MLB Umpires Could Start Wearing Mics To Explain Replay Decisions
In a time when attention spans are shrinking, Major League Baseball is desperately searching for ways to speed up their games, eliminate dead time and create more action. That’s why they’ve come up with this great plan to make their replay process even longer.
I’m being a dick, obviously. First of all, this isn’t even agreed upon yet. Second of all, it’ll probably add an extra, what, five seconds to the process? And, of course, it’ll be great to actually have umpires explain what it is that they saw that sometimes we do not see/agree with. Accountability is always good. But the one rule that I’ve been dying to see, which they didn’t include in the new CBA, is a time limit for reviews.
They’ve given a time limit to managers on how long they have before they can no longer challenge a play, but they haven’t given umpires a time limit on how long they have to make up their fucking minds, and I think they need to do that. Why is it that the viewer at home and the broadcasters in the booth can all make a decision a good 20 seconds before we actually get the official ruling on the field? Gotta get a time limit on reviews.
Anyway, here’s the plan that’s being discussed:
While nothing is set, Major League Baseball and umps are expected to discuss a plan — most prominently used in the NFL — for crew chiefs to wear a microphone and explain replay rulings. Under one possible scenario, they would start at the All-Star Game on July 11 in Miami, tweak the process over the season’s second half and then go forward with the experiment in the playoffs. People familiar with the talks spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because an agreement has not yet been reached.
To my point earlier, the AP article goes on to note that “MLB has tried to speed up reviews this year, aiming for the umpires in the New York replay booth to relay the final calls to the field in under 2 minutes,” but doesn’t it feel like two minutes is still overkill? Take out your phone, pull up the stopwatch, go YouTube a controversial baseball highlight, slow it down, drag the playhead back and forth on a good angle of the play, and tell me how long it takes you to make a call. There’s no way it takes more than a minute. I’d even say 40 seconds is plenty of time, but I’m willing to spare a maximum of 60 seconds out of the kindness of my heart.
But in regards to this story, sure, I’d like to have umpires explain themselves. A lot of times, if a call is upheld, it’s because the umpires didn’t see enough to overturn the call. If that’s the case, I want to know that versus feeling like they actually believe the runner was actually safe, the ball was foul, or whatever the case may be.