OK, we’re through the first half of the Poseroski Baseball Previews! What do you think? I’m asking because my brain is entirely numb from writing them … and I’m still not done writing them all. Why do I do these things to myself?
Answer: Because I love you!
Here’s the tentative schedule for the second half of the Poseroskis:
Monday, April 4: American League East Tuesday, April 5: National League West Wednesday, April 6: American League Central
I might have a little surprise to slip in there, but that’s how I’m thinking about it right now. Thank you to all of you for reading and a special welcome to all you new subscribers. I hope you like it here.
OK, today, we’re going to have a fun thread about sports replay. I’m kicking it off with a couple of tweets. Hockey director of analytics Jeff Veillette tweeted this out:
“My stance on offside reviews remains the same in soccer as it is in hockey. Only let them watch in full speed. If they need slow-mo to find it, it doesn't matter. The rule exists to prevent cherry-picking, overturning goals over milimetres and grass blades never feels right.”
Now, if that idea of replay at full speed sounds familiar — it’s because I have written about it many times. So I jumped off from his with my own Tweet:
“This is so, so right. It's why I dislike so much of replay in sports. I'm all for replay overturning bad calls. But what it does much more is amplify and intensify broad rules that were not intended to be studied and scrutinized and examined to the last millimeter.”
A brilliant reader responded that the problem is not millimeters but instead the long delays — after all, pretty much everybody loves instant replay in tennis, which comes down to millimeters. I responded to that too:
“This is true, but it's also exactly my point -- that rule of the ball being in or out in tennis WAS ALWAYS intended to be measured by millimeters. That's why it works. Offside and a baserunner's foot bouncing imperceptibly off the bag and most others are not.”
Anyway, I have a lot to say about this subject, but let’s leave it to you. I’ll try to check in throughout the day if I can — you know, between writing about Diamondbacks catching and whatnot.
What percent of MLB replays are ones where the announcers say, "oh, that's got to be reviewed", and it IS reviewed [because they still have a challenge], and the call gets quickly overturned? Obviously those should stay. But I really have no good feel for how often that happens. 10% of the time? 40%? I don't think it is as much as "half of challenges". Because most of the time, the umpires don't make obvious mistakes.
Just make sure that another Armando Galarraga incident doesn't occur, isn't that the most important part?
Ah Joe ... either I missed something or you have only published two of six Pozeroski’s which according to my math is 33% not half. Looking forward to the other four.
So I think full speed only might be going too far, but they slow it down too much. I was unable to find how slow the slow motion cameras go, (Perhaps I used the wrong search words or I suck at google) but I did find a replay of WR running full speed in the open field with a full head of steam where he took 7 or 8 seconds to move 6 yards. That seems at least 10X to me, and that is too much.
As far as the millimeters off the bag thing, players feet have been slightly losing contact with the bag after sliding for 150 years. It is pretty much physically impossible to have a collision with a raised bag at that speed and not have it happen. Also in baseball, I have seen plays at first where they slowing it down 10 times or more while discussing whether the ball had hit the back of the glove or just started to enter the glove when the player's foot hit the bag. If it is that damned close, it should be whatever the ump called it, and there is no real reason for anyone to bitch about it. I think if it isn't obvious at half speed, or a quarter speed at the very most, you just go with what the umpire said.
I first noticed this in football, when they started to crack down on hard hits. They would slow the play down to 1 tenth or 1 20th of the speed, and it looked like the guy had all the time in the world to make a decision or change his course. It looked dirty. Then you watched it at full speed and realized the guy didn't even have enough time to think (much less say) Oh crap before the play was over. That being said, they may have to slow the camera down further than 1/4 in football on turnovers. Because every turnover is reviewed, officials are instructed (even though they still don't always do it) to let the action play out, rather than calling the ball dead, so there is an inherent bias there, and they have to make sure it was actually a turnover. Other than that, same thing. If it isn't obvious at 1/4 speed at most, then whatever is called prevails.
As far as speed goes, they do need to speed it up in both sports. First, the ump or ref on the field does not need to go to a booth or hood or whatever. A dedicated video guy for that game (I don't care if it is on site or not) looks at the play and communicates his decision electronically. He doesn't talk to the guy on the field other than that.
The purpose of replay was to try and eliminate egregious errors, not have the broadcast broken up with 2 minutes or more of announcers dissecting a play (and sometimes still disagreeing) at 1/10th or less of game speed, something the human eye simply can't see.
First I have to preface with the fact that I do not mind replays.
