Mlb Approves Robot Umpires for 2026 as Part of Challenge System

I also just say watch every angle at full speed for those types of replay, no slow-mo. Keeps the magic, but let's you correct egregious calls.

I don't hate the challenge system as much as I would an entirely-automated strike zone - and I'll probably appreciate the occasional corrected call, and the game-within-a-game of when to spend your challenges - but it's all of a piece with the general flattening of baseball. The DH, and now the universal DH. Interleague play. Balanced schedules. Three true outcomes hitters. Outlawing certain defensive positioning. Maniacal pursuit of spin-rate. Manfred runners. All of these eliminate elements of the game that made it more interesting - at least from this Old Man's perspective.

(As counter-examples: I like the pitch clock, and I'm OK with enlarging the bases; those increase the premium that accrues to specific skills, and heighten the stakes of particular situations. Those are the directions in which positive changes should point.)

He oversaw the last collective bargaining agreement in 2021/22. It’s expiring this year. That’s one of the reasons why the rule change is going through now.

I won’t deny that sports betting could be a factor, but Manfred wants faster more engaging baseball. That’s been his stated goal for a long time as he worked through rule changes.

What has not changed since before both of those timelines is baseball umpires have a union[0].

Maybe, just maybe, their union fought the introduction of this to the bitter end.

0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Baseball_Umpires_...

I just watched the replay, and I'm convinced VAR would rule it offside. So the hand of god would be irrelevant. The AR on the far side of the pitch is just out of frame at the crucial moment, so he was clearly behind the play. That's a position you never want to find yourself as an AR. I always found the AR role much more demanding than the referee. Keeping that offside line is difficult at best and nearly impossible if you're 30+ something trying to keep up with fit professional athletes in peak fitness in their 20s. Now, after that call was blown, again due to the framing, it is hard to see where the ref was looking. You can see his last position easily 30 yards from goal while Maradona makes contact about 8 yards from goal. There are at least 15 players in between the ref and the play at that point. Also, a very telling thing is that there was no conversation between the AR and the ref. On contentious plays, you'd see the ref back peddle to the AR (never take your eyes of the pitch) and have a chat about who saw what. I don't know if the ref crew had radios back in 1986, but the fact that the ref did not think it was worthy of a chat with his AR who would have had a different angle to view it says a lot about the ref's thinking. If the AR had seen it and wanted to chat with the ref, he would have stood still with his flag raised. If he felt the goal was good, he would keep his flag down and make a little run up the touchline towards midfield. The linked YT footage is cropped (pushed in I assume to remove any network branding) so the AR is out of frame. In the very last replay with the camera from behind the goal line on the near side, you can barely make out the AR but it cuts before he signals. My guess is he turned and ran up the touchline. Again, it is obvious he is out of position behind the play, so his view was more than likely blocked.

At the end of the day, if you can't absolutely positively tell that something happened, you pretty much let it stand. Just because all of the defenders raised their arms does not make it offside. There's only one person that can tell you that, and he couldn't make the call so had to let it go. There's no way the ref was going to call offside. The one thing they do teach you is that if you're unsure, make a call and make everyone think you're sure. Just own it, and move on. Never had to do that for a goal, but there's plenty of times I don't know who was last to touch the ball before it went out so you turn to the AR to get a clue. It's always fun when they shrug. You just pick on what you think you saw and just confidently rule that way. It's a damn throw, just put the ball back in play. Corners vs goal kicks are more risky, so always safe to rule for the defense with a goal kick. Never want a team to score on a bad call from a ref. Of course, none of that is ever taught to a ref...in those terms.

However, I think if you use the enhance feature to zoom into the ref's back pocket, you can see the cash he was paid to let it happen /s

For other situations of officials influencing the game, the big one is how often they use their whistle to stop play. If they are calling ticky tacky fouls, the game slows down to nothing but restarts and there's no real flow. In youth matches, parents love it when the ref protects their precious little angel. Players HATE it. A ref that players like are the ones that let the game play. If two players are both strong in their fight for the ball with some possible pulling/holding equally from both sides, let it go. Let the stronger player win. If one player obviously is using the dark arts to gain unfair advantage, sure stop the play.

As far as blow out games with the stronger team getting more penalties, it could be a much more simple explanation as the ball just spends more time in the area which raises the likelihood of a penalty occurring. A game with back and forth will see less penalties. A game where one team is putting constant pressure on the goal is much more likely for a defender to make a mistake. Just like the awarding of an own goal. They only happen because the attacking team was putting pressure where an own goal could even be possible.

If you want a human element this is just using it as a challenge system. So the players have to have a good eye to decide whether an ump was right or wrong and they can’t get help from anyone else to decide to challenge a call.

Is this even a serious argument? Come on. I would almost think you were trolling, conflating the performance of the umpires vs the performance of the players, were this not HN.

I guess I reconcile those positions because I follow the "top-flight" sports I enjoy (in part) as long-running, interconnected narratives. Some of that's on the technical level - like, "this guy played this way last time; how will he approach a similar situation this time" - but it also embraces the personalities involved. The three managers I mentioned were outsized characters in the baseball "story", and I enjoyed their roles - as did they. Each was well aware of the theatricality of their actions, as were the umpires, and there were very few genuine hard feelings.

Earl Weaver, in particular, sometimes ran onto the field bellowing something like "that was a good call! But you gotta run [eject] me here, 'cause I need get them [players / fans] into the game" (though doubtless with more profanity than is appropriate for this forum). Then he and the umpire would yell at each other for a bit, until he departed in (mock) high dudgeon. That was kayfabe, but not purely for the sake of spectacle. He believed - and there's research since that backs up his intuition - that getting his team and fans fired up would be a strategic advantage.

None of that applies / should apply to amateur competitions. I also respect your point of view if you don't watch professional sports from same the angle that I do.