It’s been a few weeks since the start of the 2026 MLB season, and therefore it has been a few weeks since the Automatic Ball-Strike, or ABS, system kicked off in regular season games. It’s also been enough time to develop an opinion on it. And whenever there are opinions, there are arguments.
Obviously, ABS has good and bad traits. But that’s no fun. Is it good or bad? Black and white, “only a Sith deals in absolutes” stuff. So two of our writers tackled the debate.
ABS is bad
By Matthew LaMar
Umpires are really
good at their jobs. I don’t know if you’ve gotten the privilege to be anywhere near an MLB pitcher when they’re hurling a baseball at max velocity recently, but if you have you know just how wild this is. Everything over 80 MPH takes half a second or less to get to home plate–to say nothing of the movement of the pitches. And umpires have gotten so much better, calling pitches at nearly 93% accuracy nowadays.
Still, in your average 300-pitch game, that’s about 20 pitches that are called incorrectly. And if they’re called incorrectly in particularly big spots, that can change the whole tenor of the game. So it makes sense that, if we know what objective balls and strikes look like, we’d want to make sure that they’re called as the objective balls and strikes they are.
But ABS ain’t it. ABS sucks, because ABS doesn’t accomplish any real goals.
Does ABS ensure balls and strikes are called correctly, or even consistently? No. Remember: there are 20-some odd incorrect calls a game on average. Based on past data, we’re looking at five or so challenges per game. Even assuming most challenges are correct, that’s less than a quarter of all incorrect calls that end up overturned.
Does ABS help with pace of play? No. Every ABS challenge is its own mini delay, and while the challenges themselves go pretty quick, the game is distinctly interrupted by the umpire getting on the PA system and announcing what everyone can clearly see on the video screen. At minimum, games are disrupted, and since challenges happen more often in big moments, more big moments get interrupted by checking into what a computer says.
Does ABS help umpires get better? I doubt it. Remember: umpires have gotten better–significantly so!–since they’ve had access to better data and training. We are simply approaching (or maybe even have hit the wall of) the limit of human physiology here. I don’t even think that the ABS can help umpires calibrate the zone during the game. The only way that would happen is if enough successful challenges are made in a specific spot for both teams, and that doesn’t happen because there aren’t enough challenges made overall.
So what we’re left with is a system that interrupts the game, still allows the majority of inaccurate calls, and doesn’t make the umpires better. And maybe what bothers me the most is that it’s a system that taunts us. It’s a system that says there’s an objectively correct world out there but we can only have it in bits and pieces.
There are ways the ABS can be improved, but that’s for another article. This is about ABS at it is, and it leaves some to be desired.
ABS is good
By Jeremy Greco
Umpires are really good at their jobs. But when humans are involved, even when they’re really good, things like this can happen unless we take steps to prevent them. And games shouldn’t end like the US vs Dominican Republic 2026 WBC semi-final match.
Before the season started, I was opposed to the challenge system. Not because I was fine with the status quo, but because I thought if we had the technology to get every call correct, why wouldn’t we just do that? But, as it turns out, the challenge system supporters were right; the human element is important.
One of the things we’ve learned after seeing the ABS system implemented at the MLB level is that umpires are very good at their jobs. Only about half of challenged pitches are overturned, and those numbers are heavily buoyed by catcher challenges, the only players in the stadium with approximately as good a view of the pitch as an umpire. When pitches are overturned, it’s often by a minuscule amount. To that end, it’s more important that the flow of the game be preserved than that we account for every pitch that missed by 1/10 of an inch being called correctly.
The challenge system has also added an element of entertainment to the sport – the ultimate goal, even beyond winning a World Series. In a recent game, Eugenio Suarez grounded out with the bases loaded to end an inning. That would be a bland outcome, but he brought the crowd to their feet, hollering at incredible volumes, by correctly challenging the home plate umpire’s back-to-back strike three calls. That’s the kind of fun you couldn’t have at the old ballpark last year. And now the guys with the best eyes – or the best luck – can show off in all new ways previously unimagined. That’s part of the human element, too.
My perspective on the challenge system has been rapidly evolving in the first weeks of baseball, and I expect it will probably continue to do so for a while. Originally, I was annoyed that we didn’t just have the robots tell the umpires what to call to guarantee every call was right. After a few games, I decided the challenge system was good, but I’d like to see them extend the current rule that adds a challenge to a team that has burned all of them in every extra inning to begin that process in the ninth inning to better guarantee what happened to Perdomo in the WBC wouldn’t happen during the season.
Watching that rainy Wednesday night game against the Twins convinced me that the challenge system could become a burden some nights, though. It was a perfect example of what Matt is talking about in his paragraph about the pace of play. The game was already a slog because of the weather. Adding 11 challenges, even though they’re individually fast, greatly disrupted the flow of an already badly mangled game. I think there could be room to adjust the system so that challenges can only occur on a pitch that would result in a strikeout or walk, perhaps, to prevent that from becoming a problem. I’m also in favor of ensuring each team has at least one challenge in the ninth inning to better ensure no game ends like that WBC game.
Regardless, while the ABS system is imperfect, it’s drastically better than what we had before, where the Angel Hernandezes and C.B. Bucknors could make themselves the center of attention while determining the outcome of the game without any way to check them. However it may evolve in the future, even to the point that it becomes the primary arbiter of balls and strikes rather than using a challenge system, I would not want to get rid of it. The usefulness and fun aspects override any downsides we’ve seen or yet imagined.