I think the execution is wrong. I believe people who have no idea the call on the field, score, time remaining (as much as that is feasible) etc should be given x amount of seconds to either determine a correct call or let the call stand. I feel like this method both takes away the bias of knowing what was called on the field on the field. Additionally it should make the replay delay shorter As they have a yes or no decision not trying determine if there’s enough evidence to overturn.
I know there are problems with it but I hate to see an important game habit outcome changed because of a bad call.
Additionally to Joe’s point I do think you need to exclude some thing from replay such as a base runner sliding and barely no longer making contact with a base or a soccer player being offsides because his arm was extended.
The answer to all things is money. Now that gambling is legal there is too much money riding on these games for any sort of gray area so we dissect it to the hundredth degree
In baseball, they need to stop over analyzing whether the runner came off the bad for a half a second while the fielder kept tagging him for several seconds after the play is pretty much over. Basically, once the runner hits the bag, the play should be over. If the runner beat the tag, it doesn't matter if he comes off the base for a moment. Exceptions might be if the runner slides way past the base and loses contact because he can't reach it anymore, but that would come up like once a season.
As for football, they have to stop with this "made a football move" business. What is that? Is that when I get up from my couch to get a drink during the commercial? If the guy is holding the ball and has 2 feet down in bounds, it's a catch. I don't really care if he's moving the ball around a little bit when you slow it down.
This is one area where baseball should lean into its slower pace. There's plenty of time between batters for someone in a replay booth to press a button that basically says 'hang on a second.' I mean, this is what managers do when they're trying to decide whether to use their review - they're waiting to hear from a guy in a booth. So let's just cut out the middleman. And stop the dumb "he's out because there were air molecules between his pants and the base for a fraction of a second." Nobody likes this. I don't think it should be over simplified to 'the throw beat the runner' though. One of the pleasures of the tag reviews is when you get to see someone like Javy Baez do some ridiculous swim move to evade a glove. Stuff like that should be rewarded, I think.
In football, nobody understands half the rules anyway, and so many of them are judgment calls without clear answers. So replay is just "what if we don't know, but slower?" Fine with getting rid of most of it, except the easyish stuff like out of bounds.
-Manager must decide in real-time whether or not they want to challenge. No conferring with your replay specialist.
- Stop with the stupid headsets. Call gets challenged, the replay ump in Chelsea contacts the stadium's PA announcer and relays the decision to him/her directly.
- If you beat the tag and come off momentarily, you are safe. These are grown men, running faster than ever, on perfectly manicured fields that do nothing to slow them down when they slide.
Yes! I believe that replay also brought us “what is a catch?” In football. I hate that they allow managers/coaches to challenge after hearing from the teams replay person. If you feel like the call was bad in real time (previously you would have run out to argue with the ump, then challenge it.). If you have to freeze frame and zoom in, is it really a bad call?
I really hate replay because you can hardly ever celebrate anything in the moment. You cheer for a second then, oh wait, there’s going to be a review so it may stand or not.
No manager challenges! Have an extra umpire crew member in the booth who initiates and handles reviews. Replay umps call - confirm or reverse - stands.
The thing that makes Hawkeye perfect in tennis is that it turns the decision into a simple binary in/out call. It's not the replay part that does this but the interpolation of a completely new computer generated image.
That Hawkeye is only mostly right is beside the point when you're watching it. (Although when the crowd oohs-and-aahs because Hawkeye shows the ball is 1/20th of a millimeter in: that's obviously beyond the ability of the system to actually determine.) It's that we've removed all appearance of human failures/biases and we've put our faith completely in the system.
So we should obviously have all video review revert to some computer generated image/decision-making algorithm. Close call at first base: the coach challenges and instantly a computer generated reenactment of the call goes up on the jumbotron. You'd probably have to keep the images relatively lifelike, but there are real marketing opportunities here even without a Chevy Silverado tire getting to the bag an instant before the Cup-o-Noodles hits Tony the Tiger's mitt.
As for the baseball previews, go Joe, go! Great work so far, and the commitment to detail is perfect. (Provided this is not permanently damaging your mental health or causing some kind of irreversible carpal tunnel nerve damage, of course.)
I agree with the spirit of what pretty much everyone else here is saying about replay. My comment would be that replay has added a new level of infuriation for me as a fan when they do a replay review and still get the call wrong.
