Challenge system approved!

[markedman5]

Welcome to the new world 

 

[adambr2]

It’s a step in the right direction, but I wish they’d just rip off the band-aid and fully automate.

If an umpire is missing egregiously like last night and the challenges are always kept, you might see 10-15 of those awkward challenge waits in a game. Maybe that’s a good thing. A form of public humiliation for the umpires if they’re really bad at their job.

[markedman5]

21 minutes ago, adambr2 said:

It’s a step in the right direction, but I wish they’d just rip off the band-aid and fully automate.

If an umpire is missing egregiously like last night and the challenges are always kept, you might see 10-15 of those awkward challenge waits in a game. Maybe that’s a good thing. A form of public humiliation for the umpires if they’re really bad at their job.

Maybe umps will be able to adjust on the fly when challenges show that they are missing significantly in one area or another?

We can always hope……🤷‍♂️

[Jim French Stepstool]

26 minutes ago, adambr2 said:

 Maybe that’s a good thing. A form of public humiliation for the umpires if they’re really bad at their job.

That's what I was thinking. If they had challenges last night, by the ninth inning Roberto Ortiz would be looking for a hole to climb in. Or a bottle.

I've always hated the idea of robot ball & strike calls. But pitching is getting so sophisticated with the spin rate development, many pitchers having two or three different types of breaking pitches, not to mention 96-97 MPH fastballs being the norm. It's probably time.

[Team Canada]

I hadn't really thought about this aspect, but ESPN's article noted:

Adding the robot umps is likely to cut down on ejections. MLB said 61.5% of ejections among players, managers and coaches last year were related to balls and strikes, as were 60.3% this season through Sunday. The figures include ejections for derogatory comments, throwing equipment while protesting calls and inappropriate conduct.

That is a benefit for umpires - people can't complain about calls when they can get them overruled.

[markedman5]

https://www.mlb.com/news/abs-challenge-system-mlb-2026?adobe_mc=TS%3D1758653635|MCMID%3D16359271076159621358735313343475967274|MCORGID%3DA65F776A5245B01B0A490D44@AdobeOrg&affiliateId=mlbapp-ios_webview_news-index&rsid=mlbios.at.bat.new.implementation

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

37 minutes ago, adambr2 said:

It’s a step in the right direction, but I wish they’d just rip off the band-aid and fully automate.

If an umpire is missing egregiously like last night and the challenges are always kept, you might see 10-15 of those awkward challenge waits in a game. Maybe that’s a good thing. A form of public humiliation for the umpires if they’re really bad at their job.

So, having watched tennis for years and years, I have to say the the challenge system feels far superior to me than the full-on automated line calls. There are a few reasons for this (no particular order):

1) The system sometimes can crash, meaning the game cannot continue, and there are occasionally lengthy delays.

2) The challenges provide an element of strategy. You've got to know when to use them, and I think this is broadly a good thing. Plus, the Brewers are good at stuff like that. If there's an element of public feedback for umpires who miss a lot of calls, there is also one for players/managers who complain about borderline pitches, or pitches that are clearly strikes/balls, depending. EDIT: Since only the batter, pitcher, or catcher can challenge, this adds an even further element of strategy--how aggressive will players be, how will management communicate the data?)

3) The fully automated zone is going to have weird blind spots. The low strike, for example, that will be called a strike, even when the catcher catches it at the shoe tops. There are pitches that are technically strikes that don't feel like actual strikes, and I'm not sure we want that to become the default call. In tennis, this manifests as balls whose elongated bounces just clip the baseline on Hawkeye (even though there's a margin of error and they might well be out). It's better when these can be challenged as opposed to when they are always in.

4) I know people gripe about "the human element," but the fact is the technology isn't always "right." It isn't always even perfectly consistent. We just defer to it because its fast and easy. That's not always a good thing, even in the context of sport. It's good for umpires to have jobs. It's good to have a person understanding the ball not as a dot on the screen thrown by a dot on the screen to another dot on the screen, but as a baseball thrown by a human to another human. There is something important lost when we cede all power to robots, on the false promise of perfect accuracy (which doesn't exist). "Subject to Review" is a great 30 for 30 short documentary about this process. 

