Dear Protesters of Instant Replay,

I write to show my support of your hatred towards such a terrible idea to instill on the classic game of baseball. You are not alone in your displeasure towards such a terrible idea for a game in which human reaction and precise, on-the-spot decision making is the lifeblood.

Can you imagine instant replay working the other way? What if players could call a time out in the middle of the play, pick up a phone or stare into a TV monitor and, with as much time as they needed, decide whether a ball was hit far enough for them to reach second base, or if it would be a better decision to dive for a line drive instead of letting it bounce? What if a manager decided he wasn’t sure if it was worth arguing and risking ejection so he asked for an instant replay to solidify his decision making to get tossed for the good of the team?

If you are against instant replay, then these scenarios most likely seem absurd. In my humble opinion, instant replay is almost like lining the game up against a wall and pointing a gun at its head; we haven’t pulled the trigger yet but the situation isn’t looking too bright. For several years now, America’s pastime has been under direct scrutiny that the games have become long and boring. The current fan-base is depleting, and the growth in popularity among younger sports advocates is not exactly successful. Statistically (and that means its math and science so there’s no arguing), the average time of games has grown over the years. People are spending more time watching long, dragged-out games without the help of instant replay. Players are being forced to spend more time on the field, participating in one of 162 games during the long, enduring season. It’s a commodity to have a fast-working pitcher on your staff if for no reason but because he gets you through the game before everybody and their grandmother loses interest and turns on Oprah instead.

But there are other reasons for why instant replay can drive fans of the game completely nuts. It has nothing to do with the longevity of the games, a person’s attention span or the fact that baseball games are now starting at 7:00pm and causing you to miss the first hour of David Letterman. Instant replay may have an impact on fantasy stats as well. Yes (gasp!), those of you who hate instant replay more than Earl Weaver hates umpires, and happen to participate in serious fantasy baseball leagues each season, I bear bad news.

Look at it this way. When it comes to statistics, fantasy baseball relies more heavily on stats that you are limited to obtaining during any given week. For example, a single offensive player that has a good game can get anywhere from one to maybe even five or six RBI’s in a game. If that player happens to have a hot bat, he could put out a three RBI performance three or four times in one week. What happens if you have Josh Hamilton and Miguel Cabrera on the same team, each of whom is a top three RBI leader in the American League? Chances are that your RBI production is going to be pretty high.

Now compare RBI’s with the number of wins a starting pitcher can achieve during a week. In any normal circumstance, a starter, no matter how good, is going to get, at most, two wins in seven days. While those two wins probably hold more value in your league, they definitely hold more leverage in defeating your weekly opponent. It’s a struggle to find wins because it’s a stat that is not automatically produced (relatively speaking) every day from one of your players.

So get to the point and give me more ammo for my argument at instant replay, is what you’re saying. Ok…

Eventually the rules will come to this. Bases are loaded, two outs, and your pitcher is on the mound. He has himself in a jam but he is about to get out of it with a well-placed pitch and a ground ball to 2nd base. The batter hits a line drive to left field at which your outfielder makes a spectacular diving play to end the inning and secure the win. The pitcher’s team gets the victory, your pitcher gets the win, and you get the cushion for another fantasy match-up triumph. But then the umpires decide to go against their initial call (a terrible excuse in the first place-the game is built and played around the immediate decisions of humans, players and umpires alike) and say that your fielder trapped the ball and it was a base hit. The winning run scores and all of a sudden you don’t have that win for your fantasy team. You did get the RBI as it turns out, but you’ve gotten 24 RBI’s this week, 10 more than your opponent. Losing a win for an RBI is very frustrating for you and this pain is a result of instant replay. You lose the league.

No pride for you this year.

The fact is that instant replay is going to be used to change plays that will eventually determine the outcome of the game. In turn, it’s going to affect your wins and losses after the fact and become infuriating. That just doesn’t seem fair to have stats change just because the game has instilled a “fail-proof” plan which really may lead to umpires further strengthening their own personal opinions on plays during the game.

Developing a system of instant replay in any sport has taken time; there is a period of trial and error so that officials can figure out what works and what doesn’t. That is acceptable, in my opinion. It is expected that a new concept is not going to be perfect in the beginning. But there is always the age old question – how do you avoid the slippery slope?

As of right now, there are very few plays in a game that are available to be reviewed. But, as most sports, baseball included, every year things take place during a game that we have never had to deal with before. These types of situations will lead to instant replay engulfing a huge territory of plays that are under its review. Before you know it, close plays at first will be second guessed, fair and foul balls will be reviewed, and possibly, at some point, balls and strikes will be thrown into the mix.

How do you run a fantasy team that is reliant on statistics when it’s impossible to know if the umpires calls will stand on a consistent basis? How is it possible to continue to rely on players like Ryan Howard and Adam Dunn, who put up a lot of offensive power stats, when you know that every single pitch they face may soon be reviewed under the tiniest scrutiny? They will strikeout even more! Not only does it take away the fun of playing fantasy baseball, which undoubtedly (along with all types of fantasy sports) holds luck as a certain aspect of the game. 

As we all know, baseball is a sport where the actions of each player can directly affect the actions of another player. Men on base score on the hits of other players, and sacrifice flys and bunts take place pretty commonly. For that reason alone, letting instant replay get involved is just another obstacle for many of these players to overcome in order to do their job for the team – win. It will be even tougher for these players to keep their heads on straight.

There is a plus side to having instant replay instated. Fantasy baseball owners will find that some of the calls change things in a positive manner and will reap the benefits. A homerun will be taken away and your pitcher, who gave it up, will not have to face the consequences of having that on his pitching line for the night. But, statistically, many of these overturned homeruns are going to have more of an affect on the hitters; position players which play every day and have more of a chance of affecting your team since they are in your lineup on a daily basis as well. Instant replay will almost undoubtedly be used to question a call that had been ruled a homerun more than any calls that say the ball was not. Homeruns will be taken away more than they will be rewarded and your hitters will see their numbers decrease.

It’s not a negative look on things; it’s the way it’ll turn out to be.

Major League Baseball needed to get their act together when it came to reviewing homeruns by understanding that human error is part of the game. The sport has gone on for over 100 years without instant replay and we’ve gotten to this point unharmed. Now, rules are being implemented that will affect the fan bases best effort to have a hands-on experience of the game as best they can through fantasy baseball leagues. With instant replay, the fun is being taken out of that, too, by creating pointless, time-consuming regulations that will, sooner or later, cause fantasy baseball managers to concern themselves too much with the small stuff and not enough with the whole picture. Just when you think you have won your week, or even entire league, a call will be reversed and you will lose. We will always worry if those instant stats are accurate. Awful.

So I come to you with fair warning. I am predicting possible future glitches in the game in order for us to act now to find a way around this. Because, be fair advised, instant replay isn’t just affecting the players on the field, but it will affect the players’ names that are laid out in a nice little spreadsheet on your computer monitor as well.

Good luck.

Sincerely,

The Heckler

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