CLEVELAND — Among the many duties of a major league catcher, one more task will be heaped onto the pile for the 2026 season: pseudo umpire and senior director of strike challenges.
Major League Baseball will implement the Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) Challenge System to its highest level after several years of experimentation in the minor leagues, spring training and last year’s All-Star Game. The rule change was voted into existence via the Joint Competition Committee.
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The ABS will allow certain players — catchers, pitchers or batters — to challenge strike or ball calls during games. An automated system that’s already monitoring every pitch will then determine if it agrees or disagrees with the original call from the umpire. In essence, it’s a halfway point between utilizing human and robot umps for MLB strike zones. And to add another layer of strategy, teams will begin games with only two available challenges.
Guardians catchers Austin Hedges, Bo Naylor and David Fry have been training this offseason in preparation for the rule change. Hedges, speaking with local reporters via Zoom on Jan. 15, didn’t want to divulge too much, other than the fact that it’s been a focus for the group this winter.
“I’ve realized I don’t want to give away too many of the secrets because there’s definitely going to be a competitive advantage to training in a way that hopefully other teams aren’t at our level yet,” Hedges said. “But just on the catching side talking to Bo and David, we’re in a really good spot with how we’ve been training, not just to obviously receive well, but we also have to be umpires now.”
Home plate umpire Mark Ripperger makes the call after Cleveland Guardians catcher Austin Hedges (27) tagged out New York Yankees baserunner Cody Bellinger (35) on April 23, 2025, in Cleveland.
MLB ABS system coming to major leagues in 2026
Specifically for catchers, it means that in addition to calling pitches, helping to manage pitchers, controlling the running game and framing pitches, they must also now be aware of the optimal times to challenge a strike or a ball throughout the game. Beginning with Opening Day, it’s more than just framing, where in the past Hedges was trying to turn balls into strikes whenever possible.
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“Now it’s just about not ever losing strikes,” Hedges said. “So now it’s like balls are balls, fine, I can live with that. But every pitch that’s a strike either needs to be called a strike, or I need to challenge it because I know it was a strike. That’s just a whole another way of thinking because catchers that take receiving very seriously, we think everything’s a strike. We’re yelling at the umpire for pitches this far off the plate because we caught it good. Now it doesn’t really matter [as much] how good you caught it; you just need to know the zone.”
The two-challenge limit, though, will force players into some very quick decisions. Guardians hitters will also at times be challenging called strikes they believe were balls, so it’s largely about picking the highest leverage spots.
The quantity of challenges is the main aspect of this rule change that could be altered the fastest. And it’s the biggest piece of strategy that could genuinely change the outcomes of games, especially over a long, 162-game season or in a crucial postseason setting.
“I think with any rule, there’s going to be room for improvement, so we might only need one, we might need five, I don’t know,” Hedges said. “But that fact that it’s only two, I like that it’s starting there because it makes you have to be very convicted in your challenge. We don’t want to slow the game down because the game has started to move at a really good pace, and I think that’s great for everybody.
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“I think fans are going to be excited to see the challenge thing on the scoreboard, but they don’t want to see it 32 times.”
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Austin Hedges, Guardians catchers training for MLB’s ABS in 2026