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Instant Replay in MLB

In what seems to be the theme of this postseason, the umpires botched another couple of calls in Game Two of the World Series last night. Then, on SportsCenter, Buck Showalter really botched his anti-instant replay argument.

First, the bad calls. In the seventh inning, Jorge Posada on first, Johnny Damon batting... Damon hits a soft liner in the direction of first base. Ryan Howard "catches" it, makes an initial move to tag first base but then decides to throw to second. His throw pulls Jimmy Rollins off the bag.

The call? One of the weirder double plays in recent memory. Damon was out because Howard caught the ball on a fly, Posada out... just because. (Maybe it happened after they went to commercial, but I never saw Howard tag first or anyone tag Posada.)

Replays seemed to show Howard trapping the ball, rather than catching it. Of course, Howard didn't seem to think he'd caught the ball on a fly -- if he had, he would have simply stepped on first, rather than throwing to second. Sure, the trap was hard to see when viewing the play at full speed -- but shouldn't Howard's reaction count for something?

In the next inning, we had a more typical missed call, as the umpires called Chase Utley out on the second half of a double play. Replays clearly showed him beating the throw from Cano to Teixeira.

After the latest blown call, the subject of replay predictably came up on SportsCenter, where Buck Showalter offered this argument:

If they watch the replay and reverse the call, where do you put the runners? That's why you can't have replay.
Uh, what?

Take the Damon/Posada play, and follow it to its conclusion. Howard's throw pulled Rollins off the bag, so there's no force-out at second. Posada gets the base. Howard never tagged first, so Damon gets that base. What's so difficult about that?

The Utley play is even simpler. Utley beat the throw, he gets the bag. What's to discuss?

Comments

By: jtr5708
On: 10/30/2009 10:34:00 AM		 After the amount of blown calls in this postseason I don't see how MLB can't have serious discussions about instant replay during the offseason. I think the most obvious change would be to include boundary calls along the foul line.
 
By: iceguy
On: 10/30/2009 10:54:00 AM		 In these instances, yes, the answers to where to put the runners were obvious. But that's not always going to be the case.

But imagine runners on 1st and 2nd, one out. Ground ball to shortstop, who flips to second for one, and then onto first for the double play. While the double-play is being turned, the lead runner rounds third and heads for home.

Except that now replay shows that the batter beat the throw.

Is he awarded home? Do we stop him at 3rd?

Runners on the corners, 2 outs. Runner from 1st steals second, and is called out. Except he's safe on replay. Runner from 3rd got a late break for the plate, so maybe the SS would have gotten him at home. Except the SS didn't throw because the trailing runner was called out. Does the lead runner score?

Are we going to do instant replay for "Catch/No Catch" in the outfield? Then the base awards get really problematic. I think all of the same arguments for IR on Safe/Out apply on Catch/No-Catch.
 
By: rceisner
On: 10/30/2009 12:08:00 PM		 I think I sort of understand Showalter's point -- Rollins made his play under the assumption that Howard caught the ball, so he tagged Posada for the easy double play. But had the ball been ruled trapped (either on the field or in replay), who is to say he would not have rifled the ball back over to first and got Johnny Damon on a close play?
 

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