Comments on: Well whaddaya know? The players and umps WILL meet after the season

By: New Bags Blog » Blog Archive » s my characterization

New Bags Blog » Blog Archive » s my characterization — Wed, 11 May 2011 15:35:13 +0000

By: The umpires, the MLBPA and MLB met yesterday | HardballTalk

The umpires, the MLBPA and MLB met yesterday | HardballTalk — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 14:09:23 +0000

[...] Remember back in October how the players, umpires and Major League Baseball announced that they were going to meet in order to address the increasingly sorry state of umpiring? OK, that’s my characterization, I suppose the umps viewed it differently. Anyway, after a delay of several months they finally met yesterday. “We had a productive exchange about a range of issues of concern to players, umpires and the commissioner’s office,” union head Michael Weiner said … Attending for MLB were executive vice presidents Joe Torre and Rob Manfred, senior adviser Frank Robinson and senior vice president Dan Halem. [...]

By: Mr. Heyward

Mr. Heyward — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 16:10:26 +0000

Joe West will provide atmosphere by playing with his band. Johnny Quiznos will kick him in the face with his cleats. Everyone will laugh.

By: V...

V... — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 15:54:57 +0000

I know that it is taken into consideration… but like it says in that link you gave…
PD: How are postseason assignments determined?
MP: It begins with a meeting of supervisors that normally lasts about three days. We go through every umpire, covering 10 or 11 categories, and eventually forward our recommendations to the commissioner.
I think the graded accuracies should be the most important consideration…. but as we all know.. it really boils down to senority…. they wont pass up the 20 year veteran for the rookie ump, just because the rook has a 95% rating, and the vet has a 78% rating…
I say let the best man have the job…

By: CJ

CJ — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 14:28:29 +0000

There’s a bit of a fallacy in your thinking in regards to your first reason for replay. For example last night: No one really knew whether Posey’s “stolen” base missed call would have costed the Braves a run at the time, so it wouldn’t have been reviewed at the time, unless Cox would have used a challenge of some sort.
I’m not sure how replay could/would work in MLB, but it needs to be figured out and done anyway. In the NFL there’s a natural break in play for a few seconds, and this can be drawn out by different circumstances. In baseball, there really isn’t, unless you’re going to send the catcher out to the mound to screw around until someone decides whether or not to use a challenge. But what if it was the batting team wanting to challenge? Could a pitcher quickly pitch the ball to avoid a potential challenge as soon as the batter steps in? Additionally, in the NFL there are coaches in the booth with replay access and headsets. In baseball, not really unless you have some staffer in the locker room watching on TV and running out to tell the manager when to challenge.
It will be a royal pain to install replay, which is why MLB doesn’t want to do it, but these missed calls are getting ridiculous and need to be fixed. Just use replay on every shady call and move on with it. Like I said in an earlier post, I think managers and coaches could really force the issue with this and argue every questionable call and drag it out as long as possible. After the manager gets tossed, let the next coach have at it on the next blown call. So the game down so much so that they have to install it to speed the game back up again. It’s so crazy it just might work, and it’d be actually entertaining to watch all of those guys get tossed over the course of the season anyway.

By: BC

BC — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 14:20:11 +0000

Unless Bud Light is in the meeting as well, nothing will happen. It’ll just be a b—- session.

By: btberry

btberry — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 14:15:51 +0000

Three years ago I would have said that umpiring in MLB had improved a ton and was continuing in the right direction. Most of the bad umpires with bad attitudes had not been re-hired after the mass resignation fiasco and new steps were taken to improve accountability. But now, for whatever reason, we’re seeing just flat bad calls in spades and all these calls seem to come at the worst times. Seems that every time they’ve been blowing a call saying someone is safe that player ends up scoring a huge run, breaking up a perfect game, etc.
Three years ago I would have been against expanding replay. Now I think they should have an additional crew member watching the same thing we get to see on TV. The roughly two times a game it obvious a call is at least questionable he can buzz the crew chief, they can look at it more carefully and get the call right. Managers can still go out to argue to give the guy more time to look at it (which they will anyway) but if the replay guy indicates the call is right, the manager is probably going to waste less time arguing.
P.S. My personal favorite was when Posada and Cano were both two feet off third, both got tagged and only one was out.

By: geoknows

geoknows — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 13:59:22 +0000

V...This is being done already. Mike Port, MLB's VP of Umpiring, discusses the grading in this article: http://www.cleveland.com/dman/index.ssf/2009/05/mlb_umpires_seemingly_always_s.html

By: V...

V... — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 13:31:50 +0000

My 2 cents….
They should follow umpires accuracy throughout the year using Questec, Pitchtrax, and any other method used to show whether a pitch REALLY was a ball or strike… Each Umpire then gets graded throughout the season, and the ones with the highest grades, get to umpire the games in the postseason… (This would involve growing some gonads and standing up to the umpires union).
The only conditions for which replay SHOULD be used….
1. for plays that will either cost or gain a run…
2. if the umpires huddle up, and decide they’re unsure, and THEY want a replay…
3. each manager is given the right to one replay (for a non-run scoring play) request per game… (if the manager was correct, and the play is reversed, they then retain their right for one replay, if wrong, they lose it).

By: ThatGuy

ThatGuy — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 13:27:03 +0000

I personally hope its the later, the more umpires screw stuff up the better chance reply will be expanded.