MLB could test automated strike zone in spring training 2025

ARLINGTON, Texas — Major League Baseball could test a version of the automated strike zone in major league spring training next season, Commissioner Rob Manfred said Tuesday. If successful, the earliest the system could be rolled out is 2026 — but there’s no guarantee MLB will actually conduct tests next spring training.

The MLB has tested two different forms of the automated ball striking system (ABS) in the minor leagues. One is used on every pitch, the other allows teams to challenge a certain number of calls per game. Manfred prefers the challenge system.

“It’s unlikely we’ll get ABS into the big leagues without a spring training test,” Manfred told members of the Baseball Writers Association of America at an annual meeting before the All-Star Game. “So if it’s 2024, that leaves me with 2025 as the year for spring training testing if we can get those issues resolved. That would make 2026 a viable possibility. But you know, is that going to be the year? I’m not going to be unprepared on that issue.”

Manfred added: “We have technical problems with the definition of the strike zone that still need to be resolved.”

Manfred said the league has responded to player feedback. Players’ union president Tony Clark said the players’ experiences have been “interesting.”
“There are people who don’t care at all,” Clark said. “There are people who have concerns even with the challenge system about how the strike zone itself is taken into account: what it looks like, how consistent it will be. What happens in a world where the Wi-Fi in the stadium goes down or the technology goes down or has problems on any given night? We see those problems, albeit in minor league stadiums. We don’t want to end up in a world where we have more questions than answers in a major league stadium about the integrity of the game that night or the decisions surrounding it.

“What we’re seeing and hearing is that the challenge system is the likely destination. Nothing has been officially presented yet. Players will officially provide (feedback) when they do.”

Implementing the ABS would go through MLB’s Competition Committee, a group created by the collective bargaining agreement with representatives from the league and players. The league ultimately controls that body because it has more votes. But this change would require the approval of another group: the umpires. The umpires have their own union and are currently negotiating a new contract with the league, with the current one expiring after this season. People briefed on the umpires’ collective bargaining agreement said MLB’s implementation of a challenge system would have to be negotiated collectively.

Manfred has said in the past that the shape of the strike zone that an automated system issues is a problem because human umpires don’t maintain a zone in the shape of a perfect rectangle, but rather an oval shape. There are also some concerns about how this could affect catchers whose careers depend on their framing skills.

(Top photo of umpire Matt Bates testing the system at a minor league game: Erica Denhoff / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)