After a night of thought, we
still believe that MLB's new (and clearly
needed) expanded Instant Replay will be a nightmare—at least as currently proposed. As much as we hate to give credit to
WEEI's
Kirk Minihane, he
did raise yet another troubling wrinkle in the new plan. As constituted, managers would be given one challenge in the first six innings and two more in the balance of the game. But, as Minnihane points out, what if a manager expends all of his challenges through nine innings and
then a clearly egregious call is made in the 15th inning? It's still unclear whether the umpires would have discretion to call for a replay in this scenario—but, if so, this seems to run afoul of the whole notion of managers taking the initiative. We would support a system with
no challenges and
complete umpire discretion throughout the game. In fact, we would suggest naming the whole thing either the
Jim Joyce or
Jerry Meals Memorial Replay System.
