Expanded instant replay is working. Just be careful, managers, not to waste your challenges. Something may come up bigger down the umpire road.
That is the instant reaction to expanded instant replay this Major League Baseball season with seven long months to go.
Through Wednesday’s games, MLB had used instant replay 18 times in the first week of the season. Among those 18 plays, four were “confirmed.” Six resulted in “stands,” meaning there was no clear evidence to confirm or overturn the call, and eight were “overturned,” according to MLB statistics.
On Thursday night, replay was even used to verify a count in the Yankees’ 4-2 win over the Astros. Houston catcher Carlos Corporan seemed to ask for the umpires to check the count on Yangervis Solarte in the ninth inning. The umps checked and verified the count was 3-1 as the scoreboard read.
In the second game of the season, Giants manager Bruce Bochy challenged a pickoff play at first base against the Diamondbacks and base runner A.J. Pollock. Bochy lost the fourth-inning challenge and did not have a challenge later in the inning on a blown call at home plate when Pollock was ruled safe on a passed ball even though Matt Cain tagged him before he crossed the plate. That run proved to be the difference in the game.
That is just one of the lessons of expanded instant replay.
“That’s what we call ‘hang with ’em,’” Bochy said after the 5-4 loss. “That’s the gamble you take.”
Bochy said he can’t predict what is going to happen next, adding, “These cards have backs on them. If we think a play should be challenged, we will challenge it.”
For now, Bochy said he is “fine” with the new expanded replay rule, but check back with him later in the season.
“It’s going to change the game and this is going to be a critical part of the game,” he said.
MLB is fully aware that this is all a work in progress.
“We are pleased with how the first week of the new system has gone,” said Joe Torre, MLB’s executive VP of baseball operations. “For the most part, the reviews have been efficient from a timing standpoint. We’ve been realistic and do not expect perfection. We are seeing what works and what might need conversation down the road.
“The clubs have given us some positive feedback and we hope that they will be patient with the learning process. The system is about getting impactful, game-changing plays correct, and we’d like to believe that everyone involved will cooperate in accomplishing that.”
As the system stands now, if a manager loses a challenge, he has no more challenges. If his challenge is upheld, he gets only one more challenge. Former manager and current MLB executive Tony LaRussa said this week: “Managers are paid to make the tough calls.”
From the seventh inning on, it is up to the discretion of the umpires to go to the replay.
Some critics are already calling for the manager challenge system to be replaced and have the replay decision taken out of the hands of the managers and left completely up to the umpires or league officials — perhaps through a replay command center at MLB headquarters.
No new system is going to be perfect coming out of the box, especially in a game that holds on to tradition like baseball.
“Our GM hates it,’’ one scout said Thursday, “and mainly because of the pace of game issue.”
Calls have been made as quickly as 65 seconds, or they can drag on and on. The longest took place during Wednesday’s game between the Indians and Athletics when Oakland’s Derek Norris was called out at home on a fielder’s choice. The umpire called Norris out and after a 4:45 replay delay, the call was upheld.
Perhaps the system can be streamlined down the road, less dog-and-pony show and with quicker decisions from a video command center either at the ballpark or MLB headquarters.
One Met pointed to a delay of game in the club’s season opener against the Nationals: “There was a play where their runner was clearly out, in the last inning, the Nationals are up by like five runs. And we just have to sit around for like five minutes before we get up. It was silly.”
Overall, the expanded instant replay seems to be getting favorable reviews, if only because everyone wants to get the call right.
Tweaks will be made to the system, but expanded replay is here to stay — one more aspect of the game to manage.