The Atlanta Braves and replay reviews: 3 responses
The Atlanta Braves were victimized by the MLB replay review system last night. So should it be scrapped?
I do not intend to preach to the choir today: suffice it to say that Alec Bohm clearly and unequivocally still has not touched home plate. The Atlanta Braves were robbed.
Bohm was out in everyone’s minds except for the moron manning New York’s review booth on Sunday night… even the Phillies themselves know the truth.
The question before us, instead, should be “so now what should be done about this?” I have three thoughts.
3. Don’t blame those not involved
Last week during a radio interview, I was asked about my reaction to MLB taking the All-Star Game away from Atlanta. While I have some opinions about the voting law changes in Georgia that brought this about, I will withhold those comments, for that’s not the point today.
What I said on radio was that regardless of where your political proclivities lie, this was the wrong move by MLB, for it punished people and organizations that had nothing whatsoever to do with the laws that were changed.
It’s like your kid breaks a neighbor’s window while playing ball and that neighbor decides to avoid you and instead yells at a different neighbor down the street to get his satisfaction. It simply makes no sense to do so.
Likewise, some people with that kind of misguided agenda found a useful idiot in Rob Manfred and got him to pull the All-Star Game from Atlanta and the Atlanta Braves — despite their complete lack of involvement with the legislation at the center of the issue.
I say all that to get around to this: Dansby Swanson made a lengthy and considered statement last night about the umpires and the reaction of numerous fans in attendance last night.
He was right.
He was right about the umpires and he was right about the angry reactions that resulted in another game with debris being thrown on the field.
I get it… the fans were rightly ticked off and wanted to vent that frustration in some manner. But who got punished? Mostly the grounds crew, who had to clean up the mess. Somebody could have gotten hurt as well.
Jake wrote about this today, too, and he and I are in agreement: I get it, but Braves fans need to keep their acts clean.
Atlanta Braves fans did not help their case by littering the field.
So what was the result of the fan’s actions? Nothing. No volume of debris would have changed any aspect of the call… well, okay: unless the field had become so messed up that it would be deemed unplayable, which would have forfeited the contest to Philadelphia.
But the point here is that the angst against a perceived wrong-doing was once again directed toward people of groups that had nothing whatsoever to do with the controversy.
People need to stop for just a moment and think through the process before acting out. Maybe there can be a better result and a better means to try and affect change.
2. Don’t scrap the replay review system
There are a lot of calls today to dump the entire system “since it’s obviously not working”. That is akin to throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Sometimes, the system still works. I recognize that this seldom feels like it’s the case — particularly when the Atlanta Braves end up holding the short stick in cases like last night — but it’s true (though it’s likely Don Mattingly and Brian Snitker will share a few comments on their recently respective encounters tonight).
So what happens if there’s no replay review? Alec Bohm is still ruled safe and the Phillies win. That wrong call would never have a chance to be fixed, and that’s exactly why we have the system in place.
Sure: multiple wrongs can (and do) happen. We’ve seen that a lot. We experienced this last night, too. But that doesn’t mean that the blind squirrel won’t eventually find a nut or that the stopped clock will eventually report the correct time.
I’m not saying to trust the system… far from it. When failures occur, the fanbase needs to be heard — long and loud. That’s the only means to get changes accomplished. Just don’t expect retroactive fixes or instantaneous updates: baseball still moves at a glacial pace.
1. Don’t put a stopwatch on the review process
Last night’s review took… a while. I suppose that’s also part of the annoyance, that it took forever to get a call and they still got it wrong. However: time-limiting the process could doom it all together.
These reviews are intended to help adjudicate close plays… by design and intent. Therefore, you must expect that the process should have some difficulty associated with it (last night’s home plate call notwithstanding).
In short, if you ever want to see a call overturned, then you’re going to have to wait it out. The evidence does need to be clear and it should be convincing… and for a variety of reasons, that could take a while.
Any artificial time limit on the process — whether 2 minutes, 3 minutes or something else — essentially gives the original call even more weight than it appears to get now.
But if you think review umpires are reluctant to overturn one of their brethren now, then just wait until you force them to be completely done with their work in 2-3 minutes.
You put that requirement on them and you may as well go back to Point #2 and scrap the system, for then only the most egregious Angel Hernandez calls would be overturned.
Yes — this was way out of the norm
Look: for all of this said, last night’s call was bad for a number of reasons.
I don’t actually blame the home plate umpire, for he had one view from a high angle (and therefore had to assume that Bohm’s foot wasn’t airborne over the plate) and he saw the play once in real time while also having to determine when/whether a d’Arnaud tag had been made.
That puts the onus on the replay review umpire, and I frankly don’t understand what he might have been looking at since he had the benefit of multiple angles and slow motion.
For me, it was clear from replay #1 that Bohm missed the plate and the dozen+ additional looks from the extra ESPN cameras only confirmed that. This should not have been a close call.
That said: let’s direct our anger toward the appropriate direction… to MLB and the MLB review system. This was a bad outcome and it’s hard to imagine how this can be justified.
For now, this simply has to join a lengthening line of wrongs done to the Braves over the years… and it joins the Hall of Fame of such bad calls:
- Hrbek lifted Gant
- Posey was out
- “Ordinary Effort” (the Infield Fly Rule play)
- Bohm was out
Next. More From Dansby. dark
So keep up the pressure on MLB… twitter, facebook… whatever it takes. Without that nothing changes.