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Sports Daily: Enhanced Replay is Here, Your Thoughts?

  12:48 PM - January 17, 2014 by RaychelSnr

It did take almost fifteen years, but at this time I'd like to take a moment and officially welcome Major League Baseball to the 21st century. It seems natural that America's pastime could get stuck in the past. But it also seemed obvious to many of us that when Little League baseball figured out a way to make instant replay work, perhaps the professional version of the sport needed to put down the Sears catalog and start shopping online.

Expanded replay for the MLB in 2014 will be no small step for the sport. The "in the neighborhood" play for force-outs at second base is still off limits, but essentially every other play in the game is up for a manager's challenge. Team's can have an employee designated to check for chances to challenge who then can call the dugout to inform the manager. If the challenge is successful, managers will be given an additional challenge. After the 7th inning umpires may initiate challenges given that a team hasn't unsuccessfully challenged previously in the game.

Fans of manager-umpire arguments might be feeling disappointed along with the baseball purists. After a certain point of heated debate, umpires are allowed to confront the manager and force him to decide if he wants to challenge the play -- but will disagreements even take place on the field now that managers can take the debate straight to the video?

Sound Off: What are your initial thoughts regarding the MLB's expanded replay in 2014?

Sports Headlines for January 17, 2014

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Member Comments
# 1 Lovesports @ 01/17/14 04:02 PM
Great for baseball
 
# 2 yougo1000 @ 01/17/14 08:23 PM
Good idea. Just wish there were 2 challenges for the first 6 innings and 1 more for the rest of the game.
 
# 3 Kirby_SCEA @ 01/17/14 10:18 PM
I'll be interested to see if and how MLB and its umpires combat managers trying to use replays strategically to throw off opposing players. For example, I could definitely see managers challenging a play that's not really that close just to disrupt the flow of a pitcher who is on a roll against them.
 
# 4 simgamer0005 @ 01/17/14 11:29 PM
Video replay doesn't belong in baseball. It interrupts the flow of the game. A lot of the changes to baseball in recent years haven't been good, like expanded playoffs, now expanded video replay. They are going in the wrong direction.

I think in general too many sports have gone out of their way to implement video replay. Sometimes a blown call gets the manager out of the dugout and into the face of the ump, and wakes a few people up.
 
# 5 kehlis @ 01/18/14 12:01 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kirby_SCEA
I'll be interested to see if and how MLB and its umpires combat managers trying to use replays strategically to throw off opposing players. For example, I could definitely see managers challenging a play that's not really that close just to disrupt the flow of a pitcher who is on a roll against them.
How is it any different than what we have now?

There's already a myriad of ways to try and throw off opponents by stalling whether it be the third base coach calling time and talking to the batter, the pitching coach going to the mound to stall for a reliever or a catcher who can effectively go to the mound as many times as he wants even if he's just talking about the hot chick in the third row.


I don't like it at all, but I don't see it being used a strategical advantage more that other methods that are already in the game are used.

If anything, only having one challenge (the ONLY thing I can agree with this change on) will discourage a manager from using it just to disrupt an opponent.

Quote:
Originally Posted by simgamer0005
Video replay doesn't belong in baseball. It interrupts the flow of the game. A lot of the changes to baseball in recent years haven't been good, like expanded playoffs, now expanded video replay. They are going in the wrong direction.

I think in general too many sports have gone out of their way to implement video replay. Sometimes a blown call gets the manager out of the dugout and into the face of the ump, and wakes a few people up.
Agree for the most part.

I don't care much about it interrupting the flow of the game much, baseball is already a slow game, this won't change much with the flow.


I just don't like it in baseball at all.
 
# 6 jmik58 @ 01/18/14 12:48 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kirby_SCEA
I'll be interested to see if and how MLB and its umpires combat managers trying to use replays strategically to throw off opposing players. For example, I could definitely see managers challenging a play that's not really that close just to disrupt the flow of a pitcher who is on a roll against them.
Any word from SCEA on how the challenge system may surface in The Show?
 
# 7 simgamer0005 @ 01/18/14 01:18 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by kehlis
Agree for the most part.

