Bombers’ timid approach to replay ruinous
Since the advent of extended instant replay in 2014, the Yankees have utilized the system better than any other team. That didn’t prevent a system failure from occurring Friday night at Progressive Field, one that appears destined to herd the Yankees into an imminent winter vacation.
Ironically, the Indians’ approach, while less successful overall, might have served the Yankees better in Game 2 of the American League Division Series.
Joe Girardi’s decision to not challenge umpire Dan Iassogna’s sixth-inning call that Lonnie Chisenhall got hit by a pitch led to a 9-8, 13inning loss to the Indians and put the Yankees in a 2-0 hole. The Yankees must win the next three games, starting with Game 3 on Sunday night at Yankee Stadium, in order to eliminate the mighty Indians and advanced to the AL Championship Series.
Girardi and the Yankees lean on coaching assistant Brett Weber, who sits in a specially designed room, to watch each play and review it within the 30-second allowance and recommend a challenge or not. As Girardi said Saturday in a Yankee Stadium news conference, he doesn’t challenge a call unless he is very confident he’ll prevail. From the start of 2014 through the end of the 2017 regular season, including the three prior offseasons, the Yankees’ 74 percent rate of getting calls overturned leads all of baseball, according to data provided by Major League Baseball.
Indians manager Terry Francona described a more nuanced operation for his team. Mike Barnett, a former hitting coach for three teams and a Yankees baseball operations employee from 1982-87, serves as major-league replay coordinator. He often receives help from Scott Atchison, who pitched for Mets and four other teams from 2004-15 and now is Cleveland’s advance coach and staff assistant.
Barnett, Francona said, “[will] call [bench coach Brad Mills], or Millsy will check with him, and he’ll give his opinion. And then Millsy is really good about deciphering that in a way where I can make a decision.”
So it appears to go more by feel, and the Indians are more aggressive with their challenges. Their 53.6 percent rate of getting calls overturned since ’14 ties them with the Orioles for eighth overall. Yet their total of 81 overturns doesn’t dramatically trail the Yankees’ total of 94, which is seventh overall.
This year, baseball enforced a 30-second rule, one which thwarted the Yankees on Friday as they couldn’t find a convincing replay angle within 30 seconds to challenge Iassogna’s call. Francona said he has tried to push umpires as much as he can on that time limit as his staff works behind the scenes.
“I’ve tried to hold umpires up,” Francona said. “Like, they start coming over at 30. The last thing they want to do is start a confrontation. They’ve been real clear with us about that. They have guidelines they have to work under. But when you see them starting to come to you, you know they want an answer.”
To stall, he said, “I yell at Millsy to yell at [Barnett]. That always helps.”
Anything to buy more time would have helped the Yankees on Friday. A more aggressive approach, like the Indians’, would have helped even more.