After review, the ruling on the field has been overturned. The status quo for baseball has changed.

MLB will implement the Automated Ball-Strike Challenge System next year during the regular season and playoffs after Tuesday’s vote by the league’s Joint Competition Committee.

Arizona Diamondbacks starting pitcher Zac Gallen, who is on the competition committee, said only two-thirds of the team voted in favor of the ABS challenge system and that there were seven teams opposed to the new system.

“Honestly, I was pretty indifferent,” Gallen said. “I knew it was looming, just the way the vote is structured. So I tried not to get too one way or the other about it. I think if you were to ask me, I would probably lean more so against it, not necessarily in favor of it. But, I knew it was coming, so I tried to just kind of be open about it and just fell into indifference.”

After much debate throughout baseball circles, the ABS challenge system will officially come to the majors.

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has been experimenting with the ABS system for a few years by using it in the minor leagues, spring training and even this year’s All-Star Game.

Gallen and the Diamondbacks saw it up close during spring training and liked the results for the most part.

“It’ll be interesting to see, and I’ll be able to treat it a little bit more seriously in spring training knowing that it’s something that’s going to be in our game,” Gallen said.

During a test run in spring training, MLB reported that players challenged 2.6% of called pitches and more than half (52.2%) were overturned.

Over the years, MLB umpires have drawn scrutiny over missed calls, especially involving balls and strikes. The split-second decisions caused by human error can cost teams games. These add up over a 162-game season, meaning thousands of missed ball-strike calls per year are possible.

With the new system, there is room for accountability for umpires and teams alike. This is a compromise between an approach that for well over a century allowed umpires free reign, and having a “robot ump” that will call every pitch.

Each team will start with two challenges apiece. Only the batter, pitcher or catcher can initiate a challenge, meaning nobody from the dugout can assist with the process. The player will tap his cap or helmet to alert the umpire that he wants to challenge the call.

Successful challenges are retained, and each team gets another challenge each inning should the game go into extra innings and all challenges are exhausted. Results of a challenge will be shown via animated graphic on a video board inside the stadium.

Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo, like Gallen, thinks the ruling was inevitable, and the game’s evolution necessitated it.

“I like it,” Lovullo said. “I think players just want to get calls right. I know the umpires do their absolute best, they’re not trying to miss calls. But this game has changed over the past several years where the ball’s traveling at extremely high velocity and there’s calls that are missed. And it’s very natural in this game.”

Lovullo believes it will add a level of excitement for fans seeing it on the screen as well.

“I loved it in spring training,” Lovullo said. “I go back to watching the U.S. Open tennis. You watch the whole thing and it’s coming and you’re like, ‘Is it gonna hit the line, is it not gonna hit the line?’ So I think the way they did it in spring training adds a little fan interest. And we’re certainly wanting to get the plays right.”

Fans may wonder who now has the advantage: the pitcher or the hitter.

“I don’t know,” Gallen said. “With it only being two challenges, maybe this is me, the ignorance in it, but I just don’t think you’re going to see as many challenges as people think it’s going to be.”

But Gallen knows it will require more of a strategic approach from managers since there are only two challenges.

Could this potentially lead to robot umpires calling every pitch in the future and the phasing-out of the home plate umpire? That remains to be seen. But those in the baseball stratosphere just want to see progress.

“They figured out a way to perfect (the technology) and get it right,” Lovullo said. “And Major League Baseball continues to stay ahead of things.”

Starting next season, the ABS challenge system will be here to stay, at least for now, and those who disagree with it will have to accept the ruling for what it is.

“I do like the ability to be able to challenge some pitches in big spots where maybe it’s a 3-2 pitch, bases loaded and the strike gets called a ball,” Gallen said. “You’re out of the inning as opposed to giving up a run.

“Whether you were in favor of it or opposed, it was coming anyway.”