Adding more fuel to the replay fire

[erik316wttn]

Outside the Lines conducted a study and found that umpires miss 1 in every 5 close calls (not counting balls and strikes). The panel found an average of 1.3 calls per game that could realistically be reviewed.

 

I know replay is a hot button issue with fans today. Personally, I can't see how anyone could be opposed to a system that ensures the correct call is made on the field. I don't know how you'd implement it or call for replays, but I think it something that needs to be in place for more than just home runs.

 

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/otl/news/story?id=5464015

[CubmanPi]

They specified that the missed 20% were 20% of the CLOSE plays. With 1.3 close plays per game, that's 0.26 close plays every game they get wrong. In 54 outs, that's still a very small number.

 

I'm fine with replay, but the absence of replay in the big picture of a game, much less a season, is having very little impact. In that 0.26 calls per game they get wrong, it's still rare to change the game's outcome. And in the rare instance that the game's outcome is altered, it's still less than 1% of the season's games. That leaves the other 161 games to be determined by the better team, and the odds of that making a difference on the post-season are very slim.

 

Since the end of the 2001 season, there have been 3 seasons in which there were no teams in baseball which missed the playoffs by one game or less. The other six seasons, there was one team which missed either the WC or the division title by 0.5 or 1 games. (I'm not counting the Rockies missing the division by 0.5 games in 2007, because they still won the WC.) Two of the years where there was a team which missed by one game, it was the Mets having an epic choke when the playoffs were well within their grasps with less than two weeks left and they blew it themselves. One of the years there was a 1-game difference, it was the Astros missing the playoffs by one game in 2003. The Cubs locked up the division 2 or 3 games before the end of the year and were able to let up at the end.

 

It's frustrating to see the wrong calls, and replay would definitely get rid of almost all of them, but until replay is implemented on a larger scale, the best team is still winning.

[daske17]

It boggles my mind that Selig can keep his head in the sand on this issue. Empirical and anecdotal evidence keeps pointing to expanded replay, but he claims that there isn't enough support for it.

 

I just don't see how that's possible. Every team with a game on the line would probably want some recourse for a questionable call.

 

There's just no reason for this to still be debated. Just do it already!

[Banedon]

They specified that the missed 20% were 20% of the CLOSE plays. With 1.3 close plays per game, that's 0.26 close plays every game they get wrong. In 54 outs, that's still a very small number.

 

In an individual game, fine. But multiply that times the number of games in a season...something close to 2600 or so, right?

[EhDubya]

It will take a Jim Joycesque mistake to happen in the playoffs to the yankees or red sox for it to happen, imo.

[Soul]

I don't see how replay will not eventually be instituted.

 

It's going to happen, the question is when. There's always going to be another horrifying bad call right around the bend, which creates continual, natural pressure to implement replay.

[Sammy Sofa]

The debate over replay is good for baseball, from Selig's perspective. Actually slowing down the game with it is not. It's not going to happen until he's out of there in a few years.

[Guest]

I wonder how many of those 20% would actually have been changed by having a replay system in place. In other words, how many were foul balls ruled fair, catches ruled traps, etc.

[davearm2]

They specified that the missed 20% were 20% of the CLOSE plays. With 1.3 close plays per game, that's 0.26 close plays every game they get wrong. In 54 outs, that's still a very small number.

Sounds like you'd have ~40 reversed calls per team in a typical year... about one every fourth game.

 

Leaguewide that'd come to ~600 reversals a year.

 

Those start to look like meaningful numbers IMO.

[CubmanPi]

They specified that the missed 20% were 20% of the CLOSE plays. With 1.3 close plays per game, that's 0.26 close plays every game they get wrong. In 54 outs, that's still a very small number.

Sounds like you'd have ~40 reversed calls per team in a typical year... about one every fourth game.

 

Leaguewide that'd come to ~600 reversals a year.

 

Those start to look like meaningful numbers IMO.

 

Jim Joyce's blown call would have resulted in a perfect game celebration that got delayed by three minutes, but the game would have ended the same. I haven't been watching much of the Cubs this year, but there probably could be a few reversed calls that led to them only losing by 7 or 8 runs instead of 10 or 11.

 

600 reversals in a season of 126,360 outs (give or take a few hundred for extra innings, unnecessary bottoms of 9th) still gives you a blown call for every 0.4% of outs for the season, and only a handful of those are going to impact the outcome of a game. And I already pointed out the number of teams the last decade that came within a game of the post-season. You're still talking drops in a bucket.

 

Granted, there will definitely be a case where a team gets kept out of the post-season due to a blown call late in the season that costs a game and keeps that team one game out of the playoffs in the last week, and there will be another team that's not the Cardinals who will lose a post-season game or series due to bad umpiring, and if that were to happen, it'll be awful that replay isn't already in place. However, just based on the numbers and odds, it will likely be multiple decades between such circumstances, and I don't blame the league for not wanting to slow down hundreds of thousands of games as a preventative measure.

[davearm2]

Everyone's going to have their own opinion about the frequency of missed calls required to justify installing replay.