Challenge system approved!

[Playing Catch]

6 minutes ago, Oxy said:

That's kinda dumb if it is purely based on height, as some people are long legged and short torsoed and others are vice versa.  It should literally be measured by the kneecaps, top of the hips and top of the shoulders.  No big deal though I guess as long as it is consistent for each individual player throughout the year.

Haha, yes, that was my first thought as well!

But I am happy that the system will be so "accurate". I've felt all season that Judge, and other tall players, like James Wood, can be both beneficiaries or victims to, large variances in the top of the zone. Every time I watch Judge, I think pitchers are getting screwed on the high strike. I think, too, that the Brewers have tried to take advantage of this by stocking up on short guys.

I also may as well muse here about the possibility this new world boosts Tyler Black's future MLB outcomes. 

[Zad Fnark]

I would have loved seeing Angel Hernandez being pubicly outed on the Jumbotron routinely with his calls.

[Team Canada]

1 hour ago, SeaBass said:

The system determines if the ball crosses the strike zone when it's at the midpoint of home plate.

Comparison to Rule Book: This is a change from the standard rule book zone, which considers a strike a pitch that crosses any part of the three-dimensional home plate. 

This was an interesting nugget when I first read about the challenge system that I hadn't appreciated before. Well, to go back even further, I hadn't realized until the whole robot discussion started that the actual strike zone was if it crossed the plate anywhere in the 3D space of the plate. Growing up I'd always assumed it was as it crosses home plate - and maybe that's practically how it's going to work in most cases except for extreme backdoor pitches from the side or top. 

In any case, it makes sense that they're just taking a cross-section in the middle of the plate as a sort of average/midpoint compromise, but it's still not going to be 100% perfect. Still, nearly everything will be correct.

[nate82]

I am just hoping this will help the MLB umpires call things correctly.  If not then I think it will be a completely automated system.

If the umpire union complains about this they have no one to blame but themselves.  There has to be accountability for poor performance by an umpire.  The umpire union wasn’t going to fix this and if it continues it will be one less thing they will be doing.

[markedman5]

 

[Team Canada]

Savant has some new data available now:
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/abs-challenges
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/abs

Also, Quero was pretty good at challenges last year

[titanrick]

I think this challenge system is quickly going to embarrass umpires.  Yes, they get a large percentage of calls correct, but no one remembers all the ones called correctly.  They just remember that three pitches have been overturned already, and we're only in the second inning.  And because you retain your challenge if it's correct, it could get quite ridiculous.

I don't understand why the umps are fighting this.  If every pitch is called correctly and immediately in your earpiece, it just looks to everyone like you're calling a perfect game.  Aside from ego, why else would umps fight this change?  Is the thought that MLB will want to pay them less if they're not making strike/ball decisions?

[Turning2]

I like the ABS. It might have an unintended consequence though with an influence on the umpire's ego or psyche. Recently Wilyer Abreu challenged a full count strike 3 call and immediately started taking off his armor and walking to first before the ABS call was announced. He was right to challenge, it was ball 4. But showing up the ump like that could easily come back to bite in a future at bat when the team is out of challenges. 

The only thing I don't like about ABS is that the data over analyzers have probably already dreamt up some new measurement like ABSWar.

[young guns]

5 hours ago, titanrick said:

Is the thought that MLB will want to pay them less if they're not making strike/ball decisions?

This is the only thing that makes much sense.  Ultimately, we will get some data by the end of the season and if it's bad enough it might push mlb to have to fully implement. 

I'm sure in spring training players have a big leash on when they're allowed to challenge, but that will probably tighten up during the regular season, but some of these umpires are having some bad games from some stories I've seen.

[owbc]

This loop of strike zone over time shows how much better umpiring has become: 

2025 is incredibly good compared with 2007. When you look at 2025 you can barely see any room for improvement at all -- it looks like too many middle-height pitches off the plate get called strikes and too many pitches in the far, far corners get called balls. But other than that the challenge system is really about catching egregious, outlier misses. All evidence suggests that the immediate feedback of the challenge system makes umpiring even better, so 2026 will have even less misses than 2025.

 

[titanrick]

15 hours ago, owbc said:

All evidence suggests that the immediate feedback of the challenge system makes umpiring even better, so 2026 will have even less misses than 2025.

What evidence are you referring to? 

[owbc]

3 hours ago, titanrick said:

What evidence are you referring to? 

That's what happened in the minor leagues. 

[titanrick]

2 hours ago, owbc said:

That's what happened in the minor leagues. 

I guess I'll believe it when I see it.  That split-second decision on a pitch that is 90-100 mph painting the black, while the catcher is deceptively framing it, is incredibly difficult to consistently get correct.  Just because they keep getting their calls overturned doesn't seem like it would help them suddenly see those pitches better or call them differently.  And there is certainly not enough time for, "That looks like a ball to me, but in the past I've called similar pitches a ball, and they were overturned, so I'm going to call this one a strike."  If they are second-guessing themselves to that extent, they're already cooked.

[Dragonbait]

I do like the idea of the ear piece helping out.

[owbc]

On 3/4/2026 at 1:10 PM, titanrick said:

I guess I'll believe it when I see it.  That split-second decision on a pitch that is 90-100 mph painting the black, while the catcher is deceptively framing it, is incredibly difficult to consistently get correct.  Just because they keep getting their calls overturned doesn't seem like it would help them suddenly see those pitches better or call them differently.  And there is certainly not enough time for, "That looks like a ball to me, but in the past I've called similar pitches a ball, and they were overturned, so I'm going to call this one a strike."  If they are second-guessing themselves to that extent, they're already cooked.