Enjoying the baseball previews especially the franchise back stories. I loved your story about the policeman/Indy/speeding and the Big Red Machine. The Reds used to OWN Indianapolis! Now mostly Cubs and some Cards fans; rarely see a Reds cap. On replay, please don't let any sport turn in to the sluggish nightmare that college basketball has become in the last two minutes of regulation!
With the exception of the player bouncing off the bag by a millimeter, and that not being something that thinks anybody should really be studied with super slow motion, many other safe/out plays are a matter of an inch, or so, and that IS what we want to have reviewed. So we should focus on fixing the part of the rule that we hate, and not use the exception to attack the rest of the rule that we're OK with.
Another aspect of this is that most rules were written without replay in mind. There are some rules (e.g. tennis in/out) that work seamlessly with replay, but others that don't. As well as fitting replay to the current rules, we could fit the rules to replay, in a way that preserves the *spirit* of the original rules. In other words, instead of limited the way in which replay can be used, modified the way in which the technology of replay *applies*.
For instance, if a baserunner beats the tag but then comes a mm off, we never meant for that to be an out. So rather than worrying over the ways that replay is used, we can just change the rule:
"Once a runner reaches the base safely, he must remain in the vicinity of the bag, attempt to maintain contact with the bag, and if he loses contact, return immediately."
Is this a judgement call? Yes! Explicitly so. The part that is meant to be exact (which touch happened first) is precisely reviewed, while the other part is freed from that standard. This would speed up replay, lessen the number of annoying mm calls, and also maintain the consistency of the rulebook: the rules would be interpreted as precisely as possible, given the technology available.
This might take a lot of thought, and may not always work, bur I think it's better to do it at the level of the rulebook. Think: what do we actually want to happen in this scenario, and how do we use our technology to implement that? I believe this philosophy will lead to an overall better game.
I see the essentially the same comment over and over here which is the same thing I hear in every conversation I've ever been involved in with this. I can't think of a single topic inside or outside of sports that's this close to unanimous. If the entire world can agree on this why can't ANY professional sports leagues figure this out? (Maybe tennis. Those seem pretty fast).
I’m in the camp of just speed it up. I don’t care if you are overturning calls goals because a player was offside by a millimeters if you get the correct call in 30 seconds or less. I know this possible because I do it from coach this fast the vast majority of time.
Get rid of the overhead of having a referee walk somewhere. Have an off-site replay referee and have them call in ruling to ref thru an earpiece.
If it’s not obvious after 30 seconds, in slomo, then it’s just not obvious and no team has a legitimate gripe. Even braking things down frame by frame there are still some 50-50 calls—is the image an old woman or a young woman?
Agree with a lot of the folks here. I have come to hate instant replay as the flow and enjoyment sucking dementor it is, particularly in college basketball, where the last two minutes take FOREVER. I especially hate the five minute review to add 0.4 seconds to the clock with 10 seconds to go in a 6 point game.
It's also infuriating when they spend all that time to overturn something and you have the officials "expert" in the TV booth still disagree after predicting incorrectly.
Give a coach/manager one unsuccessful challenge a game (then he is done challenging), force him/her to ask for it within 20-30 seconds, and then give the replay official 30 seconds to overturn. Just overturn the Angel Hernandez level bad calls.
I get that we all pretty much agree that foot slipping briefly off the base is a case of following the letter of the law to the detriment of the spirit of the game (He beat the throw, he's safe). The point of replay is to have proof against completely blown calls like the Denkinger and Joyce ones.
The decision to challenge a call in pro football is often determined by how quick the broadcast network runs a replay & the coaches upstairs see it. This makes the network, particularly the "director" of the broadcast who calls for what is shown on TV and when, an unaccountable third-party.
The previews are OUTSTANDING I was also a big fan of the Bill Mazeroski Baseball Preview magazine as well as Street and Smith and The Sporting News annuals. The worst use of replay in baseball is the tag at 2nd base when the runner beats the throw and is called out when his finger go past the bag I'm sure that is not why replay was instituted.
This all gets to a problem with modern living and advances in science: increasingly precise measurements, sophisticated metrics, rapid deflation of cherished myths (eg, The Myth of Clutch Performers - man, did that hurt!). How do we preserve some mystery? How do we preserve the wisdom of knowing that not everything is fair, not every call is correct...AND LIFE GOES ON!
Use Hawkeye-style tech for boundary calls, and full-speed video only for all other replay, with a 30-second time limit to review. Or 20 seconds, even better.
