Manfred: MLB will propose automated ball-strike challenge system for 2026

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NEW YORK — Commissioner Rob Manfred said Wednesday he plans to introduce a proposal to Major League Baseball’s competition committee that would bring the automated ball-strike system to MLB in 2026.

Barring a change of heart inside Manfred’s group, ABS appears likely to arrive in the big leagues next year. The league office has enough votes on the 11-person committee — which is also made up of player representatives and one umpire — to push through what it wants.

Human umpires would still make the vast majority of ball-strike calls, but teams would start each game with two challenges to the umpire’s opinion. Umpires would then rely on a technology system that the league has tested for years in the minor leagues and in major-league spring training this year. Teams retain the challenge if they get the call overturned.

“I do think that we’re going to pursue the possibility of changing that process, and we’ll see what comes out at the end of that,” Manfred said at MLB headquarters. “I think that teams are really positive about ABS. You know, I do have that unscientific system that I use — my email traffic — and my distinct impression is that using ABS in spring training has made people more prone to complain about balls and strike calls via email, to me, referencing the need for ABS. That is undoubtedly true, undoubtedly true.”

“As they have in the past, players will review any proposed rule changes and provide their feedback and on-field experiences through the competition committee,” Kevin Slowey, the Major League Baseball Players Association’s managing director of player services, said in a statement.

The technology used in ABS doesn’t exactly mimic a human strike zone because umpires on average call balls and strikes differently depending on the count: a tighter zone on 0-2, for example, and a wider one on 3-0. Manfred, however, didn’t indicate any outstanding concerns about the system’s operation other than how players will react.

“My single biggest concern is working through the process and deploying it in a way that’s acceptable to the players,” Manfred said. “There’s always going to be things around the edges that we need to work through and whatever, and I want them to feel like we respected the committee process and that there was a full airing of concerns about the system, and an attempt to address those concerns before we go forward.”

Players on the competition committee have almost universally been opposed to Manfred’s on-field rule changes over time. Owner-player relations are going to get progressively more sensitive next season, with the collective bargaining agreement’s expiration after the 2026 season. But Manfred indicated that he wasn’t going to move gingerly on rule changes because of the impending labor talks.

MLB has long held the power to implement on-field rule changes that it wants, but in the current CBA, which went into effect in 2022, the league received the right to implement changes on shorter notice: 45 days after a proposal.

“We bargained for the right to make these kind of rule changes,” Manfred said. “It was a really important part of the deal from our perspective. Everybody understood what the rules of the road are. … Unlike the prior provision, there’s actually a process that is involved, that you go through, that you kind of have a chance to vet and talk about what should happen with the players. So I’m less reticent about that. 

“In the past, I have been a little squeamish about the year before bargaining. I don’t feel that way right now.”

MLB is also testing a check-swing review system in the minors this season. It’s unclear when that system will be tested by big leaguers. Manfred indicated that system was unlikely to be tested in major-league spring training next year because of the possibility everyone would still be adjusting to ABS.

“We haven’t made a decision about the check-swing thing,” Manfred said. “We do try to think sequentially about what’s coming. I think we got to get over the hump in terms of either doing ABS or not doing it before you’d get into the complication of a separate kind of challenge involved in an at-bat, right? You think about them, they’re two different systems operating at the same time. We really got to think that one through.”

(Photo: Patrick Breen / The Republic / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)

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