I don't care much about it interrupting the flow of the game much, baseball is already a slow game, this won't change much with the flow.

I just don't like it in baseball at all.
Yeah it's just very un-baseball. Not that an occasional replay review will really stop the flow of the game, but when you consider how many teams can make the playoffs now, they have watered down the regular season so much, that it's kind of counter-intuitive to implement this. I mean, how many games out of a 162 game season are really decided by a blown call? A handful, maybe? It's not like football where you only have 16 games all season or something. I could see maybe the ability for a manager to challenge a pivotal play in the playoffs or world series or something, but I don't see how it's so needed when you have a regular season where so many teams now make the playoffs.

Also I see a very slippery slope with how "After the 7th inning umpires may initiate challenges given that a team hasn't unsuccessfully challenged previously in the game." I could see this causing problems, if lets say a team challenges something early in the game, unsuccessfully, then after the 7th inning the ump can't initiate a challenge that he wants to, or a situation where a team successfully challenged earlier in the game, but yet the ump just doesn't "feel like" initiating a challenge late in the game. I could see situations like how sometimes random plays get reviewed late in college football games, from the booth that are insignificant, but yet more significant missed calls go unnoticed throughout the game and don't even get reviewed. My concern is that that every single play in a baseball game towards the end of the game will get meticulously analyzed via slow motion replay review on TV broadcasts, and the talk will shift from the game itself to whether or not certain plays will be reviewed. We've seen this in college football and this type of thing doesn't belong in baseball.

Quote:
Any word from SCEA on how the challenge system may surface in The Show?
And another thing that is annoying is when video games try to implement a video replay review system in a game that didn't need it before. To implement video replay in a video game they intentionally make the game make incorrect calls to justify a challenge system. Unlike in real life, and video games have the ability to make the correct call every time.
 
# 8 kehlis @ 01/18/14 01:27 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by simgamer0005
but when you consider how many teams can make the playoffs now, they have watered down the regular season so much,
Again I agree with your other points about replay so don't take offense that I deleted the rest but this is ridiculous.

Baseball has the fewest amount of teams that make the postseason out of any sport and that's after their addition of another team.


I don't like the new playoff format the way it is, but it is FAR from watering it down and in no way does it have anything to do with the replay system brought in so I'm not sure why you even brought it up.
 
# 9 Knight165 @ 01/18/14 01:28 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by simgamer0005

And another thing that is annoying is when video games try to implement a video replay review system in a game that didn't need it before. To implement video replay in a video game they intentionally make the game make incorrect calls to justify a challenge system. Unlike in real life, and video games have the ability to make the correct call every time.
No....games are not implementing imperfect calls or AI in order to justify anything....it's to mimic real life.
Racing games have AI drivers take bad lines and hit turns incorrectly in order to make the game more realistic...not to "justify" crashes.

I understand you're not happy with the video replay in baseball.....but you're stretching it.

M.K.
Knight165
 
# 10 simgamer0005 @ 01/18/14 01:44 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by kehlis
Again I agree with your other points about replay so don't take offense that I deleted the rest but this is ridiculous.

Baseball has the fewest amount of teams that make the postseason out of any sport and that's after their addition of another team.


I don't like the new playoff format the way it is, but it is FAR from watering it down and in no way does it have anything to do with the replay system brought in so I'm not sure why you even brought it up.
My point is simply this : baseball has over 10 times as many regular season games as football. A blown call costing a team a game in baseball does not affect the outcome of the regular season to the extent that a blown call costing a team a game in football affects the outcome of the season. It could, but with so many games played, that probability is much less in baseball than other sports, compounded that with the fact that now more teams make the playoffs in baseball than ever.

Baseball does still have the fewest amount of teams that make the postseason of any sport, but barely, and two decades ago only 2 teams from each league make the baseball playoff, and there was no such thing as a wildcard, so looking at it historically it's a lot more teams making the playoffs. If you look the ratio of playoff teams per regular season games played, baseball now has the most. It's generally accepted that there should be more teams in playoff for sports with fewer regular season games played.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Knight165
No....games are not implementing imperfect calls or AI in order to justify anything....it's to mimic real life.
Racing games have AI drivers take bad lines and hit turns incorrectly in order to make the game more realistic...not to "justify" crashes.

