ORLANDO, Fla. — Expanded instant replay took its next leap Thursday, as Major League Baseball owners voted to fund the endeavor and Bud Selig and his deputy Rob Manfred expressed confidence the plan would be ready for next season.
“Unless there’s something I’m missing, we’re going to have [expanded] replay in 2014,” Selig said, after the owners’ and general managers’ meetings concluded.
Manfred, MLB’s COO, must complete negotiations with the MLB Players Association and World Umpires Association to have the two unions sign off on this project, which is expected to cost MLB about $50 million to implement. Then there will be another vote at the January owners’ meetings in Arizona to sign off on all of the plan’s details as they flesh out.
Here are the details we know, which Manfred shared in a news conference:
1. Managers will be given either one or two challenges per game. If a challenge results in the manager being proven right, then the manager keeps his challenge; if the original call is upheld, then the manager loses his challenge. The challenges will cover calls ranging from fair/foul to safe/out on the bases to whether a trapped ball has been caught or not by an outfielder.
2. When a manager wants to challenge a call, he will alert an umpire, at which point the play will be reviewed by officials — likely active or former umpires — in the MLB Advanced Media headquarters in Manhattan. During the review process, the on-field crew chief promptly will be equipped with a headset so he can communicate directly with the Manhattan-based official.
3. If a manager has exhausted his challenges and an umpire makes an egregiously bad call, the umpires can decide unilaterally to scrutinize and overturn it.
4. Manfred hinted the plays under review would be made available to fans on ballparks’ large video boards as the actual process is occurring.
It’s a “gigantic move” for baseball, said Selig, who had been a longtime opponent of replay before altering his opinion in recent years.
“My father used to say, ‘Life is nothing but a series of adjustments,’” Selig said. “I made an adjustment.”