Am I the only one bewildered over the seemingly universal agreement that cherry-picking in hockey is bad? If a team wants to risk odd man rushes, why not let them? (Also, it’s always struck me as odd that basically every sequence and player positioning decision in hockey is premised on the offsides rule, but American announcers spend basically no time explaining that to viewers who probably have no idea.)
Having difficulty keeping up with reading the Pozeroski, so no idea how you’re keeping up with writing it! Very happy!
Also, 100% agree on the replay opinion. If you want it that exact, just put a sensor in the base that will detect pressure and let you know if the foot was off for the tag. There are all sorts of technological options that would permit precision, so doing this weird dance where we slow down the game to use only video looks a lot like sports trying to milk a few more commercials out of already long broadcasts.
Exactly right. I think for judgment calls we should move to full speed and 3 sets of eyes on it. 2 votes wins the day. This clears up catches in the NFL, tag plays in baseball, offsides in hockey and soccer, etc.
Lovin' the previews, and I agree with your take on replays. But as a D-Backs fan, ouch! Like the Beach Boys said, lo these many years ago: "be true to your school..."
I agree with Jeff in principle but would come at it a different way. You still have replay; you can still watch in slo-mo; but have it be someone watching remotely, instantly, and he/she has to make a decision within 20 seconds. That you you balance the need for fairness with the need to keep the game moving and fun. Anything that takes over 20 seconds to decide is, definitionally, in such a gray area that you're already in coin-flip territory. Like, sure, maybe Player A slid in just BARELY under the tag and thus succeeded 50.00001%, and Player B missed him by a half millimeter, thus failed 49.99999%. If somehow the replay system ended up rewarding Player B with an out nevertheless, I think philosophically we can all be okay with that given that.
I so love Hawkeye in tennis. It’s quick and pretty much full proof.
Now that it is used in a lot more situations I love it when a player starts to object to the call and then realizes the call was not made by a linesman but the technology and there is no one to complain to.
What I wouldn’t give to relive the John McEnroe points where he went ballistic on calls he thought were wrong. And see him either being a genius or, more likely, even more of a jerk than he was.
So many people constantly say “the important thing is that we get it right.” That is so wrong. The important thing is that we’re having fun! This is all for entertainment. Death to super slo-mo replay.
The Poseroski preview has been amazing! I read one team's worth aloud to my son, and it was very clear a) why The Baseball 100 weighs as much as it does; and b) that George Will was right - there must be more than one of you...
Re replay -- just look at the last two minutes of the otherwise incredible games in the men's and women's tourneys - there is no better way to suck the joy and the flow out of a thrilling game than to spend three minutes looking for a fingernail on the ball (or not). If the call is not obviously wrong (either by Hawkeye or the naked eye, time-limited), let the call stand.
What’s always bothered me about replay - and this is especially egregious in the NFL: the number of cameras at a game varies. NBC’s SNF gets significantly more cameras - and, thus, more angels - than Texans-Jaguars. There’s a competitive imbalance baked into that discrepancy. This is true of any national v local broadcast in MLB & NBA, too.
Full speed would be great. I'd even be ok with half speed. I can't stand the frame by frame, ultra slow mo, back and forth manipulation of the video since there is NO WAY anyone could ever do that with their eyes.
Even with VAR for offsides in soccer, the point they choose to freeze on is arbitrary. Who is so certain that moment is when the ball leaves the foot of the person passing the ball?
I hate (!) the slowing down of a basketball getting knocked out of someone's hands to see if it grazed a pinky on the way out.
Taking 10 minutes to micro-review a play is killing it for me, even if it benefits my team.
I've always thought there should be a time limit for replay...the video should turn off automatically after 45 seconds or a minute. If the officials can't reach a decision in that amount of time then the call should stand. That way any egregious calls can be corrected, but the miniscule nitpicking can be avoided
“that rule of the ball being in or out in tennis WAS ALWAYS intended to be measured by millimeters.”
How so? Because tennis shots are often close to the lines? If so, then isn’t the same true for baseballs hit down foul lines - and, for that matter, “bang-bang” plays on the bases?
A great way to speed it up AND make sure it's only egregious calls is to give managers 5-10 seconds to decide. No more "hold on a minute while I let my video guy check". Basically, if you wouldn't be storming out of the dugout to scream in the umps face, then too bad, the game is moving on.
