{"id":337074,"date":"2025-09-24T01:49:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T01:49:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/337074\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T01:49:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T01:49:13","slug":"sf-giants-share-thoughts-on-abs-challenge-system-coming-to-mlb-in-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/337074\/","title":{"rendered":"SF Giants share thoughts on ABS Challenge System coming to MLB in ’26"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 The Giants got a preview of the automated ball-strike system<\/a>, or ABS, during Cactus League games this past spring. Starting next year, the system will be making its debut in the majors.<\/p>\n

Major League Baseball announced on Tuesday morning that ABS will be coming to the majors in 2026<\/a>. Human umpires will still call balls and strikes behind the plate, but each team will have two challenges per game and extra appeals in extra innings.<\/p>\n

Pitchers, catchers and batters are the only players who can challenge, which they do by tapping their heads. If a challenge is successful, teams retain their challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody\u2019s probably for it at this point,\u201d said manager Bob Melvin. \u201cYou saw how many misses there were in spring training and there\u2019s so much information now that, like anything they\u2019ve done here recently, they\u2019re trying to get it right and make it better.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Giant who stands to be impacted the most, by far, is catcher Patrick Bailey. The one-time Gold Glove Award winner has been the most valuable defender since making his debut, according to Baseball Savant\u2019s Fielding Run Value<\/a>, and much of his value derives from his framing.<\/p>\n

Over the last three seasons, Bailey has been the best at turning strikes into a wide margin, leading all backstops with 64 Catcher Framing Runs<\/a>. For context, the Blue Jays\u2019 Alejandro Kirk ranks second in Catcher Framing Runs during that same timeframe with 33. And unlike most catchers, Bailey excels at stealing strikes on all sides of the plate \u2014 up, down, left or right.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s as good as you get, and he understands (the zone) too,\u201d Melvin said. \u201cHe knows all the numbers. He knows what his pitchers can do and where he needs to go to get these strikes. It makes a big impact. He\u2019s a pretty cerebral player on top of it. A lot of understanding of the nuances of the position.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bailey said he wasn\u2019t a fan of ABS<\/a> during spring training, but he had a more measured stance when speaking with reporters on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t really have any thoughts on it,\u201d Bailey said. \u201cWe\u2019ll just have to figure out what it looks like. I\u2019ve had experience with it in Triple-A a little bit and in spring training. It\u2019ll be a big chance and we\u2019ll have to figure out how to use it to the best of our ability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bailey said he doesn\u2019t believe that the system will take away the value of frame, adding that catchers still \u201chave to get calls and keep strikes, strikes.\u201d While Bailey will likely have a few framed strikes overturned, he\u2019ll also have his chance to turn incorrectly-called balls into strikes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis past week, off the top of my head, there\u2019s obviously times where I\u2019m catching where it\u2019s pretty confident that was a strike,\u201d Bailey said. \u201cThat\u2019s going to be able to help catchers as well. I think some of the best catchers are going to be the ones that know the zone the best. So, there\u2019s going to be training in that and value and that. We\u2019ll have to see what that looks like.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe a little bit,\u201d Melvin said when asked if Bailey\u2019s value will be impacted. \u201cI don\u2019t think a good framer goes away unless it\u2019s wholesale. I still think his value is going to be pretty high.\u201d<\/p>\n

While technology will now help determine balls and strikes \u2014 Hawk-Eye technology will run in the background of games and monitor the location of every pitch \u2014 the home-plate umpire will still be responsible for the majority of calls. This, in turn, maintains the human element of the game. The full ABS system, by contrast, completely removes that component.<\/p>\n

The full ABS system was tested in the minors from 2022-24 but phased out by the end of the 2024 season in favor of the challenge system. With this system, every call\u00a0was dictated by Hawk-Eye technology and took the responsibility of calling balls and strikes out of an umpire\u2019s hands. Justin Verlander and Robbie Ray were among those fine with the challenge system but against full ABS.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s a nightmare scenario with full ABS,\u201d Verlander said. \u201cI think you completely take away the art of pitching. It would just completely go away. You\u2019d have a designated hitter sitting behind home plate (instead of a catcher) setting up on the corner. \u2026 I think the appeal system is definitely the better scenario for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t really have a problem with (the challenge system). I do have a problem with the full ABS system. It just doesn\u2019t seem right if you were to call balls and strikes off the full zone,\u201d Ray said. \u201cI feel like that would be taking away from the sport. \u2026 If there\u2019s a big situation and you feel like you make your pitch \u2014 or a hitter feels like he gets a close pitch that gets called a strike \u2014 I don\u2019t mind having the ability to challenge that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 The Giants got a preview of the automated ball-strike system, or ABS, during Cactus League…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337075,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2408],"tags":[5,5776,2178,162,5774,5775,853,4,5777,378,5778,66,4343,4340,4344,4341,4342,185],"class_list":{"0":"post-337074","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco-giants","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-bay-area","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-giants","12":"tag-giants-hq","13":"tag-inside-sports","14":"tag-latest-headlines","15":"tag-mlb","16":"tag-peninsula","17":"tag-san-francisco","18":"tag-san-francisco-county","19":"tag-san-francisco-giants","20":"tag-sanfrancisco","21":"tag-sanfranciscogiants","22":"tag-sf","23":"tag-sf-giants","24":"tag-sfgiants","25":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115256765002284714","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}