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After some early complaints -- most notably Red Sox manager John Farrell saying "it's hard to have much faith in the system right now" -- Major League Baseball executive Tony La Russa believes it's too early to start drawing conclusions on the new replay system.
La Russa was one of the main contributors to devising the new replay system and he believes it needs more time before judgements are passed. Via ESPN.com:
"One thing I'd say to John -- and I'd love to talk to him because I have great respect for him -- is that, in fairness to the process, we need to keep working at it," said La Russa. "I don't know what the period of time is, whether it's a month or six weeks or whatever it is, but we all have learned from what we've seen.
"... But I think it's premature to say the process isn't going to work or he doesn't have confidence in it because, in my opinion, the process has been really remarkable in how well it's worked so far. I'm amazed, in fact, that we haven't had more hiccups."
Farrell is coming off two straight days in which he believes replay screwed over his team. On Saturday, the umpires botched a rather obvious call on replay and it hurt the Red Sox (MLB confirmed that it was a mistake) and Sunday a close call went against the Red Sox. Farrell believes the call should have been upheld due to no conclusive evidence, but instead the call was reversed in favor of the Yankees.
That's a small sample, though, and I have to take La Russa's side here in the general context of replay. There are always going to be some things to work out when a new system has been put in place. By the end of the season, things will be running a lot more smoothly than in the first two weeks.
Maybe it's bad for the game. Maybe it takes up too much time. Maybe the managers will continue to waste a lot of time with those slow walks out to talk to the umpire before making a decision. But maybe not. We don't know that how things went in the first two weeks is definitely how they'll go over the course of six months.
