I have no energy to write a whole new post about baseball for today after watching Nick Punto run the bases like the little leaguer he looks like, so rather than respond to Eric's long and thoughtful comment from Saturday's post and then writing a new piece, I'm making my response into today's piece. I hope you'll understand.

I'd encourage you to read the whole comment, because below is just a summary of the basic ideas therein which I question or with which I disagree, and that doesn't do his argument justice at all. But here's my response:

Idea 1: Instant replay is necessarily very limited because you can't reverse plays that would have had continued play after the missed call (balls incorrectly called ground-rule doubles, "trapped" balls in the outfield with runners on base, etc.).

I assumed this to be true in Saturday's post, but is it? I'm not sure, and I'm really just thinking with my fingers here. Don't we ask umpires to decide what would have happened fairly frequently? It seems to me that there are a lot of situations in which an umpire has discretion to award an extra base based largely on how far he thinks the runner could have gotten on that play. So it's not as though there isn't precedent. And while it's distasteful to have runners moving around based on someone's best guess, is it really worse than the alternative? If there's a runner on first and a right fielder traps a ball that the umpire incorrectly rules a catch, which is a more grievous error -- that the phony out is allowed to stand, or that the runner is awarded third base when there's a 25% chance he would've been held at second? My sense is that it's better to get the safe/out call right and deal with some small possibility of error in sorting out the consequences of the missed call. Of course, this all depends on a system that can be implemented very quickly (as in, absolute minimum lost game time for every review) and very accurately. I'm not sure it's possible. But I think on a theoretical level, some minor guesswork on who goes to what base is probably preferable to messing up the whole safe/out thing to begin with, so that shouldn't stop us from having a good hard look at the possibilities.
(click here to read more)

Idea 2: Checked swings should never be reviewed by camera, because that's purely a judgment call for which there is no right or wrong answer.

I don't think this is true anymore. Maybe there's no written rule about what's a swing and what isn't, but it's pretty well developed now. If the bat crosses the front of the plate, it's a swing; if it doesn't, it's not. There might be some really close calls on which you or I might disagree, but at the end of the day, whether you refer to it as "breaking the plane" or something with the wrists or whatever else, that's what every single person is looking for.

And I know this: the way it's currently done doesn't work. There is almost no relationship between how hard or how far a batter swings and whether or not the base umpire rules it a swing; the bats move too quickly, and the base umpire is at a terrible angle to make that call (better than the home plate ump's, but terrible nonetheless). There needs to be a guy reviewing the straight-on-side camera on a nice big TV who can instantly make that call. And if the problem is that the rule isn't clear enough, make it clearer. The way it's run right now is an absolute joke.

Idea 3: Balls and strikes should never be called by a computer, because they're unreliable or call strikes people don't want to see called strikes.

I know I don't want to see the TBS "PitchTrax" thing call strikes. That thing is awful. And I have my doubts about the ESPN one too. But Pitch-f/x, MLB's own tool, is pretty darn good. And I guess I'm just going to have to disagree -- if a curveball passes through the zone before bouncing in the dirt, it's a strike, and I want it called that way.

More importantly, it's kind of the same thing as point 2: whatever the kinks that might need to be worked out in any new system, the one thing I'm sure of is that what we're doing now isn't working. I've watched most of every game except the two weekday games so far this postseason, and the ball/strike calls in almost every single game have been absolutely brutal.

I don't know if any of these things will work, or are feasible, or whatever. I understand where Eric and everyone who is resistant to ideas like these is coming from (so long as they go beyond "human error is part of the game"). But we've got a lot of great technology that might allow us to get these things right. I'm all for looking into them. And if they're going to help make sure that games are decided by the play on the field rather than by poor officiating, it's hard for me to see the argument against that can overcome that.

And for a much more eloquent and enjoyable read making pretty much the same argument, see JoePoz.