Instant Replay The Cheap and Dirty Way

This week owners approved instant replay for the 2014 season.  The fans have been asking them to do that for a while now but what was approved won’t make the fans happy.

What Fans Wanted And What We Got

For the past few years there’s been an increasing loud and strident chorus of fans, players and even umpires asking that a sensible system of instant replay be instituted. Initially the Commissioner was against it but as time went on he gradually came around. As usual however the simplest answer never had a chance. The system they adopted is as convoluted as a corn maze designed by a drunk ant.

 Camel => Horse

There’s an old saying that a camel is a horse designed by a committee; the more people who have a hand in designing something the less likely it is to be what you wanted.  A committee designed the new replay system and proved that cliché one hundred percent true. Herewith the sordid detail compared to what they could easily have done.

Saint Louis Post Dispatch writer Bernie Miklasz called a the system gimmick. He went on to liken the procedures to those of a TV game show. He asks some very reasonable questions. (Paraphrasing here)

• Why doe the manager get only two challenges a game?
• Why do they forfeit their second challenge if the first is not upheld?
• Why are the managers being scrutinized and not the umpires?
• Why are the umpires being given a free pass?
• Why just get some calls right, why not all of them?

To those I would add

• Why do umpires get to challenge something? Aren’t they right already?
• If Umpires challenge themselves responding to a manager’s argument isn’t that in effect a manager’s challenge?
• Why do the second baseman and shortstop get a pass on the double play vicinity play? Simply call runners out for interference as the rules now allow if he slides into a defender and not into a bag. The close enough to touch with his hand idea is silly. Umpires know why a slide is made.

Miklasz concludes with this gem.

"Instead of staging an absurd Kabuki theater, MLB should just put an eye-in-the-sky supervisor in a booth upstairs to take a look at close or questionable calls. He’d buzz the crew chief to pause the game, quickly review the play, and then issue a ruling on the call."

Gee, I like that. I could have said it myself. Oh wait, I did and so did many others.

Many spoke but no one listened

In 2009 following blown line calls in the ALCS Jon Miller opined on the subject.

"(Jon) Miller suggests positioning the two baseline umpires used during the playoffs in a replay booth, with the authority to contact the crew chief in case they agree calls need to be overturned. “You wouldn’t need to have meetings or anything,” he said. “It could happen very quickly, and you could do it just for the postseason. What they have now with the boundary calls is fine. Just do something a little more in-depth for the postseason. Why not?”"

In 2011 Craig Calceterra over at Hardball Talks said this.

"That’s the key, I believe, for replay to work well as it expands in use. The eye-in-the-sky — I say a fifth umpire in a booth — who can almost instantly review calls without on-field arguing and challenges and without the regular umpires having to leave the field. We already allow one ump to overrule another if he saw a play better. This would simply be an extension of that. Indeed, practically speaking all it would require is an ear piece worn by the crew chief. If the sky-ump sees the play was called wrong on the field, it can be resolved in a matter of seconds."

I wrote over a year ago that the answer should be simple, the technology existed and that MLB would never do it because it cost too much. Essentially I opined that:

• A fifth umpire be added to every crew stationed in a video room supplied by each club at their ballpark
• Each umpire wear an in-ear communications device
• The fifth umpire to automatically review and correct all close plays

Someone ask whether the ear piece would affect the umpires hearing on the field or get dislodged when they run.  No. At least this one wouldn’t.

Why was the easy, simple, straightforward answer bypassed for such a complex system?

Follow the money

People are the most expensive thing you can add to any business and the new system means MLB needs to hire eight new umpires to man the central replay room at their headquarters in New York City.  Since umpires earn at least $100,000 a year plus benefits that adds something like a million dollars to their annual budget.  The new umpires will likely go the field and the replay room be manned by experienced umps but the overall money’s the same. To put an umpire in each ballpark would require about 20 new umpire. Twenty, why? Workload factors.

Manpower calculations always include a factor for vacation, illness and emergency absence from a job. The last time I worked with one it was about 1.8. If that were applied the required number would be 27 but in this case would could use minor league umpires for a large part of it the extra work. Still more have to be major league ready and that means more training for them and different contract structure. This ripples through the minor leagues generating new jobs at all levels. Many they can get agovernment grant. . . I digress.  They also have to train more senior umps for video room duty. In any event the number at the major league level would likely be five not twelve.

That would increase the annual payroll by at least $2.5M and likely closer to three immediately. In the long term it also increases health care, pension and disability benefits too so the $2.5M a year is just the tip of the payroll iceberg. There’s also the increased travel, lodging and meals expenses for the extra ump an increase of 20% per game if my math isn’t too rusty.  Another consideration is the room at the ballpark and the equipment to furnish it as well as paying the TV companies to replay the plays on demand. Yes, I know they do it anyway but do you expect them not to ask for more money to do it when asked by an ump?  Centralizing it in New York allows the MLBAM folks to be the ones to cue up the replays.  As they are owned by MLB the money merely moves sideways and not out. Having had MLB Extra Innings for years I worry about their ability to do the job but let’s assume they can for now. When MLB looked at their bottom line they saw a saving of a couple of million a year initially and a lot more in the long term. That’s the reason no matter how they want to spin it, MLB went the cheapest route and they had a loud enough voice to persuade everyone this was the way to go.

That’s a Wrap

I expect Bud and his minions to be out extolling the virtues of the system over the next few weeks. They’ve already said it may not all be ready and everyone up to speed by the start of the season. I expect them to say that limiting challenges will prevent managerial abuse of the system.  I’m sure lawyer and committee member Tony LaRussa wanted something to stop others from doing what he would have tried to do as manager, exploit the system to give his team an advantage. That’s easily done without limiting challenges however.

They will say the system won’t slow the game down as much but the way it’s configured it has to slow it down. I saw nothing in the rules to stop a manager from arguing without challenging a call if he’s used up his challenges. Is that grounds to eject him? Will they?

The folks in New York will have 10-15 games going at once, what’s the likelihood of challenges happening simultaneously? Not high I admit but it will happen and we will hear about it. The players, managers and umpires will have to learn the system and there will be screw-ups along the way. This happens with any system. The amount of rules makes the learning curve steeper and longer.

There are a myriad of things that can go wrong here but I guess it’s better than nothing. One last thought, If we get Angel Hernandez, Joe West, Bob Davidson and C.B. Bucknor in the replay room will Hernandez and Bucknor call down and have Fredi Gonzalez ejected just for old times sake?