I understand you're not happy with the video replay in baseball.....but you're stretching it.

M.K.
Knight165
You're missing the point: The cool thing about video games is that you don't need a challenge system to "challenge missed calls". Sports video games have the ability to calculate the correct call every time.
 
# 11 Knight165 @ 01/18/14 01:56 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by simgamer0005




You're missing the point: The cool thing about video games is that you don't need a challenge system to "challenge missed calls". Sports video games have the ability to calculate the correct call every time.
Judging by your screen name....you want games to SIMULATE real life sports.
Sports have mistakes made by officials.
Why would you want a sim game to neglect that fact?

M.K.
Knight165
 
# 12 simgamer0005 @ 01/18/14 02:38 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Knight165
Judging by your screen name....you want games to SIMULATE real life sports.
Sports have mistakes made by officials.
Why would you want a sim game to neglect that fact?
In many great sports video games, there are sometimes missed calls, and many times it works as something to keep the gamer on their toes. That can and has been implemented in some games, and in many games can be very effective. There are also many sports games that get the referee calls right 100% of the time because they were designed that way. Whether or not refs / umps make incorrect calls in video games isn't the basis of what my username "simgamer" is about.

A video game isn't governed by the bottlenecks that exist in real life. Refs making bad calls could be implemented in a game, or there could be an option for the user to control this. Even with video replay reviews in sports, many times video replay just stops the momentum of a game, and calls are still missed throughout the game. I always thought that sports video games could be designed so "fix" the problem of bad calls that exist in real life sports. And it could be up to the developer as to how they choose to design a game. You highlighted an important point though because I think real-life changes to sports have changed some sports video game franchises in a lot of ways.
 
# 13 jhendricks316 @ 01/18/14 04:55 PM
I am happy for this expansion of replay, despite thinking that it's overdue. As a Detroit Tigers fan, this play still gives me chills (and obviously not the good kind). The Brandon Inge non-called HBP in the infamous AL Central Tiebreaker versus the Twins a few years back is another call that may have impacted this team's recent history.
 
# 14 TripleCrown9 @ 01/18/14 05:23 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by jhendricks316
I am happy for this expansion of replay, despite thinking that it's overdue. As a Detroit Tigers fan, this play still gives me chills (and obviously not the good kind). The Brandon Inge non-called HBP in the infamous AL Central Tiebreaker versus the Twins a few years back is another call that may have impacted this team's recent history.
Or the Armando Galarraga incident.
 
# 15 JFB123 @ 01/18/14 06:46 PM
I like extended challenges but we don't need to make this like football. Why not add an extra official to call down to the head umpire and say 'hey, you might want to take a second look at this'. Makes more sense to me but I guess I will get use to this system. Way better than not having challenges.
 
# 16 Perfect Zero @ 01/18/14 11:04 PM
I agree with JFB123; I don't see why MLB could not have added a fifth umpire to every crew with one rotating in the media booth with a headset and a video feed. All you would need for communication would be a headset and a guy upstairs telling either the Crew Chief or the Home Plate Umpire that a play was wrong and where the runners need to go. We really didn't need to pretend to be football on this one.

With that said, I think that this is a great move for Baseball and it will only get better with refinement. I like all of the challengable calls, although I would like to see fair/foul over the basses and in the infield and HBPs reviewable as well. I've already talked about the challenge system and I think that they are going to have to go over it well with the managers before Spring Training hits.

The thing is, I think this will actually speed the game up. If a manager has a challenge and he wants to use it, he can ask the umpires to look at it. If he doesn't have a challenge, then he doesn't need to be arguing. If this cuts out the manager making an *** of himself and delaying the game, then it's good for the game. Hopefully managers will have a shorter leash when it comes to arguments.

A side-note on the playoffs: As a fan of a team that has been three of the past four years... there may be more teams in but not winning the Division hurts a whole lot. Adding two teams and making a one game play-in was a great move because you have to win your Division in the regular season to have a good chance.
 
