THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Friday, June 13, 2008

MLB not moving a snail’s pace? Apparently

By Tangotiger, 02:34 PM

Replays for boundary calls can arrive as soon as 7 weeks from now. There are two thought processes for making major rule changes in the middle of a season:

1) wait, take your time, test it out, analyze it, talk it over with everyone, and in 6-18 months, implement, and 2) figure out the problem, figure out the solution, make sure you’ve handled all the holes, and implement.

Method 1 is the preferred route of corporate America. The idea is that if you throw as much middle management as possible to a problem, a solution with no holes will emerge. Basically, the idea is that if you have a whole bunch of people that know alot about a little, and very little about alot, then this committee approach will catch any errors.

Method 2 is the preferred route of entrepreneurs who have a wide breadth of skillset, knowledge, and intelligence. They can turn a piece of paper into a million-dollar business in two months.

When MLB has decided to take the entrepreneurial spirit, I don’t know. But, it is refreshing. Now, we don’t have to hear about the ludicrous(*) debates against the replay for the next six to 18 months.... we just have to hear about it for the next seven weeks.

(*) I’m sure some of you out there think they are not ludicrous. Don’t let my position stop you from making your point. Or, I can make it for you:
a) baseball is played by people and so only people can decide for people…
b) I don’t want technology to decide results for me, but rather it be done by guts or luck…
c) I don’t want the game to slow down by going to replays, I’d rather have the game slow down by watching the coaches yell at umps.

Instead of writing the reason you are against replays, just write the letter.

It doesn’t have to be like the NFL, which is probably why you are against it. Did you know the NHL reviews every single goal from their operations department in Toronto, and when they make a decision, it is final, they give it to the ref, and the coaches just sit back and accept it without causing delays? Maybe one day, we can get diapers out of the pants of the managers, and replace them with replays. That day is upon us.

• Sabermetrics • MLB_Management

#1 Lou (see all posts) 2008/06/13 (Fri) @ 15:56

Bring on the replay! It can’t slow down the game as much as so many arguments do.

#2 MGL (see all posts) 2008/06/13 (Fri) @ 23:37

I suppose someone could figure it out if they really wanted to, but do we really care whether there is going to be a 1 minute and 37 second delay to resolve the instant replay, and a 1 minute and 29 second delay to resolve all the arguments, 6 or 8 times a year? Talk about a red herring.

Anyway, anything that Joe Morgan is opposed to has to be correct! Actually, it is not the positions that Morgan takes, it is his reasoning.

#3 tangotiger (see all posts) 2008/06/14 (Sat) @ 10:51

A huge red herring. This is another instance of yapping, but that the second you sit down to construct the analysis it becomes readily apparent how foolish the yapping was.

***

Looks like they’ll use the NHL model of a centralized operations department:
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3443088

But, they are giving the authority still to the umpire. I think it will become clear that if the umpire is blind to the replay, how could he possibly offer any input other than rule interpretation.

ops: “Ball hit the pole, then went foul”
ump: “say again?”

ops: “Pole, then foul”
ump: “I see. Repeat please.”

ops: “Pole. Foul.”
ump: “Ok, so you are saying that you see the ball hit the fair pole, and then you see the ball go foul. Is that right?”

ops: “Listen Angel… it’s a HR, but we have to go through this charade of you being blind to the call to give you final authority. So, keep yapping all you want, then call it a HR, ok?”
ump: “I’m going to have to call this a homer.”

***

And the NHL reviews every single goal. We are talking some six thousand reviews every year. And here some are worried that you might review, what, 100 HR a year? What a joke.

#4 Tangotiger (see all posts) 2008/06/17 (Tue) @ 10:53

The ultimate “don’t mess with my utopia” speaker there is. George Will:
http://news.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view.bg?articleid=1100834&format=text

In the world of sports, there is no greater rule change than to allow a shootout to determine the winner of the World Cup. You are talking about the most popular sport in the world, changing the very basis of its sport to determine a winner of the most coveted championship in the world. I measure rule changes against that.

Replays? Wake me up when it’s something important.

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