The MLB will probably never move to a fully automated ball-and-strike system

Many baseball fans are clamoring for a fully automated ball-and-strike calling system in the MLB.

And such a system has been tried in the minor leagues along with a “challenge” system where teams start with three ball/batting challenges and can get more if they complete the challenges correctly.

According to this article by Jayson Stark in The Athletic, the Triple-A leagues will soon abandon the automated system that was used three days a week and move to the challenge system full-time:

When an electronic ball-striking system makes its way into the major leagues sometime in the next few years, it won’t be used for every pitch. Major League Baseball made that clear Tuesday when it sent a memo to all 30 teams informing them that starting next week, electronic ball-striking technology will be switched to a challenge system only in Triple-A games.

The article states that there was some dissatisfaction with the full-time ABS among players and coaches, and continues:

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

MLB also surveyed spectators at Triple-A games and found that twice as many fans favored the challenge system than those who favored full-time ABS.

Personally, I like the challenge system. Probably using ABS full-time would lead to the same discussions as today: What exactly is a strike? Is it something that just grazes the edge of the zone? Where do you draw the line?

This article by JJ Cooper in Baseball America states:

As much as MLB has tinkered and experimented with the ABS system, the technology still cannot fully replicate the strike zone as defined by human umpires.

Some might call this a feature rather than a bug. If an ever-vigilant Roboump called a perfectly consistent strike zone pitch after pitch, wouldn’t that be better than asking an imperfect human to do the same?

The BA article goes on to say that the ABS system has undergone many tweaks since its introduction in 2022, including how balls and strikes are scored. It shows charts of pitches from the Durham Bulls (Triple-A affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays) that were scored during that time period.

According to Jayson Stark, this is how things will go in the future:

Starting next week, the league will use Triple-A games to find out which challenge system works best. In the Pacific Coast League, teams will receive three challenges per game as before – and keep their challenge if they are correct. In the International League, however, teams will only receive two challenges per game – but will also keep their challenge if they are correct.

The key here is to keep challenges going. If you’re not familiar with the challenge system, here’s how it works: The challenge must be called by the batter, pitcher or catcher immediately after the throw – no delay in watching the video. Then the graphic showing the pitch position – you’ve probably seen this on MLB broadcasts – is displayed on the video board and the challenge is either confirmed or changed. The process is very quick and usually takes no more than about 15 seconds.

In practice, you’d probably save your challenges for key situations in a major league game. For example, you wouldn’t care if there was a close score in the second inning with nobody out and the pitch was either ball 1 or strike 1. But let’s say you’ve got all the bases loaded, it’s 3-2, and a potential ball 4 is ruled a strike 3 – I can think of quite a few cases where that’s happened. Well, use the challenge, and not only does it benefit your team in that at-bat, but you get another challenge later. Early in this process in the minor leagues, there was a game with 13 challenges.

I am 100 percent in favor of the challenge system coming to the major leagues. Frankly, the technology exists and it wouldn’t be too much of a hassle to implement it for the 2025 season, although Commissioner Rob Manfred says they are in no rush, according to Stark:

At the owners’ meetings, Manfred said it was unlikely that MLB would be ready to use any form of electronic ball striking technology by next season. However, industry sources have said The athlete that the league is committed to overcoming ABS’s technological challenges in time to roll out the system to the major leagues by 2026, if all goes well.

Let us do this sooner rather than later. As always, we will wait and see how things develop.