What happens during MLB replay reviews

People ask me all kinds of baseball questions at family and friend gatherings. But the ones coming from my wife’s cousin’s father-in-law recently had me completely thrown.

“How many umpires are in there?”

“Is an umpire watching 15 games at the same time while he waits for a call?”

“What if there are two replays at once?”

On and on this went. I didn’t know the answers, because, for as many times as I’ve walked past and even set foot in what is officially known as the Zoom Replay Operations Center in MLB’s headquarters in midtown Manhattan, I’ve never actually been in there while games are going on. To the best of my knowledge, no reporter had.

So, this seemed a topic worthy of … wait for it … review!

On a night earlier this season (Monday, May 19 to be exact), we were able to bring an MLB Network film crew into the room and get awesome access to crew chief James Hoye as he worked his replay room shift.

Based on how the umpire shifts are scheduled (more on this below), there was no guarantee that Hoye or any of the other umps in the room that evening would get a replay review of much consequence.

But as it turns out, we got lucky.

In the sixth inning of a game in Miami, the Marlins challenged a play at the plate in which Moisés Ballesteros was ruled on the field to have slid in safely to score on a Miguel Amaya double. Hoye was the one reviewing the call, and he saw that Ballesteros’ foot hit the dirt and then popped over the plate while he was tagged. The overturn negated what would have been the go-ahead run for the Cubs. This proved quite consequential later, as the Marlins wound up winning, 8-7, on a walk-off.

Technological justice prevailed!

You should check out our full feature to get a full sense of what goes on inside the room. But here are 10 questions I can now confidently answer thanks to the experience — information I will be regaling baseball fans with at future family gatherings!

1. How do umpire replay shifts work?

All MLB umpires serve a weeklong shift in the room either two or three times per season, so roughly 14 to 21 days total. They generally work Monday through Sunday, although, on a lightly scheduled day (typically Mondays or Thursdays, which don’t often have 15 games going on), a given umpire might have the day off.

The umpire’s shift consists of two games happening simultaneously. There are two, four-person umpire crews in town for the replay room at any given time, which provides enough umpires to cover a full, 15-game slate.

On the night we were in the room, Hoye had the Reds-Pirates game in Pittsburgh and the Cubs-Marlins game in Miami, both of which began at 6:40 p.m. ET. There are large monitors directly in front of the umpire at his station that allow for both games to be watched at once.

To prevent mental drain, the umpire does not work, say, a 7 p.m. ET game followed by a 10 p.m. ET game. Once an umpire’s two games are in the books, the shift is complete.

Umpires generally see these shifts as a nice respite from the rigors of their role.

“The crew that I’m on, we just had a 25-day stretch where we had one off day,” Hoye said. “[So we were] looking forward to getting here, because we’re off the field and get a break and can rejuvenate — physically and mentally.”

2. What about the postseason?

For postseason games, there are two replay umpires assigned to each game — one lead and one assist.

3. How many replay angles do the umpires have access to?

The replay center uses one stadium high-home camera and two batter cameras (provided by MLB) and then an even mix of up to four super slow-motion and 17 isolated cameras combined from the home and away broadcasts, if available.

The high-home camera is utilized primarily to place runners in the correct places, in the event that an overturn requires it. But most angles come from broadcast crews. If you’ve ever heard a broadcaster say something to the effect of, “They have angles in New York that we don’t have,” what they are referring to are angles from the other broadcast crew, not some proprietary, MLB-owned angle.

4. Who else is in the room besides the umpires?

It’s a robust group with very specific and defined roles. It breaks down as follows:

On top of all that, there is also an administration group in the room, capturing roughly 100 points of data for each review, such as the amount of time the review took, the type of play, the rule cited, the definitive camera angles used, etc. This information is logged and sent out to the media, social media accounts and other sources to ensure transparency about the process.

And off the hallway behind the replay room itself are the offices of the various engineers and techs available should any technological malfunctions take place.

