MLB Owners Approve Funding For Instant Replay Next Season
By Ryan Ritchey
Mandatory Credit: Eileen Blass-USA TODAY Sports
This afternoon, November 14th, is a day to remember. The MLB Owners have officially approved the funding for Instant Replay next season. Here is the tweet from Ken Rosenthal.
As you can see the players’ and umpires’ union still have to also approve. Ken Rosenthal expects them to do so.
Major League Baseball tested the system in five Arizona Fall League games, earlier this month just to see how it would work. It must have pleased them because now they are moving forward in getting it approved to move into the MLB.
MLB Executive Vice President Joe Torre, and Special Assistant to the Commissioner Tony LaRussa, were in attendance for the AFL games. Along with them were a select few MLB umpires to also observe the system.
This system can change the game of baseball. It doesn’t take too long to review the plays, as the AFL averaged about a minute per replay. I love the human element of baseball, but the umpiring has gotten so sketchy that is time to make a change. No one wants to see a call go against their team in a close game at any point in the season.
Ken Rosenthal also points out something very important in this next tweet.
That is also a huge thing. We don’t want to see too many challenges either. The games already take long enough as it is, so two per manager is a good number in my mind. This will put a little bit of strategy in the challenging process for each and every manager. Do they want to save one for late in the game no matter what or do they want to use them when they know the call is wrong and let one late in the game go, because they are out of challenges? That is something each club will have to discuss going forward in this process.
None the less it should be fun to see how it changes the game of baseball overall, and the happiness of the players and fans now that this is looking like it will be put in place in 2014.