Got the opportunity to do some thinking last night during our game and came up with two things that stick out as possible ways to speed up the game or help umps manage the speed of the game.
Why doesn't the field ump take care of lineup changes rather than the plate ump? Reason I ask is last night the plate ump took FOREVER to make lineup changes. Both coaches would make a change and then the plate ump would - 1) call time, 2) take his mask off, 3) take his arm through the elastic straps so he could hold it, 4) take out his pad, 5) find which lineup card he needed, 6) locate & make the notation on the line up card, 7) put the pad up, 8) walk all the way over to the other dugout, 9) very loudly say the substitution.....three times.....each time slow, 10) walk back to the plate, 11) take his mask off his arm, 12) put it back on and 13) play ball.
I realize this is more of a failure of this guy to get a sense of urgency and do his job right but this guy would actually hold up the game when changes took place between innings. Pitcher would finish, catcher throws and everyone is still waiting on this guy. I won't even try to explain how long it took to make changes on pinch runners and courtesy runners.
Reason I ask is during all this time I got the chance to start wondering if overall more time could be saved if the field ump could take care of subs since he doesn't have to worry about a mask?
Or maybe one ump takes care of subs for one team and the other takes care of subs for the other team?
Overall plate umps do a good job of taking care of subs in a timely manner but this guy is obviously the exception.
Another thing I've noticed this year is that on foul balls / passed balls to the screen the on deck hitter gets the ball but the plate ump still holds up the game to wait on the on deck batter to get the ball and toss it back to him. Hitter and pitcher are both ready but the plate ump has his back to them trying to get the ball. Used to be that the plate ump would give the on deck batter time to get out of the way but he brought the ball back to him when he came up to hit.
Is this something new that's being taught? Wouldn't waiting on the next hitter be faster?
Overall I don't have any real problems with the flow of the game (exception last night with that guy) but these are just questions out of curiosity and not any real criticism of umpiring.
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