SAN FRANCISCO — Gentlemen, tap your helmets.
The Automated Ball Strike (ABS) challenge system that was utilized with such relish by hitters and catchers alike this past spring training will be part of regular-season and postseason games in 2026, Major League Baseball announced Tuesday. The Robo-umps have arrived.
The challenge rules and use of technology to call disputed balls and strikes was approved in a vote of MLB’s joint-competition committee, which includes owners along with representatives from the players’ union and umpires. Each team will have two challenges per game and all successful challenges will be retained. Only the pitcher, catcher, and batter can challenge calls and must do so immediately without aid from coaches or the dugout.
A challenge will be added for each extra inning.
The graphic re-enactment of the pitch and where it crosses the plate will be broadcast on the scoreboard to add another element for fans to watch as the call is made.
The advent of ABS in all major-league games and the playoffs will reward batters with a keen feel for the strike zone, like former Cardinal Matt Carpenter, and it could change how catchers are rewarded for their ability to frame pitches. San Francisco Giants catcher Patrick Bailey is one of the best in the game at framing strikes, and that is one of the skills that former Cardinals manager and Gold Glove-winning catcher Mike Matheny expressed concern about losing if umpires were replaced entirely by tech calling balls and strikes.
When it became clear that commissioner Rob Manfred was going to champion the ABS challenge system for the 2026, Carpenter said that current Cardinals outfield Lars Nootbaar would be among the players to benefit most.
“Lars is going to really take advantage of it,” Carpenter told the Post-Dispatch.
Introducing ABS to regular-season games and the postseason continues what’s been a series of radical rule-changes and modernization for Major League Baseball in recent years. Several years ago, MLB introduced a three-batter minimum for relievers that reshaped late-inning strategy. Ahead of the 2023 season, MLB made sweeping changes to the rules by introducing the pitch timer, outlawing defensive shifts, limiting the times a pitcher can throw to first base, and increasing the size of the bases. All of those moves were designed to speed up the game in two ways – on the clock with shorter games (that happened dramatically) and on the field with more action (it sure did try).
The new ABS challenge process offers a definition of the strike zone and how it will be visualized: “A two-dimensional rectangle that is set in the middle of home plate with the edges of the zone set to the width of home plate (17 inches) and the top and bottom adjusted base on each individual player’s height (53.3% of the batter’s height at the top and 27% at the bottom).”
All players were digitally measured for their strike zones this past spring.
An “official height” will be “certified” before any players appears in a game, the press release says announcing the competition committee’s vote.
Major League Baseball has been experimenting with ABS at the minor-league level since 2022, and this summer it was utilized in the All-Star Game at Atlanta.
Throughout this past spring training, several ballparks were outfitted with the tech for ABS and used to allow major-league players to experiment with the use of the challenge system and give feedback to MLB. The Cardinals’ spring training home, Roger Dean Stadium, was one of the ballparks that had ABS for all of its games.
In spring, a total of 288 games had the ABS, according to MLB, and there was an average of 4.1 pitches challenged per game. The overturn rate was 52.2%, per MLB. One of the trends MLB saw was how a higher rate of pitches were overturned early in spring as umpires got into the rhythm of games, too, per an MLB official.
The total number of pitches challenged were 2.6% of those thrown.
The average time added to games per challenge was 13.8 seconds.
According to polling by MLB, fans responded favorably to the ABS, and so too did the players. During meetings held at each spring training camp, players expressed concern to union officials about what it would mean for catchers and catcher framing. But they also supported the chance to avoid an erroneous ball-strike call changing a pivotal moment of the game.
Of course it was Nootbaar who had the first challenge by a Cardinal this past spring. It took all the way until the second inning of the Cardinals’ first exhibition game.
He tapped his helmet to signal challenge to a strike call.
And seconds later he had his answer.
He was right.
But after the game he advocated for umps to remain in place.
“I would be an advocate for it,” Nootbaar said. “I would benefit from it, for sure. I also do like the beauty of an umpire there and that being part of the game, too. As a person who prides themselves on having an eye, I would like it. It’s still baseball at the end of the day.”
Utility fielder has two key doubles, both of veteran Justin Verlander, as a sub for Brendan Donovan to boost the Cardinals to a 6-5 victory against Giants.
Nolan Gorman got the largest share of starts during Gold Glove-winners recent absence, but a trade would open hot corner for JJ Wetherholt’s audition, too.
Ivan Herrera’s two-run shot in the fifth inning ties the game and pushes the Cardinals through a seesaw exchange for a 6-5 victory late Monday at Oracle Park.
Get in the game with our Prep Sports Newsletter
Sent weekly directly to your inbox!
* I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.
Derrick Goold | Post-Dispatch
Lead baseball writer
Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!
Your notification has been saved.
There was a problem saving your notification.
{{description}}
Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Followed notifications
Please log in to use this feature
Log In
Don’t have an account? Sign Up Today