Replays Will Be Handled Differently in 2023

The new rules in Major League Baseball for 2023 have been discussed over and over. Is the pitch clock good or bad for the game? Will the larger bases protect infielders and encourage more stolen bases? How about the “two disengagements” rule? Will base runners (such as Tim Locastro) feel emboldened to take off after two attempted pickoffs, knowing that if the pitcher throws over again and doesn’t record an out a balk will be assessed? There is another rule change coming concerning replays that we haven’t seen in action so far. What type of impact will it have?

Let’s start with the “what.”

In 2023, per the new rule, managers now immediately (within 10 seconds of the end of a play) need to signal to the umpires that they’re thinking about challenging. The previous rule, which was little known and seldom enforced, gave them 10 seconds before they even had to decide whether to give the signal. This year, once the managers make the “I’m thinking about challenging” signal, the umpire starts a 15-second replay clock. But if the manager wants to challenge, he has to decide before that clock expires. The previous rule gave managers 20 seconds to decide whether to challenge.

Other aspects of the replay rule will be unchanged, such as managers having one challenge per game that is lost the first time a review request results in a “no overturn” decision. In an article in The Athletic by Jayson Stark, the author points out a new feature that we will see on games televised on Apple TV this year (you know, the service that now will cost money). When there is a replay during a game on Apple TV, viewers will get a look inside the replay center in New York as the crew on-site views different angles to arrive at a decision. That should be interesting to watch.

The logical questions to ask are first, how much time is MLB hoping to save by revamping the replay rule, and second, what is the expected impact on managers? Stark provides answers to both questions. In terms of the amount of time to be saved during games (consistent with the “pace of play” mandate), the effect of the change may be rather muted. From the article:

Replay reviews per game averaged out to only about one every other game in 2022, believe it or not. There were 2,430 games played last season—and just 1,434 reviews. That computes to only 0.59 per game — or, basically, just one per team every four games. Nearly 60 percent of all games had zero reviews. Only 12 percent had more than one review.

There is no official computation of how much time managers used waiting for their video assistants to tell them when to challenge. But a rough estimate would be 30 seconds per play, plus another 10 or 15 seconds just to get their hand up to alert the umpires they were thinking about it. Now, MLB has told the managers it believes it can cut that process from about 45 extra seconds per review to about 15 under the new rules.

There also is no official number of times that play was paused and managers ultimately decided not to challenge. However, based on the above, it seems like a lot of effort to bring about a very modest change. The “effort” will be in managers and their replay gurus adjusting to the new time constraints. How are managers reacting? Stark provides the following:

“I think you’re going to have to hold (your hand up) on almost every close play,” the Orioles’ Brandon Hyde said. “I mean, hold it (up) right away — and then just (review) it if it’s obvious. But the (confusing) plays are going to be the ones where, with the naked eye, you can’t tell, because it looks ‘obvious safe’ or it looks ‘obvious out.’ But then you get the phone call five seconds later from your video guy, and you might not have held the hand up.”

With hands going up more frequently and 10 seconds allotted to determine whether or not to challenge, could the revised rule backfire, and slow the game down? We have no way of knowing because replays are not part of spring training, so the replay rule was not tested in Florida and Arizona. Mets’ manager Buck Showalter agrees with Hyde on what may happen.

“We had three or four calls last year that were something where nobody could even see them, with the naked eye, on the field,” Showalter said. “But he saw it and called up and said, ‘Hey, hold on. We’ve got it.’ That’s Harrison (Friedland, Mets replay specialist).”

But now, Showalter said, “the ability for Harrison to call up is gone. Now we have to initiate everything. So what you’re going to see a lot is everybody stopping. We’re going to stop every play.”

Sound like this rule has significant failure potential. Would it have made sense to break with tradition, and allow replays in at least part of spring training this year to pilot the rule change? Nothing can be done about it at this point. An assessment can be made once the season starts and a reasonable sample of information is collected.

With the focus on pace-of-play, which seems to be embraced by the fans as spring training games have averaged less than two and one-half hours, the non-testing of the revised replay rule seems strange. It could reverse some of the pace-of-play progress. Time will tell on that one.

We can add the revised replay rule to the list of “innovations” coming this season. Don’t forget about teams playing every other team for the first time in history. This has produced unique scheduling that is enabling Jacob deGrom to face the Phillies on Opening Day, even though the hurler left the National League East, and the Yankees will host the San Francisco Giants this Thursday.

Things have changed, that’s for sure.