Shohei Ohtani homered three times in a four-game stretch, so it is safe to say that the baseball season is back and in full swing. The sport is still adjusting to the new paradigm created by the arrival of ABS, the discussion of which will make up this week’s mailbag. So let’s get to it.
The questions have been edited for clarity.
It’s too early to tune into baseball, WTF is ABS? — Brian S.
Brian, I am so glad you asked!
If you are feeling adrift at the conclusion of the NCAA tournament, unsure of how to amuse yourself until the NFL Draft commences on April 23, then you are in luck. The Major League Baseball season has begun, and the sport has added a fascinating new wrinkle. It is called the automated ball-strike challenge system. It has become known in shorthand as ABS. It is designed to allow players a chance to challenge calls from umpires. The early returns have been promising, though there are some complications.
The system is relatively simple to understand. It is powered by the Hawk-Eye technology that should be familiar to tennis fans. Each team begins each game with two challenges. If you get a challenge wrong, you lose the challenge. Only players can challenge the calls, and it must be done swiftly. There is no waiting around for a replay official to relay a signal to a pitcher or a hitter. Those are the basics.
Why can we simply not accept that some calls will be wrong? Life isn’t fair. Why must we demand baseball be? — Noah G.
Throughout baseball history, part of the appeal of baseball stemmed from its imperfections and uncertainties. So much was left to the imagination. There was no clock. The fielders could stand wherever they wanted. The definition of a strike was more conceptual than concrete. As a journalist, these things were a huge draw for me. They allowed for drama to build across a game, a homestand, a season. My friend and former colleague Steve Politi once asked me what rules I would change about baseball. “None,” I told him. “I think it’s a pretty good game.”
I held onto that sentiment for a long time. It was part of the reason I resisted the implementation of a pitch clock. Baseball didn’t need it, I reckoned. Who cares if the average length of games had ballooned to three hours and 10 minutes by 2021? The bloat was part of the appeal, I felt.
And then I watched a game with a pitch clock in the spring of 2023. And, like most folks, my reaction was immediate: Holy smokes, this is a lot better.
So I have become more open-minded toward the rule changes brought forth by Major League Baseball in recent years. If you had asked me several years ago if MLB required ABS, I would have said, “No.” But they have the technology to correct the most egregious mistakes made by umpires, and so far it hasn’t rendered the sport unrecognizable. There are some strategic quirks that are still being decided upon, but mostly the baseball so far looks a lot like baseball. And, yes, it’s still a pretty good game.
For me, though, there is a key distinction between the pitch clock and ABS. The pitch clock solved a crisis. Without it, the product had become less appealing for casual fans and more taxing for diehards. The implementation of ABS appears to have improved an imperfection. I don’t think many baseball fans felt the state of umpiring had reached a crisis point. What it does is serve as a backstop for those moments of human error. That does remove a smidge of romance from the game.
But what happens if you take it a step further?
I think they should go full-on with the robot umps. Take the human element out of it. Even if it’s my team getting hurt, I just want the right call to be made. — Ciro N.
This is a reasonable take, but I don’t know if the participants on the field share the sentiment. In my experience, the overwhelming majority of players harbor admiration and respect for umpires. The umpires tend to be quite good at their jobs. I asked veteran Los Angeles Dodgers infielder Miguel Rojas about this recently.
“That’s what they’re back there for,” Rojas said. “They’ve been part of the game for this whole time. The last thing we want is for that to be out of the equation completely. I just feel that the challenge system is good, and it’s working.”
Heading into Tuesday’s games, the rate for successful challenges was 54 percent. Hitters were getting 47 percent of their challenges correct, while fielders were getting 60 percent. So on the calls that players perceived to be the most egregiously incorrect, the umpires were only wrong a little more than half the time.
I visited Ump Scorecards to peruse how the umpires fared during the games on Sunday: the weakest performance, based on their metrics, came from Andy Fletcher, who got 89.47 percent of the calls right between the Rockies and the Phillies. Every other umpire scored above 90 percent. On that brutal afternoon where CB Bucknor had six pitches overturned by ABS, Ump Scorecards still reported he got 88.34 percent of the calls right. Even on their worst days, the umps are pretty good.
It will be interesting to see if ABS changes the perception players have about umpiring. Perhaps they will garner more respect for the profession as more of their challenges get denied. Or perhaps they will clamor for more robots to strive for that final 10 percent of correct calls.
Loving the ABS system, but how many challenges are too many for a single game? Do we approach a time when say half of all pitches are challenged? How many wrong calls before an umpire is pulled in a game like a starting pitcher? — Matt B.
Question No. 1: For the purposes of symmetry, I would support each team receiving three challenges, rather than two. Three strikes and you’re out, after all.
