Instant Replay in Baseball

In light of a few bad calls during this week's Division Series -- namely, the supposed trap by Greg Golson of the Yankees against the Twins and Buster Posey's slide against the Braves -- there has been a lot of talk about instant replay in baseball. Bobby Cox and Bruce Bochy were both spouting off about replay in their press conferences last night, saying that there would be too many "arguments and red flags" and that it would "slow the game down."

I don't know how many times I have to say it: IT WON'T SLOW THE GAME DOWN IF YOU DON'T LET IT. Make rules about replay so it won't turn into a free-for-all where replays dominate the game (like the NFL).

My pet instant replay theory is this: Each team gets one challenge per game. Win or lose, you don't get to challenge another play that game.

This works on so many different levels. With only one challenge, chances are most of the time both teams will get through an entire game without using one. Why? Because it forces you to be judicious. Wasted your challenge on a close play at first with nobody on in the third inning? Sucks for you if there's a blown call against you when you're scoring the winning run in the ninth -- you already used your challenge. Since nobody wants to be that manager, chances are challenges will go unused more often than not.

At most, there will be two challenges per game (plus any close home run/foul calls, which should be automatically reviewed as they are now). If done efficiently -- either by an "eye-in-the-sky" umpire at the park or from a "Batcave" at MLB headquarters -- these reviews will be quick. There are plenty of other ways to trim significantly more time from baseball games outside of replays, including further limiting mound visits, penalizing pitchers or hitters who stall, and reducing warm-up toss times.

Additionally, contrary to what Cox and Bochy stated, the number of arguments (and their durations) will decrease. In the current system, after a bad call, the manager runs out of the dugout and screams at the umpire for a few minutes, gets tossed, makes a scene and takes his time leaving the field, and then the game goes on like nothing happened. With challenges, there won't be lengthy arguments. The manager will just toss his flag (or whatever) on the field before the next play, and the replay monitors will decide what the correct call is.

I have lots of specific situational rules for this -- namely, that you can't argue balls and strikes or things that would be blatantly uncorrectable -- but that's the basic framework. One challenge per team per game, win or lose. Home runs still reviewed automatically. Try to tell me that would slow the game down. Seriously.