On every first down the ball is spotted by a referees judgements call placing the ball on the ground saying it looks to me like the ball got to here. Then a nameless guy 30 years away on the sideline makes a judgement call and puts his stick on the ground saying it looks to me like the referee put the ball right about here. Those two judgements calls are made over and over again getting a football game with no questions asked. That's huge contrast to when a catch goes to replay. That catch is measured in millimeters and tenths of a second. That both of those scenarios can exist at the same time is mind boggling.
What percent of MLB replays are ones where the announcers say, "oh, that's got to be reviewed", and it IS reviewed [because they still have a challenge], and the call gets quickly overturned? Obviously those should stay. But I really have no good feel for how often that happens. 10% of the time? 40%? I don't think it is as much as "half of challenges". Because most of the time, the umpires don't make obvious mistakes.
Just make sure that another Armando Galarraga incident doesn't occur, isn't that the most important part?
Ah Joe ... either I missed something or you have only published two of six Pozeroski’s which according to my math is 33% not half. Looking forward to the other four.
Either have the computers call the game or the refs.
I love the previews - although I don’t know how you and your dozen contributors can get it all in. Wait, what??
I think the simple answer to replay for all sports is to limit the review time to 60 seconds. If you don’t see anything by then it’s inconclusive
Baseball divisional previews are WONDERFUL! Keep em up Joe!
Also fully expect there to be the same level of detail, humor and rigor in your end-of-season divisional reviews of each team by the same categories.
So I think full speed only might be going too far, but they slow it down too much. I was unable to find how slow the slow motion cameras go, (Perhaps I used the wrong search words or I suck at google) but I did find a replay of WR running full speed in the open field with a full head of steam where he took 7 or 8 seconds to move 6 yards. That seems at least 10X to me, and that is too much.
As far as the millimeters off the bag thing, players feet have been slightly losing contact with the bag after sliding for 150 years. It is pretty much physically impossible to have a collision with a raised bag at that speed and not have it happen. Also in baseball, I have seen plays at first where they slowing it down 10 times or more while discussing whether the ball had hit the back of the glove or just started to enter the glove when the player's foot hit the bag. If it is that damned close, it should be whatever the ump called it, and there is no real reason for anyone to bitch about it. I think if it isn't obvious at half speed, or a quarter speed at the very most, you just go with what the umpire said.
I first noticed this in football, when they started to crack down on hard hits. They would slow the play down to 1 tenth or 1 20th of the speed, and it looked like the guy had all the time in the world to make a decision or change his course. It looked dirty. Then you watched it at full speed and realized the guy didn't even have enough time to think (much less say) Oh crap before the play was over. That being said, they may have to slow the camera down further than 1/4 in football on turnovers. Because every turnover is reviewed, officials are instructed (even though they still don't always do it) to let the action play out, rather than calling the ball dead, so there is an inherent bias there, and they have to make sure it was actually a turnover. Other than that, same thing. If it isn't obvious at 1/4 speed at most, then whatever is called prevails.
As far as speed goes, they do need to speed it up in both sports. First, the ump or ref on the field does not need to go to a booth or hood or whatever. A dedicated video guy for that game (I don't care if it is on site or not) looks at the play and communicates his decision electronically. He doesn't talk to the guy on the field other than that.
The purpose of replay was to try and eliminate egregious errors, not have the broadcast broken up with 2 minutes or more of announcers dissecting a play (and sometimes still disagreeing) at 1/10th or less of game speed, something the human eye simply can't see.
First I have to preface with the fact that I do not mind replays.
I think the execution is wrong. I believe people who have no idea the call on the field, score, time remaining (as much as that is feasible) etc should be given x amount of seconds to either determine a correct call or let the call stand. I feel like this method both takes away the bias of knowing what was called on the field on the field. Additionally it should make the replay delay shorter As they have a yes or no decision not trying determine if there’s enough evidence to overturn.
I know there are problems with it but I hate to see an important game habit outcome changed because of a bad call.
Additionally to Joe’s point I do think you need to exclude some thing from replay such as a base runner sliding and barely no longer making contact with a base or a soccer player being offsides because his arm was extended.
The answer to all things is money. Now that gambling is legal there is too much money riding on these games for any sort of gray area so we dissect it to the hundredth degree
Isn't he already in the Royals HOF? I was rooting against STL at the time so I was happy at the outcome, but it was a pretty wonky call.
In baseball, they need to stop over analyzing whether the runner came off the bad for a half a second while the fielder kept tagging him for several seconds after the play is pretty much over. Basically, once the runner hits the bag, the play should be over. If the runner beat the tag, it doesn't matter if he comes off the base for a moment. Exceptions might be if the runner slides way past the base and loses contact because he can't reach it anymore, but that would come up like once a season.
