How it is works is that a manager gets at least one challenge over the first six innings. If he wins that challenge he gets another. After the sixth inning a manager can use any remaining challenges or he can request the umpires review a close play. Unless the umps are quite confident they got the call right they probably will. The replays will be viewed by a team of umpires in MLB’s centralized Replay Operation System. Plays that can be reviewed include force plays, tag plays, trap plays in the outfield, fair/four in the outfield, timing plays on whether a player scored before the third out is made, ground rule doubles, fan interference, stadium boundaries and record keeping (balls/strikes etc.)

What can’t be reviewed are balks, the “neighborhood play,” check swings, tagging up on fly balls and balls and strikes.

The review process is supposed to take between 60 and 90 seconds, and so far it’s been a bit longer than that. However a goal of around 90 seconds could be realistic once everyone gets more comfortable with system.

On Tuesday night we saw the good and the not-so-good of the new replay system.

The good happened in Arlington, Texas during the Phillies Rangers game. In the sixth inning Philadelphia had runners first and second with nobody out and one run in — the first run of the game. Pitcher Martin Perez appeared to pick Phillies center fielder Ben Revere off of second base, but the ump called him safe. Ranger Manager Ron Washington challenged the play and Revere was correctly called out. The Phillies scored one more run in the inning, but if Revere had been ruled safe they would have scored at least two more and probably three. The Rangers ended up winning the game 3-2.

Things didn’t go quite as well for replay at Chase Field, where the Diamondbacks were taking on the Giants. In the fourth inning Arizona outfielder A.J Pollock appeared to have been caught leaning off of first base by Giant’s pitcher Matt Cain. When the umpire ruled him safe, San Francisco manager Bruce Bochy challenged. Replays showed a razor close play at the bag — not conclusive enough to overturn.

Having lost the challenge, Bochy wasn’t able to protest a few pitches later when Pollock scored on a close play at the plate on a wild pitch. Replays show Cain conclusively tagged Pollack out after a nice throw from catcher Buster Posey. Arizona went on to win the game 5-4.

Another thing we’ve notice with replay is it encourages managers to go onto the field whenever there is a remotely close play, buying time for their dugout to check it out on the monitor and tell them if they should challenge.

Now even before replay managers would often come out of the dugout to “discuss” close calls. But the new replay system seems to ensure that they will do this on every play that isn’t clear cut, lengthening the game significantly even if the actual challenge time is whittled down to about a minute.

What do you think? Is the new replay system going to make baseball games too long or is that a small price to pay for getting it right?

Baseball players are among the highest paid athletes in the world, with salaries so astronomical that they are hard for even the most mathematically inclined fan to keep track of.

That’s where Cot’s Baseball Contracts comes in. The website, which is named for Cot Tierney, the National League’s fifth leading hitter in 1922, is the one stop clearinghouse for all things baseball contract related.

Cot’s Baseball Contracts started out in 2005 as a freestanding website with the URL mlbcontracts@blogspot.com. In 2011 it became a part of the Baseball Prospectus web home. Although much of Baseball Prospectus’ content is behind a firewall, Cot’s remains free.

Cot’s home page has links to all 30 Major League teams. In each team’s section you will find a listing for each player currently under contract with the details of that contract and any other contract with any other team the player had signed earlier in his career. These details include salary, options, vesting information, performance bonuses, no trade lists and any other compensation, such as deferred payments game tickets, flights for family members and special road accommodations. Cot’s also lists each player’s big league service time, which comes into play for arbitration and free agent eligibility. Contract information for the coaching staff and front office officials are also included when available.

In addition Cot’s offers these team-by-team lists of contracts on a spreadsheets, downloadable through Google docs. The spreadsheet format allows the fan a good visualization of a franchise’s salary commitments down the road.

Cot’s is also well known for compiling lists of upcoming free agents divided by position, which is great for figuring out which free agents your favorite team should sign during the off-season.

Other features of Cot’s includes salary information for former Major League players who are now playing overseas and a list of the most lucrative current Major League contracts.

When Cot’s made the jump to Baseball Prospectus their carefully collected salary information was also ported to a new section of the BP home page — their compensation page — which includes more color than the original Cot’s and new graphs and charts. This section also allows you to compare what player has been paid in dollars vs. his worth in WARP (Wins Above Replacement), which is Baseball Prospectus version of WAR (Wins Above Replacement.)

Cot’s information has also been incorporated into Baseball Prospectus’ player cards. This is useful because now when a player retires and is taken off his team salary page there is still a detailed record of what he earned over his career for the curious fan.

We certainly recommend checking out BP’s compensation page, which at this point remains free. It is an worthy update to the great work Cot’s did when it was still a freestanding site. However for fans of the old format it should be comforting to know it still exists. If you want to find it just type in the original URL or google Cot’s Baseball Contracts. You will ultimately be on Baseball Prospectus, but Cot’s will look the same as it did before the merger.