We don’t really know how it’s going to work out, large-scale, in practice — so it’s hard for me to say much beyond the question.
Teams are still working out their strategies. Who can challenge, what will
be challenged, and so on and so forth. Two failed challenges is not very many considering the quantity of borderline pitches in a game, and while catchers have demonstrated a better success rate than batters or pitchers thus far, it’s still nowhere near always being right.
Part of it comes down to what teams get, and don’t get. Two challenges is somewhat stingy. The rules could’ve started, with, say, nine failed challenges. It’s not really a pace of play thing — it appears to be a mix of a sop to umpires and an attempt to inject strategy into the proceedings. I don’t have a high estimation of “strategy” prompted by limited opportunity to correct incorrect calls when they’re made, but it is what it is.
I guess it kind of comes down to usage, in the end. The main point of improving ball-strike calls is so that games don’t hinge on one or more bad calls. If teams reserve their challenges for higher leverage, games won’t hinge on bad calls, at least not as frequently. So, depending on what teams do, two could be fine enough, with the only things left uncorrected as lower-leverage mistakes.
I guess if you were designing a system that still had challenges rather than just electronically calling every pitch, maybe you’d want to adjust for this. Like, both teams could start with two, but each team would get another every two lead changes, and another in every inning after the sixth when the score was within three runs. This isn’t any less strategic, but gives teams more options in games where it’s more likely to matter. I don’t know, it still rubs me the wrong way that this isn’t just being used for every pitch to begin with.
Anyway, what do you think? How many challenges would you give if you were designing the system?