As for football, they have to stop with this "made a football move" business. What is that? Is that when I get up from my couch to get a drink during the commercial? If the guy is holding the ball and has 2 feet down in bounds, it's a catch. I don't really care if he's moving the ball around a little bit when you slow it down.
This is one area where baseball should lean into its slower pace. There's plenty of time between batters for someone in a replay booth to press a button that basically says 'hang on a second.' I mean, this is what managers do when they're trying to decide whether to use their review - they're waiting to hear from a guy in a booth. So let's just cut out the middleman. And stop the dumb "he's out because there were air molecules between his pants and the base for a fraction of a second." Nobody likes this. I don't think it should be over simplified to 'the throw beat the runner' though. One of the pleasures of the tag reviews is when you get to see someone like Javy Baez do some ridiculous swim move to evade a glove. Stuff like that should be rewarded, I think.
In football, nobody understands half the rules anyway, and so many of them are judgment calls without clear answers. So replay is just "what if we don't know, but slower?" Fine with getting rid of most of it, except the easyish stuff like out of bounds.
At least when it comes to baseball:
-Manager must decide in real-time whether or not they want to challenge. No conferring with your replay specialist.
- Stop with the stupid headsets. Call gets challenged, the replay ump in Chelsea contacts the stadium's PA announcer and relays the decision to him/her directly.
- If you beat the tag and come off momentarily, you are safe. These are grown men, running faster than ever, on perfectly manicured fields that do nothing to slow them down when they slide.
Yes! I believe that replay also brought us “what is a catch?” In football. I hate that they allow managers/coaches to challenge after hearing from the teams replay person. If you feel like the call was bad in real time (previously you would have run out to argue with the ump, then challenge it.). If you have to freeze frame and zoom in, is it really a bad call?
I really hate replay because you can hardly ever celebrate anything in the moment. You cheer for a second then, oh wait, there’s going to be a review so it may stand or not.
Love the previews. Keep up the great work.
No manager challenges! Have an extra umpire crew member in the booth who initiates and handles reviews. Replay umps call - confirm or reverse - stands.
The thing that makes Hawkeye perfect in tennis is that it turns the decision into a simple binary in/out call. It's not the replay part that does this but the interpolation of a completely new computer generated image.
That Hawkeye is only mostly right is beside the point when you're watching it. (Although when the crowd oohs-and-aahs because Hawkeye shows the ball is 1/20th of a millimeter in: that's obviously beyond the ability of the system to actually determine.) It's that we've removed all appearance of human failures/biases and we've put our faith completely in the system.
So we should obviously have all video review revert to some computer generated image/decision-making algorithm. Close call at first base: the coach challenges and instantly a computer generated reenactment of the call goes up on the jumbotron. You'd probably have to keep the images relatively lifelike, but there are real marketing opportunities here even without a Chevy Silverado tire getting to the bag an instant before the Cup-o-Noodles hits Tony the Tiger's mitt.
As for the baseball previews, go Joe, go! Great work so far, and the commitment to detail is perfect. (Provided this is not permanently damaging your mental health or causing some kind of irreversible carpal tunnel nerve damage, of course.)
I agree with the spirit of what pretty much everyone else here is saying about replay. My comment would be that replay has added a new level of infuriation for me as a fan when they do a replay review and still get the call wrong.
Enjoying the baseball previews especially the franchise back stories. I loved your story about the policeman/Indy/speeding and the Big Red Machine. The Reds used to OWN Indianapolis! Now mostly Cubs and some Cards fans; rarely see a Reds cap. On replay, please don't let any sport turn in to the sluggish nightmare that college basketball has become in the last two minutes of regulation!
All calls made by Angel Hernandez to be overturned immediately without review.
The baseball previews are wonderful!
With the exception of the player bouncing off the bag by a millimeter, and that not being something that thinks anybody should really be studied with super slow motion, many other safe/out plays are a matter of an inch, or so, and that IS what we want to have reviewed. So we should focus on fixing the part of the rule that we hate, and not use the exception to attack the rest of the rule that we're OK with.
Another aspect of this is that most rules were written without replay in mind. There are some rules (e.g. tennis in/out) that work seamlessly with replay, but others that don't. As well as fitting replay to the current rules, we could fit the rules to replay, in a way that preserves the *spirit* of the original rules. In other words, instead of limited the way in which replay can be used, modified the way in which the technology of replay *applies*.