5) There will ALWAYS be borderline pitches that are both balls and strikes. That is, from a physics perspective, it's impossible to tell sometimes where one object (or subatomic particle) ends and another begins. See the famous cat in the box. We should embrace that uncertainty and correct the most egregious or game-impactful misses. A challenge system does that. Fully automated does not. And when the challenge system is very fast and efficient, the biggest injustices are corrected without wasting time on silly stuff or always-going-to-be-impossible-to-define stuff. Here, if you lose on a coin-flip call, you'll either have challenges remaining (in which case we let the machines flip the coin), or you won't (because you didn't use them wisely enough). That's better than the machine always flipping the coin.

Of course, all of the above depends on teams not trying to game the system too hard (by seeking the best data and then challenging every single close pitch they have a 51% chance of winning), and recent baseball history suggests the system will be gamed. Maybe we'll end up with fully automated anyway. I just think it's completely worth trying a challenge system first. You don't really lose anything. And I think it will be very difficult for teams to get so good at challenging that we effectively have an all-automated system anyway (EDIT: especially when challenges have to come from batters/pitchers/catchers). 

If you'll let me get philosophical: the strike zone is about justice. I think the best version of justice occurs when technological input is used by thoughtful humans to aid the decision-making process. Making the technology the all-time, default arbitrator is, in its way, as incomplete as letting the umpire decide everything on gut. You want both, and that's what this system gives you.

[Fear The Chorizo]

1 hour ago, adambr2 said:

It’s a step in the right direction, but I wish they’d just rip off the band-aid and fully automate.

If an umpire is missing egregiously like last night and the challenges are always kept, you might see 10-15 of those awkward challenge waits in a game. Maybe that’s a good thing. A form of public humiliation for the umpires if they’re really bad at their job.

I actually prefer a series of repeated real-time corrections for umps struggling to make correct ball/strike calls where they are consistently missing enough where pitcher/catcher and hitters would want to keep challenging calls - frankly it could help umps self-correct during a game if they are setting up improperly or just not seeing pitches well themselves due to different catcher/pitcher styles.  

Instant accountability for some of these umps is a good thing, IMO.  I can also see human element still being a significant factor if a team burns through its challenges too early, so there's definitely a strategy to only using the challenge when it feels obvious - there will inevitably be those late inning prayer challenges just to use it hoping a pitch call is reversed to benefit a team even if most everyone agrees the right call got made, but that is tolerable knowing the terrible calls that can change a game will mostly be corrected.

[young guns]

Well some is better than nothing, and maybe getting our feet wet will get us to a fully automated zone eventually.

I am wondering if 2 challenges is not enough.  It feels like too much of a limiting number.  I'm wondering if those that watch the minor league games have a feel for the organizational philosophy on when players are "allowed" to attempt challenges.  Potentially only using if it would change ball4/strike 3 calls, men on base/bases empty, # of outs.  From a numbers perspective it will be interesting to see which teams/players are more aggressive and which are more conservative in calling for a challenge.  Also I wonder if there will be public availability of the data on pitches that aren't challenged to see how many missed opportunities there are in a game.

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

22 minutes ago, young guns said:

Well some is better than nothing, and maybe getting our feet wet will get us to a fully automated zone eventually.

I am wondering if 2 challenges is not enough.  It feels like too much of a limiting number.  I'm wondering if those that watch the minor league games have a feel for the organizational philosophy on when players are "allowed" to attempt challenges.  Potentially only using if it would change ball4/strike 3 calls, men on base/bases empty, # of outs.  From a numbers perspective it will be interesting to see which teams/players are more aggressive and which are more conservative in calling for a challenge.  Also I wonder if there will be public availability of the data on pitches that aren't challenged to see how many missed opportunities there are in a game.

I will agree that 2 does seem too limited. I think I'd like to see 2 "use it or lose it" for the first five innings and then 2 or 3 more for the final four.

[SeaBass]

4 minutes ago, Cool Hand Lucroy said:

I will agree that 2 does seem too limited. I think I'd like to see 2 "use it or lose it" for the first five innings and then 2 or 3 more for the final four.

