Baseball GM's vote 25-5 in favor of limited use of instant replay

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I don't like it. I think baseball is the one sport where the human element is as vital to the game as any other part of it.

 

Agreed.

Instant replay only works well for sports like hockey and football because of the quickness of everything and how you can almost never tell what calls are right.

I mean, how can they even use instant replay? I can only think of a few instances that might call of instant replay; but not many.

 

the article says it'll be used mainly for close home run calls. but baseball's built on controversial plays...

 

I'm a fan of it for homerun calls.

 

Baseball is the sport that is in most need of and could make the best use of replay. The number of blown calls is astronomical. Unlike football, basketball, and hockey where most calls are judgmental (fouls,penalties); most calls in baseball are simple safe/out or fair/foul. While it would be difficult to use replay for calling balls and strikes, using it for plays on the bases would greatly improve the game. However, you'd probably get a lot of push-back from the umpires in implementing it because they wouldn't want people to know how often they're wrong. For instance, the Rockies won the wild card on a blown call at home plate. Replay clearly showed the runner never touched the plate. The Rockies still might have gone on to win, but the Padres didn't deserve to lose like that.

Of course, they've only approved it for a few calls and haven't even come up with a system yet. Initially, you'd have to do something centralized because otherwise you'd be wasting money having someone at each game to make the reviews.

 

I don't see how anybody can possibly be against the use of instant replay on home run calls. I agree that instant replay should never be used for safe/out calls for no other reason than the intuitive but impossible to quantify belief that blown calls are just plain a part of baseball, but incorrect home run calls are indefensible, IMO.

 

Yeah. Put me in the camp that says this is great for homerun calls. As long as it never expands (too far) away from that.

 

that's the thing Inty, if this goes through... it will eventually expand to every call.

 

Why does everybody say that? I've never heard a single person say they want ball/strike replay in baseball, and I don't see any reason to think that baseball GMs would support it.

 

Baseball will now officially be the absolute slowest sport in the world. Yes, that means golf is like hockey compared with baseball now. That is, only if you believe that golf is a sport. Which it's not.

 

I think replay is needed for homerun calls (and thus, I like this move), fair/foul, and maybe safe/out... but replay should never be used for balls and strikes.

 

Agreed.

 

It should definitly be used for homerun calls (how many times have we had to wait while the umps and managers debate whether it went foul or not? I can count a couple times just in playoffs this year).

Homeruns and safe/out calls only, as everyone else says. I don't care if it loses it's "humanistic" aspect, I'd rather have the real winner than a botched call.

 

Bad calls are a traditional part of the game! When have you not been at a game when the crowd gets pumped up because of a "bad" call? If your team can win despite of them, it shows they're a truly good team.