# 17 Blzer @ 01/21/14 10:54 AM
Here's another thing though: baseball is the only sport where we aren't told the effect of a play over the loudspeaker, neither by official nor PA announcer.

Will they start doing that as well, too? Fans just have to be reliant on the final result without any word as to why it happened, what they saw, etc. I think it will leave home crowds restless when calls are overturned without documented evidence or observations. Yeah, they'll get riled up regardless... but being kept in the dark can hurt more sometimes.

Plus, I love being mad at umpires. I certainly wish they got more calls right, but when they don't and a break goes your way, you love the feel of relief that the game can throw up anything your way. You know deep in the bottom of your heart that your team has earned victories, playoff berths, and maybe even championships due to blown calls. You might have lost them as well, but that dice roll is always enticing.

These aren't the reasons I'm against video replay at all, though. I'm not necessarily against it, but I don't yet know if I like the system they put into place. I described what I would have liked to see once (which is pretty close to it I guess), but nothing involving an abusive challenge system.
 
# 18 kehlis @ 01/21/14 12:53 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by JFB123
I like extended challenges but we don't need to make this like football. Why not add an extra official to call down to the head umpire and say 'hey, you might want to take a second look at this'. Makes more sense to me but I guess I will get use to this system. Way better than not having challenges.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Perfect Zero
I agree with JFB123; I don't see why MLB could not have added a fifth umpire to every crew with one rotating in the media booth with a headset and a video feed. All you would need for communication would be a headset and a guy upstairs telling either the Crew Chief or the Home Plate Umpire that a play was wrong and where the runners need to go. We really didn't need to pretend to be football on this one.

With that said, I think that this is a great move for Baseball and it will only get better with refinement. I like all of the challengable calls, although I would like to see fair/foul over the basses and in the infield and HBPs reviewable as well. I've already talked about the challenge system and I think that they are going to have to go over it well with the managers before Spring Training hits.

The thing is, I think this will actually speed the game up. If a manager has a challenge and he wants to use it, he can ask the umpires to look at it. If he doesn't have a challenge, then he doesn't need to be arguing. If this cuts out the manager making an *** of himself and delaying the game, then it's good for the game. Hopefully managers will have a shorter leash when it comes to arguments.

A side-note on the playoffs: As a fan of a team that has been three of the past four years... there may be more teams in but not winning the Division hurts a whole lot. Adding two teams and making a one game play-in was a great move because you have to win your Division in the regular season to have a good chance.
No need for an extra crew member.

Since it's being handled by a central office it could just be their job to decided when we look at something.

Just like hockey does it.
 
# 19 DrJones @ 01/21/14 07:12 PM
I'm in favour with one caveat: no instant replay to be used in Red Sox/Yankees matchups. Those games take two weeks to play as is.
 
# 20 jmik58 @ 01/23/14 02:54 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by lhslancers
Imagine that and on the last play of the game no less. I hope they don't overdo this whole thing. You hate to see a bad call result in a loss especially in a big game but part of the charm of baseball is the occasional blown call. The umps get most of these right with the exception of balls and strikes which is an entirely different matter of course.
What could really be horrible is a situation where a manager loses his challenge from a play earlier in the game and a Jim Joyce last-play-of-the-game instance happens. Under the rules as I understand them, the umps would not be allowed to review a play past the 7th inning to benefit a team that previously challenged a play incorrectly in that game.

If Leyland would have missed a challenge in the 3rd inning of the game with Galarraga (speaking hypothetically) it would have prevented Joyce's missed call on the final play of the game from being reviewed.

I'm not so sure I'm a big fan of this caveat for allowing/disallowing reviews. If you're going to have reviews, the system should be there to fix plays that need to be fixed -- period. A call in the 7th or beyond isn't any more/less worthy of correction simply because a manager missed on a challenge earlier in the game.

I honestly see that aspect of the rule getting changed as soon as an obvious big call is missed (playoffs?). It reminds me of the NFL rule (since changed) that disallowed a challenge on a play that was being challenged anyways, due to a coach getting an unsportsmanlike penalty for challenging a non-challengeable play.
 

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