Amidst all the exciting free agent and trade talk from the Winter Meetings is this dispiriting report by ESPN’s Jayson Stark. While commissioner Bud Selig said in October that he wanted to have expanded replay in place for the 2013 season, it seems increasingly likely that it won’t happen.
Well, that’s a bummer. The plan calls for expanded replay to cover fair/foul balls and trap/catch calls, changes which were actually agreed to in the new collective bargaining agreement last year, but there’s a divide whether to use traditional replay or two experimental technologies which were tested in Yankee Stadium and Citi Field late in the season. And if additional “replay umpires” are needed to help expedite the process of replay decisions, those changes would need to be negotiated with the umpires’ union. There’s momentum to eventually get this right, as Stark details, but it seems there’s too much red tape to get it in place by April. It’s a shame.
Two sources familiar with the replay discussions told ESPN Monday that it’s now highly unlikely that baseball will be ready to increase its use of replay by Opening Day, because it still hasn’t settled on which technology it wants to use or how to employ it.
“I wouldn’t say there’s no chance,” one source said. “But given where we are, I’d say there’s almost no chance.”
Well, that’s a bummer. The plan calls for expanded replay to cover fair/foul balls and trap/catch calls, changes which were actually agreed to in the new collective bargaining agreement last year, but there’s a divide whether to use traditional replay or two experimental technologies which were tested in Yankee Stadium and Citi Field late in the season. And if additional “replay umpires” are needed to help expedite the process of replay decisions, those changes would need to be negotiated with the umpires’ union. There’s momentum to eventually get this right, as Stark details, but it seems there’s too much red tape to get it in place by April. It’s a shame.
