Triple-A games to start fully using automated ball-strike challenge system

When an electronic ball-strike system arrives in the big leagues at some point in the next few years, it won’t be used to call every pitch. Major League Baseball made that clear Tuesday, when it sent a memo to all 30 teams informing them that starting next week, that electronic ball-strike technology will switch to a challenge system only in Triple-A games.

The memo was originally obtained and reported on by ESPN.

The automatic ball-strike system, known as ABS, has been used in Triple A since the beginning of last season. But as part of that experiment, the technology was used to call every pitch in only three games a week. The other three games per week employed the challenge system.

But as The Athletic reported last summer, minor-league players, coaches and staff expressed their vehement unhappiness with the way the full-time ABS worked. And last month, commissioner Rob Manfred signaled this change by saying he was in favor of using a challenge system that resulted in only a handful of ball-strike challenges per game.

Speaking at the quarterly owners meeting, the commissioner said that “those who have played with it do have a strong preference for the challenge system over ABS calling every pitch. And that has certainly altered our thinking on where we might be headed.”

The league then surveyed players and staff in Triple A this season. In its memo to the clubs, the league said that 61 percent of those surveyed preferred the challenge system, while only 11 percent favored using ABS on every pitch. The other 28 percent supported human umpires calling all balls and strikes.

MLB also surveyed spectators at Triple-A games. It said it found that twice as many fans preferred the challenge system, compared with those favoring full-time ABS.

So starting next week, the league will use Triple-A games to try to determine what type of challenge system works best. In the Pacific Coast League, teams will still get three challenges per game, as they do now — and will retain their challenge when they’re right. In the International League, however, clubs will get just two challenges per game — but also will retain their challenge when they’re right.

In its memo, MLB said the reduction in the International League was essentially an experiment to determine if fewer challenges could “reduce the frequency of high-challenge games.” Almost 40 percent of Triple-A games have seen more than six challenges. In surveys, 89 percent of fans said they preferred no more than six — and 53 percent said three or four was ideal.

However, baseball will continue to experiment with a full-time ABS at lower levels in the minor leagues. In a memo to minor-league teams and departments, MLB said that the Low-A Florida State League will continue to use the electronic ball-strike technology full-time on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, as has been the case for the last several years. From Friday through Sunday, that league will use the challenge system. Florida State League teams will still have three challenges per game.

At the owners meetings, Manfred said that it is now unlikely that MLB will be ready to use any form of electronic ball-strike technology by next season. However, industry sources have told The Athletic that the league is aiming to iron out ABS’ technological challenges in time to roll out the system in the major leagues by 2026 if all goes well.

What Tuesday’s memo made apparent, however, was that if those robot umps do arrive in 2026, they’re almost certain to be used only to correct the most egregious mistakes — via a challenge system similar to the one used now for instant replay.

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(Photo of umpire wearing ABS system equipment in a Low-A game in 2022: Thomas Bender / Herald-Tribune / USA Today)