Some scenarios that will almost certainly see improvement after challenges start happening:

- Catcher sets up on one corner and has to reach across the plate a pitch on the opposite corner. Almost always called a ball. 

- Catcher/pitcher gets crossed up

- Strike called a ball on a stolen base attempt 

- Umpire misses a call, and then gives a "make up call" on another pitch later in the AB. 

 

[Playing Catch]

I was going to add this thought to Spencer's Made write-up, but it fits better here...

I'll be curious how the launch-angle obsession will shift during the era of ABS, where pitchers get more leeway up and down in the zone, rather than inside/outside. My hypothesis is that finding the correct swing plane up/down in the zone will be a lot harder than to maximize being on-time. I think that being on-time will be much more important than having a great swing path, as it allows the hitter to pull soft-stuff and go the other way with hard stuff. Staying on top and getting underneath in order to maximize launch is gunna get tricky.

I'm probably wrong. Launch angle is, of course, a really important thing.

I just wonder if those players with perfect swing paths are gunna swing into a lot of pop-ups and weak grounders. Not that swing path and being on-time are mutually exclusive, just that I think that hitting the ball hard is paramount to swing path. I think having a handsy, bat to ball swing can turn pop-ups into soft liners, and weak grounders into sharp grounders through the infield.

[markedman5]

Miz cracks me up

 

[nate82]

Found this interesting.

 

[SomewhereInTime]

So now in addition to pitch framing, catchers will now need to be evaluated on challenge success rate.

[Brock Beauchamp]

4 hours ago, Aces_High said:

So now in addition to pitch framing, catchers will now need to be evaluated on challenge success rate.

Probably? And welcome to Brewer Fanatic!

[Fear The Chorizo]

Pitch framing will still be a huge part of the game....because not all borderline calls are going to get challenged throughout the game because teams/players are going to be wary of burning their challenges early and then not have one to contest a blatant miss late in the game at a critical moment.

One thing I think that can make this process much faster is to do away with the video graphic of the pitch going all the way to the plate and then registering as a ball or strike on the jumbotron.  If a challenge is called, just look at an image on the board than instantly says whether it's a ball or strike.

ABS is going to be great for the umpires, too - because it gives them a realtime tool to determine if they need to adjust in-game.  So many different arm angles/pitch types and sometimes umpires don't realize they are setting up 2 inches off the zone with their point of reference. 

[CheezWizHed]

Yes, but now how will Frank Drebin delay the game so he can find the assassin and save the Queen? 

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

So far, I'm not liking it too much. I think part of it is that they ARE keeping those boxes on the screen for broadcast, and the boxes are the official ABS boxes. So, as a viewer, I know the outcome as soon as the catcher taps his headgear. Then, there's a delay that's probably like 5-7 seconds, but it feels like forever because I already know what's going on.

I'm still giving MLB time to work this out (and myself time to get used to it), but I'd like either the system to be faster (theoretically, it should basically be instantaneous) OR for the broadcast to not actually show the strike zone box on the screen. I'd prefer this second option. Part of the joy of the system is that it tests everyone's understanding of the strike zone. But that's only interesting if it implicates the viewer as well. We should be watching these games wondering whether our instincts about balls/strikes are correct. Just giving us the answer immediately kind of spoils it for me.

I say that as a big fan of the challenge system in theory, over the fully automated ABS. I advocated pretty fiercely for it in one of these threads. These first three games are only three games, and MLB still has time to figure some of this out. BUT I'm getting closer to adjusting my priors a bit. If we can't either reduce the wait time on these challenges OR give viewers the same information the catcher, umpire, hitter, batter, and everyone watching in-person has, then I might rather have full/no ABS than a challenge system. 

Possible it's just a matter of getting used to it as a fan, but it feels more intrusive than either the pitch clock (which I was mostly fine with) or banning the shift (which I hated a whole lot and still don't like in theory but can confidently say has impacted my enjoyment of baseball not at all). 

[Fear The Chorizo]

I think it's good for the game longterm - what I'm seeing so far is both catchers and hitters being more right than wrong in their challenges....but it's getting to the point where pitches that are millimeters in or off the corner are getting challenged by catchers.  So far, hitters seem to be challenging only when there's an obvious ball called a strike.

At some point all the catcher challenges are going to reduce, either by umpires improving or by games where catchers cost their teams challenges for important moments later in games when a bad call winds up not being able to be challenged - it's early yet this season.  When we get to a game where a team has lost its challenges and then gets screwed in the 9th on an unchallengeable pitch call, teams are going to recalibrate on when these marginal pitches early in games get repeatedly challenged.

I would say, when a challenge is requested, MLB needs to speed up that process - I don't need to see an ump call for time, announce to the crowd what is happening, and then have a video board take 5 seconds to reveal the call.  Just call time right after the challenge and have the video board show the pitch on the screen - make the delay last 5 seconds instead of 15-20.

[titanrick]

It was fantastic seeing old Completely Blind Bucknor ring up Suarez on an inside pitch, calm tap of the helmet, call corrected to ball 2.  Very next pitch, Bucknor rings him up again on an outside pitch, calm tap of the helmet, call corrected again to be ball 3.  The crowd cheered more for that sequence than the home runs, according to their announcers.

I still believe the driving factor in switching to fully automated will be the umps getting embarrassed repeatedly.  Can't understand why they are opposed to getting every pitch fed into their earpiece instantly. 

And I think Sanchez and Frelick both incorrectly challenged strike 3 calls over the weekend.  They see the scoreboard, shrug, and head back to the dugout.  No arguing, no feeling robbed, just excellent pitches rewarded correctly.