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Jesse Rogers, ESPN editor
Major League Baseball sent a memo to all 30 teams Tuesday that sheds light on how the sport views the future of the automated ball-and-strike system — or ABS — in the majors.
Starting June 25, all Triple-A games will move to a challenge system; since the start of the 2023 season, a fully automated strike zone was also being tested at the level.
The announcement shows the league is leaning toward implementing a challenge system in the majors, but important details — when it might happen, the specifics of the system and what technology will be used — have yet to be decided. Here’s what we know and don’t know about the future of ABS in MLB.
Why is MLB moving toward a challenge system instead of a fully automated strike zone?
MLB has been testing both options in Triple-A since last season, with a challenge system for weekend games and automated balls and strikes during the week. The league’s research showed a strong preference for a system built around a set number of challenges per game, rather than an automated strike zone or MLB’s current process of umpires making calls without technology.
“The support for challenging the full ABS is overwhelming, from players and fans alike,” commissioner Rob Manfred told ESPN.
According to MLB, 61% of team staff (including players) and 47% of fans favor a challenge system, compared to 28% of team staff and 30% of fans preferring to stick with it. to the current system without technology and only 11% and 23% want complete ABS.
How will the challenge system work in Triple-A for the remainder of this season?
Now that MLB is moving toward a challenge system, it must decide how many challenges each team will receive per game, and the league will use Triple-A games to help decide that. In Pacific Coast League games, each team will have three challenges, while in the International League, each team will have two.
After surveying fans, league officials believe fewer challenges are preferred and want to see how it plays out on the field. Since teams keep their number of challenges if they win, the actual number used in a match has reached double digits and has “burdened” the pace a bit, according to league sources. MLB wants to see if limiting the number of challenges will force teams to be more conservative in their use.
The commissioner said ABS wouldn’t be ready for the majors next season – why not? And when might he be ready?
The earliest would be 2026. Perfecting the technology is part of that, but it’s just as important for the league to avoid implementing it at the highest level until MLB is sure it’s the right one. action to be taken for the game.
Once the changes reach the majors, Manfred believes it’s a decision the league can’t reverse, so he wants to make sure. There is also precedent for this type of schedule: the pitch clock and position change ban were also tested in the minors for several seasons before arriving in the major leagues.
What are the biggest technology questions to answer first?
Defining the top and bottom of the strike zone for each player is the biggest technological hurdle MLB has yet to overcome.
“There are two things you have to do,” Manfred told ESPN. “The first thing is measuring the flight of the ball. We’re good at that. The second thing you have to do is define the strike zone for each hitter and we’re not there yet.”
Essentially, the league offers two options: a height-based zone or a position-based zone.
A height-based zone is the simplest option: players would be measured before each season and their strike zone would be set accordingly. Everyone at the same height would have the same area, regardless of the difference in positions of each player.
A position-based zone revolves around camera readings of a player’s knees and hips as the pitch moves toward home plate. The high and low would then be set based on a moving median of the last 50 pitches seen by the batter – so batters could not circumvent the system by changing their position based on the count or game situation .
It’s a difficult system to set up. This type of zone would actually differ more from the current zone, staffed by human referees, than the height-based approach would, forcing players to adapt more drastically.
There are other issues to resolve. For example, while cameras attempted to capture a player’s waistband to help define the zone, they had difficulty finding it on players whose jerseys were hanging over their stomachs. These issues need to be addressed before the technology is ready for the major leagues.
How could ABS make a difference on the ground? Could this actually help the offense in MLB?
Moving to a fully automated system could have given MLB teams the ability to set whatever strike zone they wanted and, in theory, make it smaller in the hopes that it would lead to more offense. But the league’s research shows that high strikeout totals in MLB don’t necessarily occur as much at the edges of the zone as inside the zone – likely due to higher velocities, not the area – therefore the impact of a smaller area. might not increase the offense as much.
For younger players, at least, implementing the automated zone would reduce the learning curve in the majors: many of those called up in recent seasons have expressed problems adjusting to the strike zone of the human referee after having an automated zone in Triple-A. Essentially, the full ABS zone is a rectangle, while the human zone is more of an oval. In the challenge system, calls reviewed are often blatant misses rather than pitches right next to home plate, so slight differences in the strike zone become less important.