I suppose it was due to all of the challenges and time that was spent on replay reviews on Monday night’s game between the Atlanta Braves and the New York Mets that it came to my mind (or maybe it’s just coming to everybody’s mind since Michael Baumann of FanGraphs recently wrote an illuminating article on the subject): This feels like a good time to check in on how the Braves are faring when it comes to the Automated Ball-Strike System that’s currently in place.
The one thing that caught my eye once
I moseyed over to the ABS Leaderboards for batters over at Baseball Savant is that Atlanta only has one representative in the Top 50 for Net ABS Overturns on an individual basis. That is Lane Thomas, who did most of that work as a Kansas City Royals player (more on them later). Even when you expand it to the Top 100, the only other Braves batter joining Thomas is his new platoon pal, Mike Yastrzemski. You have to go all the way down to an eight-way tie for 118th place to find a “core” Braves batter, with Drake Baldwin joining seven other players with a 1.4 Net ABS Overturn rate. Yaz came in with a 2.1 number at 76th place and Lane Thomas found himself in the Top 25 with a 4.3 number in that department.
The fact that a guy who has only been on the team for just over a week and a guy who’s been a platoon player all season are currently the most successful guys using ABS on this ballclub would seem to indicate that the overall team results probably aren’t that great for the Braves and sure enough, they aren’t. The Braves are in 26th place among the 30 MLB ball clubs when it comes to Net ABS Overturns on the hitting side of things, as they’ve gotten dinged more often than not with a number of -14.3. As such, the Braves have actually lost nearly a full run (-0.8 runs) vs. the expected rate.
When it comes down to just the straight success rate, the Braves are currently in last place. They’ve made 102 challenges so far and have lost 63 of them compared to 39 successes, giving them a success rate of 38 percent. That’s good enough to have them bringing up the caboose in the standings, as they’re two percent behind the Cleveland Guardians for next-to-last. Oof.
The good news is that the biggest offender when it comes to ABS challenges on the batting side is Jorge Mateo, who challenged eight times while he was with the Braves and won one of them. Of the five players who have launched at least 10 challenges so far this season, Matt Olson has a 20 percent success rate with just five successful challenges out of 17. The highest in that category is Dominic Smith, who’s gone a respectable five-for-five.
Interestingly enough, Ronald Acuña Jr. has been doing extremely well when it comes to getting challenged by the ABS system. Nobody’s managed to win a challenge against him while he’s at the plate in nine attempts so far this season. You don’t test his arm and apparently don’t test him when he takes one for a ball, too. Unfortunately, we haven’t seen Acuña turn into an ABS challenging maestro like I predicted (especially when you consider all of those times when Acuña got called out looking on pitches that were clearly balls before ABS was implemented) but at least he’s got this going for him.
So that’s just it, right? Maybe this challenging stuff is for the birds and the Braves have just had a rough go of it so far this season? Well, that’s certainly been the case for them — at the plate. When it comes what Atlanta’s catchers are seeing behind the plate, they’re actually excelling in that department. Atlanta is fourth in Net ABS Overturns with 17.5 Net Overturns as they’ve won 76 of the 125 ABS challenges that they’ve launched this season — good for a success rate of 61 percent. That places them in a tie for ninth in all of baseball and it’s a very nice change of pace when it comes to what’s been happening with the Braves when their hitters have had a chance to challenge things.
Drake Baldwin in particular has been nailing it behind the plate. His 11.3 Net Overturns For has placed him in the Top 10 among catchers and he’s won 30 of the 46 challenges he’s made so far this season.. Say what you want about Jonah Heim and Sandy Léon but they both did a great job with challenges as well while they were behind the plate and that’s contributed largely towards the success that the Braves have had. Sean Murphy hasn’t had too many opportunities but he’s currently on a 60-percent success rate on the 10 challenges he’s launched so far, so he’s working his way up the leaderboards as well.
As such, the Total Net Overturn number for the Braves is 10.7, which places them in a solidly above-average ranking of 11th in all of baseball. They’ve had a rough go of it at the plate but their behind-the-plate success is what’s been carrying them. It’s not great but it’s not actively costing them games or anything like that.
Now, does this mean that it’s something that is having a massive effect on games and the standings, themselves? I wouldn’t say that. After all, the team leading baseball in ABS Winning Percentage (57 percent) and Net ABS Overturns (24.0) is Lane Thomas’s former employer, the Kansas City Royals — and look at all the good that that’s done them this season in the standings!
When it comes to the Total Net Overturns metric, the 59-60 Tigers lead the way with 60.4, the Phillies are in a serious Wild Card fight with their NL-leading 47.0 Total Net Overturns, the last-place Kansas City Royals are in fourth overall (and lead baseball in both Net ABS Overturns and Challenge Winning Percentage on the batting side) and the Wild Card-contending Diamondbacks round out the top five. As of right now, the Braves have the highest Total Net Overturns metric among divisional leaders — the Tampa Bay Rays and Milwaukee Brewers are actually side-by-side with each other in 24th and 23rd, respectively, in that department and then the Los Angeles Dodgers are in 21st.
So clearly, it’s not like this is the type of thing that’s been turning games and deciding fates for teams in 2026. We’re still very early in the process of teams figuring out a real strategy and maybe that’ll be one of those things that continues to be dynamic as seasons come and go. For now, the Braves are doing alright in that ABS department and if Atlanta’s hitters can actually get good at figuring out the challenge system, watch out!