Question No. 2: I don’t foresee a scenario in which challenges become that common, mostly because the umpires, as I mentioned, are quite good at calling balls and strikes.
Question No. 3: If I were put in charge of this, I would decree that if an umpire gets 10 calls overturned, then a random fan is selected to take the plate for the remainder of the game. Something tells me that both teams would holster that last challenge rather than run the risk of all hell breaking loose.
I wish there was a little margin for error. I know, a strike is a strike. But I think of pitchers like Greg Maddux who lived on the edge or an inch off the plate, and now those close ones are all balls. In all sports, most plays are only overturned when it is an obvious error. This isn’t the case with ABS, and it’s a shame. — Andy G.
This is a perfectly reasonable stance, and it is, indeed, one of the nuances of the sport that might get lost in pursuit of improvement. But I mostly shared it because over the weekend I asked a former player who competed in the 1990s if he would have appreciated ABS during his career. He thought about it for a little while and said, “I would have liked it when we played the Braves.”
How many years are we away from robotic pitchers? With the position being so injury-prone, 100 to 200 years from now, they at least experiment with the idea, no? — Joel S.
I try not to project too far into the future. Like many Americans, I’m just trying to keep my cholesterol down before I see the doctor again in July. I suppose there could be a “Gundam” style innovation where baseball players are given bionic metal arms like Jax from “Mortal Kombat.” Not to get too morbid, but two centuries from now I suspect the Earth will have bigger issues than pitcher health.
So a walk-off decision should be called an abs-off. Not an A-B-S off but abs, like your six-pack! — Anonymous
I simply cannot explain to you, dear reader, how often I have heard in my head Harlan Williams saying “Seven … minute … abs” these past few weeks.
The Bargaining Corner
Why is expansion so readily accepted and expected? — Russell K.
Because the two constituencies with a say in the matter — the owners and the players — have already agreed it can happen. You can find it in the current iteration of the collective bargaining agreement — Article XV, G, future expansion: “During the terms of this agreement, the Clubs have the right to expand the number of Major League Clubs by adding up to two (2) new Expansion Clubs.”
Rob Manfred has said that he would like to add two new teams by the time his tenure ends in 2029, though that has always been contingent on solving the stadium situations for the Athletics and the Rays. The other owners support expansion because the new members of the club would each be required to pay more than $2 billion as an entry fee. And the players support expansion because that would create 52 more big-league jobs.
It seems like more young players are signing long-term extensions the last few months than in recent memory. I’m sure some of that is circumstantial, but when the Pirates are getting in on it, I start to wonder … how bad is the next CBA going to be? — Daniel V.
There have been three notable extensions for rookies thus far. The big one isn’t even official yet. The Pirates are expected to strike some sort of deal in the very near future with phenom Konnor Griffin. The contract is expected to exceed the $135 million guarantee that Roman Anthony received from Boston last summer. Then there are the smaller but still significant deals struck with Milwaukee Brewers shortstop Cooper Pratt (eight years, $50.75 million) and Seattle Mariners infielder Colt Emerson (eight years, $95 million).
As anyone who grew up watching “NFL PrimeTime” can tell you, three is a trend.
But is it really? Teams like Milwaukee and Seattle have shown a willingness in earlier years to strike these types of deals. The Brewers extended Jackson Chourio on an $82 million deal before he reached the majors. The Mariners lost a $24 million gamble on first baseman Evan White, who signed his deal before he had reached Triple A and never panned out as a player. And the Griffin deal, whenever it is completed, will be similar in scale and timing to contracts doled out to players like Anthony, San Diego Padres outfielder Jackson Merrill (nine years, $135 million) and Corbin Carroll (eight years, $111 million).
And yet …
It can be a little difficult to distinguish between the signal and the noise on this one. I would feel like I was acting obtuse if I suggested the looming expiration of the collective bargaining agreement played no role. The owners are always searching for cost certainty — it’s one of many reasons they desire a salary cap, for instance — and these deals provide that. In a hypothetical system that features a cap and a floor, these types of deals would become more appealing for players, as their top-end wages would be suppressed by the cap, which would make free agency less appealing. But the MLBPA has shown no interest in softening its stance against the cap. As Ken Rosenthal noted last week, the owners may seek to offer earlier access to free agency in exchange for a cap. And as we noted in an earlier edition of this mailbag, the union’s current position on that trade is “No.”
So I don’t want to suggest the CBA doesn’t matter at all. But I think if you saw a spate of top prospects taking below-market deals, then you could chalk it up to a panic about the upcoming labor battle. But I don’t see Kevin McGonigle accepting a seven-year, $22 million deal anytime soon. Or JJ Wetherholt taking a $30 million guarantee with six club options. You get the picture.