Replay Revisited

I don't get many visitors here so my poll data is largely completely useless. But being as this is a useless blog why not talk about the useless polls?

I asked if MLB should expand the use of replay and the results as of now (you still have 7 hours to vote!) is a resounding NO. 100% of the voters (all two of them) prefer not to expand the use of replay. I think when asked that question the first thing people think of is umpires, and that expanding the use of replay means having computers deciding balls and strikes. So I'm not surprised that nobody (all two of them) was in favor of expanding replay. However, if I asked a more specific question I think at least 50% (one voter) would vote yes. A question like should MLB expand the use of replay for plays at the plate in the 9th inning or later, or should teams be allowed to review a play at any base one time per game, I think we would get a different reaction than the general question I asked.

Bud Selig's days are numbered, and once he leaves I think within 5 years at the most we will see an expanded use of replay. It's very hard to argue with someone wanting the correct call, and although I don't see baseball ever getting to the point where robots call balls and strikes, I think you'd have to be pretty naive to think it will stay this way. One issue people have with baseball is that it is too slow and adding replay would only add to its slowness, but there are several measures MLB could take to counteract this:

• Limit the amount of mound visits allowed, and time taken during each mound visit. In fact, you could argue to get rid of mound visits entirely that don't involved taking out a pitcher.
• Limit the amount of pitching changes. This one gets tricky as you can't force a team to keep an ineffective pitcher in the game, but there is certainly something to be done here.
• Is it necessary to have a pitcher throw over 4 times for an intentional walk? Just have the pitcher state they want to walk the hitter, and have the ump award the hitter first base.

There are other ways to speed up the game that I don't agree with most notably, forcing batters to stay in the box, or having a limit on the time between pitches. Every player has his routine, and forcing them to change that for a matter of seconds seems silly. Sure I loathed watching Steve Trachsel pitch, but I don't think it's fair to now force him to change his rhythm (if he is still even pitching). Anyways, if one of the arguments against a slight increase in replay is that it will slow down the game, I think we have sufficient ways to help counter that.

The other argument against replay is that baseball should never change. Well in that case these ideas would obviously be frowned upon and baseball should stay the same forever. Frankly, I think that's pretty stupid. I wasn't around when the NBA adopted the 3 point line, but I bet the NBA faced it's share of criticism then. And now the only criticism you may hear is that it's too short. This isn't the XFL adding stupid gimmicky rules to "improve" the game, in this case change isn't a bad thing, in fact it's likely good thing.