For instance, if a baserunner beats the tag but then comes a mm off, we never meant for that to be an out. So rather than worrying over the ways that replay is used, we can just change the rule:
"Once a runner reaches the base safely, he must remain in the vicinity of the bag, attempt to maintain contact with the bag, and if he loses contact, return immediately."
Is this a judgement call? Yes! Explicitly so. The part that is meant to be exact (which touch happened first) is precisely reviewed, while the other part is freed from that standard. This would speed up replay, lessen the number of annoying mm calls, and also maintain the consistency of the rulebook: the rules would be interpreted as precisely as possible, given the technology available.
This might take a lot of thought, and may not always work, bur I think it's better to do it at the level of the rulebook. Think: what do we actually want to happen in this scenario, and how do we use our technology to implement that? I believe this philosophy will lead to an overall better game.
The Poseroski Baseball Previews are awesome. Fun to read and full of detail. Great work, looking forward to the next one.
I see the essentially the same comment over and over here which is the same thing I hear in every conversation I've ever been involved in with this. I can't think of a single topic inside or outside of sports that's this close to unanimous. If the entire world can agree on this why can't ANY professional sports leagues figure this out? (Maybe tennis. Those seem pretty fast).
I’m in the camp of just speed it up. I don’t care if you are overturning calls goals because a player was offside by a millimeters if you get the correct call in 30 seconds or less. I know this possible because I do it from coach this fast the vast majority of time.
Get rid of the overhead of having a referee walk somewhere. Have an off-site replay referee and have them call in ruling to ref thru an earpiece.
If it’s not obvious after 30 seconds, in slomo, then it’s just not obvious and no team has a legitimate gripe. Even braking things down frame by frame there are still some 50-50 calls—is the image an old woman or a young woman?
I am enjoying the previews very much, looking forward to the rest.
Agree with a lot of the folks here. I have come to hate instant replay as the flow and enjoyment sucking dementor it is, particularly in college basketball, where the last two minutes take FOREVER. I especially hate the five minute review to add 0.4 seconds to the clock with 10 seconds to go in a 6 point game.
It's also infuriating when they spend all that time to overturn something and you have the officials "expert" in the TV booth still disagree after predicting incorrectly.
Give a coach/manager one unsuccessful challenge a game (then he is done challenging), force him/her to ask for it within 20-30 seconds, and then give the replay official 30 seconds to overturn. Just overturn the Angel Hernandez level bad calls.
I get that we all pretty much agree that foot slipping briefly off the base is a case of following the letter of the law to the detriment of the spirit of the game (He beat the throw, he's safe). The point of replay is to have proof against completely blown calls like the Denkinger and Joyce ones.
The decision to challenge a call in pro football is often determined by how quick the broadcast network runs a replay & the coaches upstairs see it. This makes the network, particularly the "director" of the broadcast who calls for what is shown on TV and when, an unaccountable third-party.
The previews are OUTSTANDING I was also a big fan of the Bill Mazeroski Baseball Preview magazine as well as Street and Smith and The Sporting News annuals. The worst use of replay in baseball is the tag at 2nd base when the runner beats the throw and is called out when his finger go past the bag I'm sure that is not why replay was instituted.
This all gets to a problem with modern living and advances in science: increasingly precise measurements, sophisticated metrics, rapid deflation of cherished myths (eg, The Myth of Clutch Performers - man, did that hurt!). How do we preserve some mystery? How do we preserve the wisdom of knowing that not everything is fair, not every call is correct...AND LIFE GOES ON!
Use Hawkeye-style tech for boundary calls, and full-speed video only for all other replay, with a 30-second time limit to review. Or 20 seconds, even better.
Am I the only one bewildered over the seemingly universal agreement that cherry-picking in hockey is bad? If a team wants to risk odd man rushes, why not let them? (Also, it’s always struck me as odd that basically every sequence and player positioning decision in hockey is premised on the offsides rule, but American announcers spend basically no time explaining that to viewers who probably have no idea.)
Replays should be for “Ref calls only”.. if you need to replay for an inch (1st down), go w
It’s the call on the field made in real time. Review Interference calls, holding, head slaps (Will Smith special), etc.
Having difficulty keeping up with reading the Pozeroski, so no idea how you’re keeping up with writing it! Very happy!
Also, 100% agree on the replay opinion. If you want it that exact, just put a sensor in the base that will detect pressure and let you know if the foot was off for the tag. There are all sorts of technological options that would permit precision, so doing this weird dance where we slow down the game to use only video looks a lot like sports trying to milk a few more commercials out of already long broadcasts.
