New MLB pitch challenge system receives mixed reactions

The MLB will start using the ABS Challenge System starting next year. (Credit: Hunter Martin/Getty Images)

A new challenge system is coming to Major League Baseball (MLB). Starting next season, batters, catchers and pitchers will be able to dispute the umpire’s call on whether a pitch was a ball or strike.

Called the Automated Ball-Strike Challenge System (ABS), it uses cameras set up around the field to track where the ball is relative to the strike zone.

The player initiating the challenge must tap their head immediately after the call, which can’t have any input from the dugout or other players on the field. Each team will start with two challenges, which they will keep if they’re right.

Vanessa Blanch, a part-time journalism professor at St. Thomas University (STU) and baseball fan, enjoys the “human element” that umpires bring to the game. However, she believes that could be lost with the new challenge system.

Umpires who call pitches stand behind catcher during play.

“I'm glad they're not just gonna have a robot doing it, you know, that is kind of the fun, cheering or swearing at the umpires when you're watching the game,” she said. “Some of the epic moments are like classic moments in baseball, watching managers come out of the dugout and lose their nuts, it's kind of fun.”

Blanch said that umpires will always be a part of the play. The MLB has come under fire for the slow pace of games over the last few years. 

A pitch clock was introduced at the start of the 2023 season to speed the game up and make it more accessible to new fans. 

Another element of the game that may disappear due to the ABS is the art of framing pitches. 

Catchers practice trying to make balls thrown outside the strike zone look like they were strikes by quickly framing them over the plate. Alejandro Kirk, catcher for the Toronto Blue Jays, is considered one of the best, preventing 16 runs this season with his ability to make balls look like strikes.

With the introduction of ABS, that stat may no longer matter.

Second-year STU journalism student Judson Doncaster has been a baseball fan for over 10 years. 

At first, he wasn’t sold on the idea of ABS, but once he saw it being used in minor league games, he thought the system could be helpful for players.

“I saw a couple of videos [of it being used] and they're pretty instantaneous. I saw the hitter just tap his head, turn around, and then they were like, ‘yep, it's a ball. Nope, it's a strike.’” 

Like Blanch, Doncaster will miss the possibility of big arguments between teams and umpires. He said he enjoyed when his favourite player, José Bautista, would get mad at early missed calls and show it for the rest of his at bat.

When Doncaster played Little League, he and his teammates would get angry at the umpire’s missed calls, especially in crucial moments.

“I think that's because nobody wants to watch their team lose, at any level, and then they're like, ‘oh, man, we just got scammed by that.’ I mean, by that I think [ABS is] a good thing overall.”