AUTOMATED ball-strike (ABS) challenges are coming to Major League Baseball (MLB) next season.
A Tuesday vote from the MLB Joint Competition Committee, an 11-person group that includes six team owners, four players and one umpire, made the proposed rule change official.
“The previous rule changes that have been adopted by the Joint Competition Committee have had staying power and created momentum for the game. We used the same process with ABS that started with listening to fans, conducting extensive testing at the minor league level, and trying at every step to make the game better,” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement. “Throughout this process we have worked on deploying the system in a way that’s acceptable to players. The strong preference from players for the challenge format over using the technology to call every pitch was a key factor in determining the system we are announcing today.”
The system was tested in spring training and at the 2025 All-Star Game, and has been utilized throughout minor league baseball since 2022.
Manfred previously said the challenge system had ownership support, but he was getting more feedback at midseason on “deploying it in a way that’s acceptable to the players.”
Already Manfred foreshadowed the system’s imminent arrival with an agreement with the umpire union that added provisions for ABS (automated balls and strikes) adoption. Manfred thanked the umpires union for collaboration on the plan Tuesday.
In spring training, MLB charted a total of 288 ABS Challenge use cases and 4.1 per game. Upon review, 52.2% of challenges to umpire callas were overturned.
Catchers had the most success challenging calls with a 56% overturn rate compared to 50% for hitters and 41% for pitchers. — Reuters
