MLB Owners Meeting To Address Replay, Home Plate Collisions

MLB owners today will begin a quarterly meeting in Paradise Valley, Ariz., seeking to advance efforts to expand instant replay and implement a ban on home plate collisions in time for the '14 season. A subcommittee of MLB Commissioner Bud Selig’s Special Committee for On-Field Matters will present the latest tweaks to the replay system for approval. “We are in the final refinement stage,” said Braves President John Schuerholz, head of the replay subcommittee. “We’re pretty far down the road and are confident in the adjustments we’re making.”

Schuerholz declined to detail the latest version of replay, but a manager’s challenge system remains at the heart of it, with reviews conducted by a crew operating out of MLBAM HQs. Owners in November approved funding for expanded replay, but agreements with the MLBPA and the umpires’ union for the changes have not yet been struck. A deal with the union over replay is expected fairly soon, but progress toward a ban on home plate collisions is not as great.