Dodgers: Dave Roberts Not a Fan of This Particular Change to Baseball in 2020

Major League Baseball in 2020 will be unlike any year that any of us has ever seen. I don’t think that comes as too much of a shock to Dodgers fans when I say that. Out of all of the rule changes coming, Dave Roberts really seems to have a problem with one in particular. 

In an effort to cut down person-to-person contact, MLB has tried to limit the number of people at games dramatically. One way that they have decided to do that is by having scorekeepers keep score and make judgement calls away from the stadium. When asked how he felt about that, the Dodgers manager was not happy with it. 

Personally I’m not a fan, I’m not in favor of it. The speed of the game, seeing it in real-time with your own eyes in front of you I think matters. And to see something on a field of replay I just think it’s just a little bit harder. But if that’s the decision that Major League Baseball has made, you know, unilaterally then so be it.

In his mind, Roberts feels that there is too much room for error in making judgment calls entirely away from the game. He also felt as though official scorekeepers for games would have their views on errors and earned runs compromised along with the other statistical aspects of the game. The Dodgers had not previously made any sort of statement in this regard. 

The official scorekeepers in Major League Baseball generally call games from the press boxes at stadiums. The official scorers are required to make a report of each game, including the outcome for those games. Judgment calls that they make include whether or not balls in play were hits or errors, as well as determining passed balls from wild pitches. They also determine who gets awarded the win when a starting pitchers does not go five innings and leaves with a lead. 

Dodgers: Roberts Says Second Base Does Not Yet Belong to Gavin Lux