A huge component of baseball is watching a manager come out and argue with an umpire. When Lou Pinella was a managing the Seattle Mariners in the 1990’s, he would end up having a fiery temper. He would kick dirt, throw bases, and cause a disruption in the games because of a bad call by an umpire.
If MLB had their way, the days of watching managers like Lou Pinella going crazy over a bad call would come to an end. MLB executive Joe Torre sent a memo out to all 30 teams that said, “This is highly inappropriate conduct is detrimental to the game and must stop immediately.” He would also state in the memo, “the prevalence of manager ejections simply cannot continue.”
According to the Associated Press, the report that Torre put in the memo called out managers who end up relying on replays or zone tracking tools that are available in, say, the clubhouse video room to inform their arguments.
Per Close Call Sports, in 2015 plate umpires ended up ejecting the manager on occasion 76 times. In 2016, manager ejections are happening 37 times. So it would be safe to say that the pace has slowed down a bit. On rare occasions, General managers get into arguments with umpires over calls at the plate.
As far as General Managers that have arguments with umpires over balls and strikes is not as big as managers arguing with umpires. The only one that comes to mind as of recent was Washington Nationals GM Mike Rizzo. Not that long ago, it was reported that Mike Rizzo supposedly engaged in a tunnel shouting match with veteran ump Jim Joyce.
What I am curious to see is if Major League Baseball actually goes through with this idea and somehow makes a new rule regarding managers arguing. As of recent, MLB has been trying new ways to make the game go quicker and unfortunately when managers argue, it ends up taking up time.