Baseball has been trying to figure out the right balance between human umpiring and technology, and for the most part, instant replay has landed in a pretty reasonable place.
Umpires still make the calls. Managers can challenge certain plays. A replay official in New York can correct an obvious mistake. The game moves on.
But every once in a while, baseball gives us a play that exposes a hole in the system, and the Cubs got a pretty good example of one Wednesday afternoon in Arizona.
With the game scoreless in the sixth inning, Pete Crow-Armstrong was standing on third base while Michael Busch faced Diamondbacks starter Eduardo Rodriguez. Crow-Armstrong broke toward home, Rodriguez reacted during his delivery, stopped his motion and stepped off.
That should have been a balk.
The problem was that none of the four umpires called it.
Crow-Armstrong immediately protested. Cubs manager Craig Counsell protested. Third-base coach Quintin Berry protested. The umpires got together and discussed the play, but ultimately decided there had been no balk.
And because balk calls are not reviewable under Major League Baseball’s current instant replay system, that was the end of the discussion.
Except it really wasn’t.
After the game, crew chief Alfonso Márquez reviewed the video and acknowledged that the umpires had missed the call. Rodriguez appeared to have stepped off the rubber after beginning his motion. We just didn’t see it, Márquez said afterward.
That is about as clear an argument for expanding replay as baseball is ever going to get.
If the balk had been called correctly, Crow-Armstrong would have scored and the Cubs would have taken a 1-0 lead. Instead, he remained at third and was eventually stranded. Arizona scored in the bottom half of the inning and went on to win 2-0.
Obviously, nobody can say the Cubs definitely would have won if the call had been correct. Baseball doesn’t work that way. Everything that happened afterward could have unfolded differently.
But that really isn’t the point.
The point is that everyone eventually agreed the call was wrong, video clearly showed what happened, and Major League Baseball’s rules prevented anyone from doing anything about it.
That doesn’t make much sense.
Balks are admittedly different from something simple like whether a runner beat a throw to first base. The balk rule contains a long list of possible violations, some obvious and some highly technical. A pitcher can balk by starting his delivery and stopping, failing to come set, making an improper move toward a base, illegally disengaging from the rubber or violating several other pitching restrictions.
We saw another example of how complicated balk enforcement can become earlier this month when Braves pitcher Chris Sale was called for a balk against the Yankees because of a technical requirement involving his pitching position. Braves manager Walt Weiss strongly disagreed with the call and was eventually ejected.
There was also a disputed play involving Bobby Witt Jr. earlier this season against the White Sox when Kansas City supporters argued that Jordan Hicks should have been called for a balk on a pickoff sequence. Witt instead wound up caught stealing.
The larger issue isn’t whether every disputed balk this season actually was a balk.
It’s that baseball currently offers teams essentially no recourse when one becomes a major part of a game.
MLB doesn’t need to make every pitching motion automatically reviewable. That would be a nightmare.
Imagine managers asking New York to examine every shoulder twitch, foot movement and pickoff attempt in slow motion. Games would grind to a halt and eventually pitchers would be afraid to move.
There is a much simpler solution.
Give each team one balk challenge per game.
If the team wins the challenge, it keeps it. If it loses, the challenge is gone. MLB could even cap each team at two total balk reviews per game regardless of how many it gets right.
Managers would also have to challenge immediately, just as players now must quickly initiate challenges under MLB’s new Automated Ball-Strike Challenge System.
That keeps the burden where it belongs: on the team questioning the call.
Think the pitcher clearly balked in the second inning? You can challenge it, but you’d better be confident because you might need that challenge in the eighth.
The replay itself shouldn’t take long either. Give the Replay Command Center 30 or 45 seconds. If there is clear video evidence that the pitcher started his motion and stopped, illegally disengaged or otherwise committed an obvious violation, correct the call.
If it takes five minutes and twelve camera angles to decide whether the pitcher’s knee moved half an inch, the call stands.
Here’s the thing, folks: Baseball has already accepted this philosophy elsewhere. MLB introduced its ball-strike challenge system this season precisely because the league wanted technology available without removing the human umpire from the game entirely. Teams get a limited number of opportunities to question a call, and successful challenges are retained.
Why shouldn’t the same basic idea apply to balks?
Nobody is asking baseball to turn every game into a courtroom.
With that . . . If four umpires miss a play, the manager protests, television immediately shows the mistake and the crew chief later admits the call was wrong, technology should be allowed to help.
Instant replay isn’t supposed to replace umpires. It’s supposed to catch the things they can’t. Wednesday in Arizona was exactly that.
If you cannot play with them, then root for them!