All told, in a given night, there are typically more than 30 people in the room.

The Replay Operations Center employs 16 full-time and about 50 seasonal people, and many clubs have hired people straight out of the replay room to lead or assist with their own replay review process.

5. What happens in the room when a play is challenged?

Before a challenge is even officially issued by a team, the room has sprung into action already.

When a close play occurs, the operator types in a command at his or her keyboard to alert the room. If, for example, the close play is in a game being monitored at umpire station No. 4, an automated male voice says, “Four.”

At this, the umpire supervisor, technical director and any umpires who are not in the midst of reviewing their own close plays will gather behind that station, and the operator will rewind the play from the broadcast to give the replay ump another look at it.

As we observed when we were in the room, the majority of these close calls are not challenged. In fact, there were several times in which Hoye waved off the supervisor and other umps before they even arrived to the station because he could tell, from experience, that the play would not actually be challenged.

But in the cases in which a challenge does occur, the operator keys in a code that alerts the room with a female automated voice saying the station number. This is how everyone in the room knows a challenge is underway, and there are clocks on each side of the room timing the length of the official review.

It was interesting to see how far along in the process the umpire was by the time he received the call from the official on the field. Hoye, for instance, had a bang-bang play at first base in which the Pirates’ Ke’Bryan Hayes was ruled safe on the field. By the time Hoye received the call over the headset from the crew chief — in this case, Doug Eddings — at the ballpark, he had already seen the play multiple times, and it was clear that pitcher Nick Lodolo had fielded a toss from first baseman Spencer Steer and beaten Hayes to the bag and touched the bag.

Hoye issued his overturn in just five seconds.

Even the more-consequential play at the plate mentioned earlier involving Ballesteros scoring on Amaya’s double was handled swiftly. Hoye turned that one around in 55 seconds.

6. How often do challenges occur and how long do they typically take?

Through early July, we had an average of 0.59 reviews per game. This means that the average replay official makes the call on between one to two challenges per shift. (Hoye had two challenges during the shift we observed, both overturns.)

The average time for a replay review this season has been one minute, 26 seconds.

And if you’re scoring at home, 49.5% of challenges and crew chief reviews have resulted in a call being confirmed or standing this season, while 50.2% have led to a call on the field being overturned. When a call “stands,” it means there was not enough video evidence to overturn. When a call is “confirmed” the replay officials are definitively saying that the call on the field was correct.

(For those paying close attention, that numbers above add up to 99.7%. The other 0.3% were rules checks and record-keeping matters.)

7. Can the umpire reviewing a play consult with the other umps in the room?

Yes, and this happens often. The other umpires in the room will gather by the station of the ump assessing the challenged play and be a resource, if needed.

As the replay official surveys the play, the umpire supervisor might say, “Talk me through what you’re seeing here.” The replay official might say something along the lines of, “I see the tag applied prior to the runner’s foot touching the bag.” He can then confirm with the other umps that they see the same thing before making the final call to the crew chief at the ballpark.

8. What if there are two challenges at once?

Two challenges at separate stations is a pretty straightforward situation, as two separate umpires are surveying separate calls, and the umpire supervisor and technical director have time to navigate from one station to the next. (Quite often, one call is more straightforward than the other.)

When an umpire goes into replay mode in one of this two games, his other game is temporarily transferred to another umpire in the room, who for that brief period of time is then responsible for monitoring three games at once. So if both of the original umpire’s games were to have a challenge within moments of each other, the second umpire would take care of one of them.

9. Does the umpire crew on the field have any say in the replay review?

No. Once the crew chief at the field relays to the review umpire what, exactly, is being challenged, the replay official then mutes his headset while analyzing the play and does not turn it back on until the decision has been made.

10. Does a tie actually go to the runner?

There are ties, actually! But it’s the job of the replay official to confirm or overturn the call on the field. So if it is determined via review to be a legitimate tie, then the call — be it safe or out — would stand as originally called by the umpire on the field.