voted unanimously in favor of it. The Players Association and World Umpires Association already had given their support.

So how will it work? Here’s the breakdown:

— Plays newly subjected to instant replay include safe/out calls, fair/foul in the outfield only, fan interference, trap plays in the outfield, batters hit by a pitch, timing plays (whether a runner scores before a third out is recorded), passing runners, and record-keeping (ball-strike counts, outs, score and substitutions). Home runs remain reviewable and will be grandfathered into the new system; umpires will review them and won’t require the manager to use a challenge.

— Managers will receive one challenge per game. If his first challenge overturns a call, then he will retain his challenge — but he will be allowed to use just one more during the game, even if that one overturns a call as well. A manager must “verbally indicate” — step on the field and approach an umpire, in other words — his intention to challenge before the next pitch is thrown.

— From the seventh inning onward, an umpire crew chief can utilize instant replay on a reviewable call if he feels such a call is in question. An umpire-initiated review will go into effect only after a manager has exhausted his challenges.

— Each ballpark will establish a designated communication location near home plate. When a play is challenged, the crew chief and at least one other umpire will get a hard-wired headset connecting them to the “replay command center” at MLB Advanced Media headquarters in Manhattan. Umpires will be staffed as “replay officials” there and will make the ultimate determination of whether to overturn the call based on “clear and convincing evidence.” The replay official also will decide where to appropriately place runners if that’s in question.

— Managers will be permitted to speak with team employees positioned in the clubhouse who will have access to the same video available to replay officials. This will help teams decide whether to challenge the call.

— Teams have the right to show replays of all close plays on their ballpark scoreboard, regardless of whether the play is reviewed.

MLB executive vice president of baseball operations Joe Torre oversaw the changes alongside MLB consultant Tony La Russa and Braves president John Schuerholz. Asked whether he would have liked having expanded replay as a manager, Torre said, “I really wouldn’t have liked to have it in the ’96 Championship Series,” a callback to Derek Jeter’s Game 1 homer against Baltimore that would have stayed on the field if not for young fan Jeffrey Maier’s exuberance and umpire Rich Garcia’s missed call.

Torre also said the league and players continued discussions on eliminating home-plate collisions for the 2014 campaign. MLB COO Rob Manfred said he “fully expect[s]” that change to be enacted this season.