MLB Exec VP/Baseball Operations Joe Torre was "pleased with the first season" of MLB’s replay challenge system, but what he "could have done without was all the on-field lingering by managers," according to Peter Abraham of the BOSTON GLOBE. Torre during the GM Meetings in Arizona yesterday said, "I didn’t really plan on them meandering out there and having a conversation, but you live and you learn." Abraham notes with a "successful first season in the books, MLB might tweak replay challenges to prevent managers from stalling in the middle of the diamond while someone on the bench signals whether a call should be contested" (BOSTON GLOBE, 11/13). Torre said, "The one challenge seemed to work. But we're really happy with how it worked this year. We're not looking at making wholesale changes." He added that if the replay official in N.Y. at MLBAM's offices "rules that a call on the field 'stands,' it only means that there is no clear evidence to overturn it." But MLB.com's Paul Hagen noted the manager still "loses his challenge." Torre: "We're looking at improved technology that may help some of these 'stands' calls be confirmed or overturned" (MLB.com, 11/12).
ATTENTION GETTER: MLB agent Scott Boras yesterday said that he would "like all the World Series games played at a neutral site picked well in advance like the Super Bowl." Boras: "If we continue to do this on a regional scale, we're going to lose something that baseball deserves, and what it deserves is world attention. There is a sacrifice of two, three or four (home) games for a team, but the betterment it brings to baseball on the whole far exceeds the detriment" (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 11/13).
