According to Statcast data, six games in, the Yankees' ABS strategy has been among the most aggressive and successful in MLB.
As the batting team, they rank second in both challenge totals and overturns, behind only the Twins by one. We are capitalizing on our opportunities.
As the fielding team, they're not challenging the most, but they are perfect when they do: 5-for-5, one of only two teams with a perfect record (Detroit is 4-for-4). That likely speaks to how Wells frames the ball and commands the strike zone; you don't need to challenge as often if every borderline call looks like a strike.
It's great to see the Yankees leaning into a new dimension of the game instead of being one of the last to figure it out. (looking at you, ghost runner innings on the road)
A few other observations:
- Our next opponent, the Marlins, have only challenged twice while batting and lost both. They're far more active on defense (9 challenges) but are only converting at a 44% rate.
- The Mets have not won a batting challenge yet.
21 comments
Looks like the Rockies have just given up.
The poor Rockies can’t do anything right
Savages in the box.
Mets at the bottom
What’s the overall successful challenge rate?
They should expand to 3 challenges instead of 2.
I think Jazz had 2 missed challenges for batters wise who is the 3rd? Cabby??
I want to see this broken down by umpire.
Who cares about these games. They need to win a ring this year.
Our guys are savages in that fucking box
I freaking love the ABS.. this is a game changer for the Yanks
If you are not losing at least 1 per game you are definitely underutilizing it
Batters only ‘winning’ 52% of the time is a bit surprising, and ive seen several get reversed while only being less than 2/10ths of an inch off the zone. The new system is great, but I think it also exemplifies just how difficult it is to correctly call balls/strikes with how much movement and the speed at which these guys are throwing now.
Some umps are still complete trash though and shouldn’t be in the league.
Not surprising considering the organizational focus on walks, knowing the zone, on base percentage, and catcher framing. ABS just seems like a thing they’d be good at, though you look at the entire league and it’s really more like some teams are okay at it and some teams are really bad at it.
Nobody is really “great”, great is like 50 percent success
mets braves guardians and angels come off the worst in my opinion
They have always been good about replay challenges so not too surprising, though I expect their luck to even out as the season goes on
Wells is an ABS god and the data over a full season will show that. He knows the strike zone so well, you can see him shake off the pitchers wanting to challenge on a ball a half inch out of the zone. I’d guess there’s a pretty solid correlation between framing skills and challenge skills, knowing when to frame and how much to frame requires you to know the zone well(s), and Wells is in the 96th percentile for framing.
I could have missed a challenge, but I don’t think a pitcher has challenged while Wells was behind the plate. Fried had a challenge with escarra catching, which I think goes to show that the org knows how good Wells is. All this to say I’m in love with Austin Wells and I think that he’s already played a large role in how good the Yankees pitching has been this year.
The number junkie in me can’t wait till ‘challenge efficiency’ or some sort of stat to determine how successful a player is at using ABS will be so cool to see how they impact games
Stop the count!!!
Sample size is too small. Let’s see after a month or two where they stand. I do think wells seems to be very good at it. And if framing is replaced whatever you call that skill will be even more valuable
They got some savages in the box