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Ding ding ding. The union is the problem. It is the impediment to incentivized behavior in the sense that if you don’t do well at your job, you get fired.
I like the try it in the minors approach. Nobody really cares at all how minor league games end up, so you have a perfect testing ground for new ideas. Far better than the old method, which was to pretend nothing is ever wrong with baseball and they never fixed anything.
But at some point you have to flip the switch and use it in the games that matter.
MLB is not helping the transition to the ML by using the MiL as a testing ground. Train the kids, then bring them up and everything they've been taught turns out to be a lie. Doesn't make sense from where I'm sitting and I hope they fix it sooner than later.
Right. Ear piece, buzzer, whatever. And the ump is there for the inevitable but rare occurrence where the system fails or calls a ball 9' off the plate a strike because a pigeon flew by at just the right moment. Why would they not do this, instead of some complicated challenge system where you have to guess when they're wrong in a second or two and hope you don't run out of challenges in the most key moments of the game?
Have a challenge system long enough and there will be a very important game decided by an ump calling a ball 6" off the plate a strike and nobody has any challenges left.
I'm convinced it's a bad thing that minor leaguers know balls 3" off the plate are balls, except that when you get to the Majors and then youneverknow.