It’s a perennial argument that technology is slowly helping to settle.
Sure, if the cost of reviewing a play is something like 25 minutes of staring at grainy black and white replays, yeah, maybe it’s not worth it. But when you can look at a replay and get something like this right in a few minutes, what’s the issue? It’s certainly not about time anymore, not when arguments over blown calls take longer than reviews.

In the final analysis, all the ‘traditionalists’ have to fall back on is that error and uncertainty are a part of the game. That will always be true, but it’s still fundamentally weird to hear arguments basically coming out in favor of getting things wrong.

(by the way, uh, how the hell did this call get missed in the first place? What possible explanation can there be for this?)

Where I still hopelessly cling to tradition. The argument’s been made before, these bad calls are supposed to even out over the duration of a season. Instant replay just isn’t something I’ve ever warmed up to.

instant replay gums up the game. Nothing quite as exciting as watching a ref go under the hood for five minutes. I want to see the calls made right, but I lack the desire for scientific certainty that would justify further breaks in the game.

Once instant replay started being used regularly, would we need to go back to historical data for teams and players, find games with blown calls, and “correct” them somehow?

Would we go back to controversial calls, run stat analysis to fill in the gaps, and conclude e.g. that the Cubs actually won the 2003 World Series?

Or introduce some kind of margin of error for pre-replay stats, as over the course of a season it’s possible that an individual’s stats or team’s win totals were skewed by blown calls?

And if we’re not going to go back and adjust like that, then taking the long view, what’s the real damage to the history of the sport and fairness / integrity of the game, in not having instant replay?

Also, project further into the future – in a couple of generations of having instant reply, wouldn’t the quality of major league umpires decline slightly but measurably? As it stands now, the umpires are the final arbiters, they absolutely have to get it right, they’re held to a very high standard. And instant replay / slow-mo / high-def on TV have shown that the vast majority of the time, the umps do get it right. They’re that good. With replay to fall back on, wouldn’t there be less incentive to be absolutely as close to perfect as they can get?

And finally: if replay gets used in enough aspects of the game, we’d never see Lou blow his stack anymore. Who really wants to trade getting one or two calls right if the cost is not seeing Lou cover home plate with dirt, or never see Lou discus-toss first base?

If a blown call was the difference maker in a team going to the playoffs or not, then yes, it’s unfair. But if that team were truly playoff-caliber, then there’s a dozen other points in the season where they could have pitched, fielded or hit better. Blaming a non-championship season on one blown call is irresponsible, when the teams are given dozens of chances over 162 games to be better than the margin of error.

If your team needed that one play, that one pitch, that one game to get into the playoffs, then your team was probably playing well enough; probably lucky; probably decent; not really a great team, though. Closer to fluke and cinderella story than to truly all-time great season / great team.
 
And as for blown calls in the postseason – if the postseason is such a crapshoot that one blown call makes the difference between getting a ring or not, then there needs to be more fundamental changes made than just replay (e.g. a 7-game division series).

Would that be a problem?