Braves president John Schuerholz, a member of the instant-replay approval committee, indicated in January that the first year of expanded replay would be a "work in progress," that this year would be merely "a start" in a three-phase process. His words ring true today, nearly one full season into the experiment. Make no mistake: Replay hasn't been perfect. The review process often takes too long. Some of the rules haven't always been clear. And the logistics of actually initiating a replay are clunky and badly in need of a change.
Between those valid issues, a few high-profile mistakes and some pushback from a vocal minority, you might think replay has been more failure than success. But as you slowly walk out to the umpire, wait for your bench coach to give you a thumbs-up to challenge and then have the MLBAM operations center in New York review that opinion, the indisputable result comes back: Replay has been a massive success, and was long overdue. Sure, there are kinks to be worked out, it's not going away anytime soon, nor should it.
What has worked?
When Major League Baseball first announced expanded replay, they said they had reviewed 50,000 close plays from the 2013 season and found that 377 of them had been incorrect. Through Sept. 4, in less than a full season, we've already seen 509 calls overturned, which accounts for 46.79 percent of all reviewed plays. Even if the true number of incorrect plays is somewhere in the middle -- we don't have enough years of data to know what the "usual" number is yet -- that's a considerable number of avoided mistakes.