Instant replay system is highly effective, says MLB.com

Making decisions using video replays are facilitating success above expectations.

MLB.com, the official website of U.S. pro baseball, published on Sunday an article titled “After review: Replay changed baseball for the better in 2014.” According to the article, “during the regular season, there were 1,275 reviews, roughly one every two games.”

Of them, 310 cases (24.3 percent) were confirmed and 352 (27.6 percent) were ruled as stands “because there was no clear visual evidence to overturn the umpire`s decision.” On the other hand, 603 cases, or 47.3 percent of all umpire decisions were overturned as they were confirmed to be erroneous. In the post-season, there were 11 reviews, and 4 cases (36.3 percent) were overturned. The MLB has introduced the video replays for the first time this year. Based on these results, MLB.com said it was highly successful.

Korean pro sports, which also adopted video replays posted similar rates of overturns. In the second half of this year, from July 22, Korean pro baseball introduced video replays for the first time and there were 115 times of umpires agreeing to video replay reviews. Among them, 40 times (40.8 percent) of the umpire decisions were reversed. The pro baseball circle evaluates this new policy dramatically reduced wrong judging. It partially prevents frustrating situations where clearly wrong umpire decisions could not be reversed due to the regulation that the umpire’s out and safe calls cannot be overturned.

Korean pro volleyball, which adopted video replays for decisions for the first time in the world in 2007, has received a total of 218 cases of video replays up to round 2 of this season and 89 cases (40.8 percent) were reversed. Unnecessary mistaken judgment controversies have gone down and the video replays are welcomed. Accordingly, this has completely eliminated concerns at the beginning of the adoption of video replays, that it might undermine the referee’s authority and the excitement of the game.