Read the article that @markedman5 linked, explains the thought process behind the choice for 2 and I think it sounds very reasonable. Basically teams are going to have to be strategic in their choice to use their challenges. If a challenge succeeds the team retains their challenge(s). So 2 should be plenty if used correctly. The point is to have a way to fix egregious incorrect calls, not to nitpick about borderline pitches that could get called either way.

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

1 minute ago, SeaBass said:

Read the article that @markedman5 linked, explains the thought process behind the choice for 2 and I think it sounds very reasonable. Basically teams are going to have to be strategic in their choice to use their challenges. If a challenge succeeds the team retains their challenge(s). So 2 should be plenty if used correctly. The point is to have a way to fix egregious incorrect calls, not to nitpick about borderline pitches that could get called either way.

Fair enough. It certainly sounds reasonable to me. I'm not going to get too worked up about it either way. I think I'd still prefer slightly more (I like the idea of having a limited set of lower-stakes challenges early in the game both to gain information about the zone and the setup of the cameras that particular day and to allow teams to have some leeway in challenging important calls early without risking what might be VERY precious challenges late), but this feels like a place where good arguments exist all around.

[duewizard]

Love that this finally got implemented. Nice compromise between Robots and People. Would be nice if they had implemented it in the postseason but oh well

[SeaBass]

1 minute ago, Cool Hand Lucroy said:

Fair enough. It certainly sounds reasonable to me. I'm not going to get too worked up about it either way. I think I'd still prefer slightly more (I like the idea of having a limited set of lower-stakes challenges early in the game both to gain information about the zone and the setup of the cameras that particular day and to allow teams to have some leeway in challenging important calls early without risking what might be VERY precious challenges late), but this feels like a place where good arguments exist all around.

On the surface I can see how that sounds like a good idea but both teams getting a bunch of inconsequential challenges would absolutely slow the game down. If a team is using challenges correctly they will have infinite challenges to use throughout the game.

[Fear The Chorizo]

1 minute ago, Cool Hand Lucroy said:

Fair enough. It certainly sounds reasonable to me. I'm not going to get too worked up about it either way. I think I'd still prefer slightly more (I like the idea of having a limited set of lower-stakes challenges early in the game both to gain information about the zone and the setup of the cameras that particular day and to allow teams to have some leeway in challenging important calls early without risking what might be VERY precious challenges late), but this feels like a place where good arguments exist all around.

To me, the point of the challenge system for balls/strikes is to get rid of the obvious misses - not to try an add further strategical elements of what is already a very nuanced and strategic game.  Teams/players have all the leeway they'd like challenging what they think is an important call that didn't go their way early in a game - they just have to be right and they should use it only when it's a glaring whoopsie by the ump.  

[young guns]

Maybe once we see it in action only 2 challenges will be fair, but I'm on the side of the fence that just wants all calls to just be correct as opposed to well at least we will get the really bad ones corrected and if there are some borderline called incorrect that's fine.

I guess what I don't want to see is not challenging 10 misses because they are borderline and it's "too early", but its "ok" because we got the 1 obvious miss late.

One other aspect is that we've seen some players argue some not even close correct(at least according to the box on the tv) calls so I'm sure we are going to see some ridiculous challenges.  I wonder if some players will lose their ability to challenge calls because they are so bad at it.

[markedman5]

Players wanted this system…..and according to the feedback mlb got so did majority of the fans…….i think it’s a good compromise 

 

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

32 minutes ago, young guns said:

Maybe once we see it in action only 2 challenges will be fair, but I'm on the side of the fence that just wants all calls to just be correct as opposed to well at least we will get the really bad ones corrected and if there are some borderline called incorrect that's fine.

I guess what I don't want to see is not challenging 10 misses because they are borderline and it's "too early", but its "ok" because we got the 1 obvious miss late.

One other aspect is that we've seen some players argue some not even close correct(at least according to the box on the tv) calls so I'm sure we are going to see some ridiculous challenges.  I wonder if some players will lose their ability to challenge calls because they are so bad at it.

I think "correct" is a hard word here. Correct according to the cameras? That's still a simulation of objective reality. Is it a closer approximation? Yeah. But I would worry about giving it ultimate authority and saying everything it does is perfectly right. No system does that. 

Which is why I am in favor of the move today.

