Francona preparing for instant replay meeting

GOODYEAR, Ariz. -- Indians manager Terry Francona has not sat down yet to go over the fine print of the new instant-replay rules that go into effect this season. Francona plans on poring over the details in the weeks following a meeting with officials from Major League Baseball.

"We have our session Tuesday," Francona said. "We'll go over there and look at the mechanical part of it. There will be another session in March. Two different sessions. They're trying to walk us through things like how it's going to work, not just the technology, but how the rule actually works. I think it'll ease some anxiety for a lot of us."

For Tuesday's meeting, Francona said he will be joined by general manager Chris Antonetti, bench coach Brad Mills, assistant GM Mike Chernoff and Derek Falvey, the team's director of baseball operations. They will head to Peoria, Ariz., for the first wave of MLB's meetings with teams based in Arizona for Spring Training.

Beginning this season, each manager will start a game with one available instant-replay challenge. If used and upheld, the manager retains the challenge, but will only be able to then use a maximum of two challenges in a single game. If the challenges are used prior to the start of the seventh inning, no more will be permitted. Following the start of the seventh, the umpire crew chief will be in charge of reviews.

Francona was hesitant to give his reaction to the new system prior to learning more about it.

"I don't know it yet," Francona said. "I've never done it before, so that leads to a little bit of anxiety. But once we learn it, that anxiety will go away."