Exactly right. I think for judgment calls we should move to full speed and 3 sets of eyes on it. 2 votes wins the day. This clears up catches in the NFL, tag plays in baseball, offsides in hockey and soccer, etc.
Lovin' the previews, and I agree with your take on replays. But as a D-Backs fan, ouch! Like the Beach Boys said, lo these many years ago: "be true to your school..."
I agree with Jeff in principle but would come at it a different way. You still have replay; you can still watch in slo-mo; but have it be someone watching remotely, instantly, and he/she has to make a decision within 20 seconds. That you you balance the need for fairness with the need to keep the game moving and fun. Anything that takes over 20 seconds to decide is, definitionally, in such a gray area that you're already in coin-flip territory. Like, sure, maybe Player A slid in just BARELY under the tag and thus succeeded 50.00001%, and Player B missed him by a half millimeter, thus failed 49.99999%. If somehow the replay system ended up rewarding Player B with an out nevertheless, I think philosophically we can all be okay with that given that.
I so love Hawkeye in tennis. It’s quick and pretty much full proof.
Now that it is used in a lot more situations I love it when a player starts to object to the call and then realizes the call was not made by a linesman but the technology and there is no one to complain to.
What I wouldn’t give to relive the John McEnroe points where he went ballistic on calls he thought were wrong. And see him either being a genius or, more likely, even more of a jerk than he was.
So many people constantly say “the important thing is that we get it right.” That is so wrong. The important thing is that we’re having fun! This is all for entertainment. Death to super slo-mo replay.
Joe, the preview is amazing! My days are all about finding some time to read them. Great stuff.
The Poseroski preview has been amazing! I read one team's worth aloud to my son, and it was very clear a) why The Baseball 100 weighs as much as it does; and b) that George Will was right - there must be more than one of you...
Re replay -- just look at the last two minutes of the otherwise incredible games in the men's and women's tourneys - there is no better way to suck the joy and the flow out of a thrilling game than to spend three minutes looking for a fingernail on the ball (or not). If the call is not obviously wrong (either by Hawkeye or the naked eye, time-limited), let the call stand.
What’s always bothered me about replay - and this is especially egregious in the NFL: the number of cameras at a game varies. NBC’s SNF gets significantly more cameras - and, thus, more angels - than Texans-Jaguars. There’s a competitive imbalance baked into that discrepancy. This is true of any national v local broadcast in MLB & NBA, too.
Full speed would be great. I'd even be ok with half speed. I can't stand the frame by frame, ultra slow mo, back and forth manipulation of the video since there is NO WAY anyone could ever do that with their eyes.
Even with VAR for offsides in soccer, the point they choose to freeze on is arbitrary. Who is so certain that moment is when the ball leaves the foot of the person passing the ball?
I hate (!) the slowing down of a basketball getting knocked out of someone's hands to see if it grazed a pinky on the way out.
Taking 10 minutes to micro-review a play is killing it for me, even if it benefits my team.
I LOVE ALL your writing so keep these baseball previews coming!!
I think timed reviews would be good. That way they’re only turning over ‘egregious’ mis-calls.
I've always thought there should be a time limit for replay...the video should turn off automatically after 45 seconds or a minute. If the officials can't reach a decision in that amount of time then the call should stand. That way any egregious calls can be corrected, but the miniscule nitpicking can be avoided
“that rule of the ball being in or out in tennis WAS ALWAYS intended to be measured by millimeters.”
How so? Because tennis shots are often close to the lines? If so, then isn’t the same true for baseballs hit down foul lines - and, for that matter, “bang-bang” plays on the bases?
A great way to speed it up AND make sure it's only egregious calls is to give managers 5-10 seconds to decide. No more "hold on a minute while I let my video guy check". Basically, if you wouldn't be storming out of the dugout to scream in the umps face, then too bad, the game is moving on.
NFL replay is the most ridiculous.
On every first down the ball is spotted by a referees judgements call placing the ball on the ground saying it looks to me like the ball got to here. Then a nameless guy 30 years away on the sideline makes a judgement call and puts his stick on the ground saying it looks to me like the referee put the ball right about here. Those two judgements calls are made over and over again getting a football game with no questions asked. That's huge contrast to when a catch goes to replay. That catch is measured in millimeters and tenths of a second. That both of those scenarios can exist at the same time is mind boggling.