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

48 minutes ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

To me, the point of the challenge system for balls/strikes is to get rid of the obvious misses - not to try an add further strategical elements of what is already a very nuanced and strategic game.  Teams/players have all the leeway they'd like challenging what they think is an important call that didn't go their way early in a game - they just have to be right and they should use it only when it's a glaring whoopsie by the ump.  

Yeah, yeah for sure. And it's why I'm not that worked about it. This feels mostly right to me. I'm 95 to 97 percent on board with this call. Having SLIGHTLY more challenges would be my perfectly imperfect solution.

[young guns]

1 hour ago, Cool Hand Lucroy said:

I think "correct" is a hard word here. Correct according to the cameras? That's still a simulation of objective reality. Is it a closer approximation? Yeah. But I would worry about giving it ultimate authority and saying everything it does is perfectly right. No system does that. 

Which is why I am in favor of the move today.

I trust the reality the cameras are able to generate far more than the reality that is the vibes of where a human thinks the zone is and where he maybe sees the ball cross.

Nobody is saying it's perfect, and you even admitted it's better.  That's the point.  We have something better so we should just use it while working on making it even better.

[markedman5]

I wonder who the 7 teams were that were opposed( let’s assume the other option was status quo since it’s obvious that full electronic system wasn’t on the table)? 
 

 

[LouisEly]

8 hours ago, Team Canada said:

I hadn't really thought about this aspect, but ESPN's article noted:

Adding the robot umps is likely to cut down on ejections. MLB said 61.5% of ejections among players, managers and coaches last year were related to balls and strikes, as were 60.3% this season through Sunday. The figures include ejections for derogatory comments, throwing equipment while protesting calls and inappropriate conduct.

That is a benefit for umpires - people can't complain about calls when they can get them overruled.

Billy Martin is rolling over in his grave.

[wildcat83]

I think the success or failure of this system will be the time that challenges take.  Hopefully this is a pretty much instant feedback type thing.  If it takes even 10 seconds to get a call it’s going to be annoying.  Hopefully they have the system worked out to be as quick as possible.

[SeaBass]

9 hours ago, wildcat83 said:

I think the success or failure of this system will be the time that challenges take.  Hopefully this is a pretty much instant feedback type thing.  If it takes even 10 seconds to get a call it’s going to be annoying.  Hopefully they have the system worked out to be as quick as possible.

In the article I read I believe they said that challenges on average were about 13 seconds. But they also said that challenges per game averaged out to about 4 per game. So that's one minute total added to games. Seems like a fair enough a trade off to me.

Replay challenges take longer. I barely notice the time on those unless it goes really long. I don't think the time for balls/strikes challenges are going to be that noticeable.

[Fear The Chorizo]

16 hours ago, young guns said:

Maybe once we see it in action only 2 challenges will be fair, but I'm on the side of the fence that just wants all calls to just be correct as opposed to well at least we will get the really bad ones corrected and if there are some borderline called incorrect that's fine.

I guess what I don't want to see is not challenging 10 misses because they are borderline and it's "too early", but its "ok" because we got the 1 obvious miss late.

One other aspect is that we've seen some players argue some not even close correct(at least according to the box on the tv) calls so I'm sure we are going to see some ridiculous challenges.  I wonder if some players will lose their ability to challenge calls because they are so bad at it.

I want to avoid everything being automated and based on a measuring system that, quite frankly, could be manipulated at some point by teams/players in terms of high and low strikes.

I've long not wanted a full ABS system in place to avoid reviews on whether or not the seam of a ball grazing the outer edge of the black of the plate should be considered a strike or a ball in the 3rd inning of a 3-2 game  - or wind up with a series of "call stands" indecisive review calls after taking 30 seconds to stare at a graphic on a jumbotron.  I don't think borderline ball/strike calls need to be reviewed ad nauseum - limiting teams to 2 reviews per game helps to keep that in check, and as others have said as long as challenges made are correct, teams could in theory challenge dozens of calls a game if an ump was truly that bad.  At that point, if game time becomes a problem with the reviews, the solution should be to replace the umpire making all the bad calls.

And I love the idea of players getting a dose of reality for those times they want a call reviewed that was obviously correct the first time.  Not only does that help reset their own perspective, it hurts their team for later in the game by burning up a challenge.