{"id":590563,"date":"2026-02-24T17:41:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T17:41:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/590563\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T17:41:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T17:41:15","slug":"does-mlbs-automated-ball-strike-system-have-a-glaring-flaw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/590563\/","title":{"rendered":"Does MLB&#8217;s Automated Ball-Strike System Have A Glaring Flaw?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t<img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-23976749\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Sal-Frelick.jpg\" alt=\"Sal Frelick Milwaukee Brewers\" width=\"650\" height=\"366\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">\u00a9 Jayne Kamin-Oncea\/Imagn<\/p>\n<p>After years of fans clamoring for it,\u00a0Major League Baseball\u00a0is finally implementing an\u00a0Automated Ball-Strike\u00a0system for the 2026 season. But it\u2019s not without its flaws.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, according to Milwaukee Brewers star outfielder Sal Frelick, who hit .288 last season and won a gold glove the year prior, MLB\u2019s new system has a glaring flaw that nobody is even talking about.<\/p>\n<p>While Atlanta Braves ace Chris Sale <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/articles\/braves-pitcher-chris-sale-drops-145904210.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">recently claimed<\/a> that he\u2019ll never even use the ABS system, Frelick says that the system isn\u2019t even entirely accurate due to the way it\u2019s calibrated.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Sal Frelick says several players are under the impression that their ABS zone measurements aren\u2019t being applied to crouched batting stances.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you\u2019re a guy who likes to get really low in his stance, they still take the frame from when you were just standing upright.\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/6OTrSY5DoU\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/6OTrSY5DoU<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Foul Territory (@FoulTerritoryTV) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FoulTerritoryTV\/status\/2026017969831084288?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">February 23, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>MLB\u2019s Automated Ball-Strike System Doesn\u2019t Account For Different Batting Stances<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jjcoop36\/status\/2026021206877458512\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">According to<\/a> Baseball America Editor-in-Chief JJ Cooper, Major League Baseball calculates the strike zone for each hitter as a percentage of their height.<\/p>\n<p>Why is that a problem?<\/p>\n<p>Well, it\u2019s simple: because a number of players crouch down significantly in their batting stances, which lowers the level of their letters.<\/p>\n<p>In theory, that should also lower\/shrink the strike zone for the purposes of the automated-ball strike system. But that\u2019s not how it works.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re under the impression right now that wherever you get measured at doesn\u2019t come into play if you then crouch in your batting stance,\u201d Frelick said. \u201cSo, if you\u2019re a guy who gets really low in his batting stance, they still take the frame from when you were just standing upright.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAgain, this is just what I\u2019m hearing. We\u2019re talking about it. So, if guys are like really crouched down in their batting stance, they\u2019re like, \u2018I don\u2019t want to get measured standing straight up because my zone is gonna be higher.\u2019 So, yeah, guys are talking about it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to Cooper, MLB \u201cexperimented\u201d with measuring stances in the past using the Florida State League, but ultimately decided to use a height-related percentage.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So the first time you see a pitch well above the letters called a ball only to be challenged and overturned to a strike, now you know why.<\/p>\n<p>Hopefully, it\u2019s not a major issue. But it\u2019s easy to see how it could become one.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a9 Jayne Kamin-Oncea\/Imagn After years of fans clamoring for it,\u00a0Major League Baseball\u00a0is finally implementing an\u00a0Automated Ball-Strike\u00a0system for the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":590564,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2401],"tags":[5,136,843,59,4280,4,49105],"class_list":["post-590563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-milwaukee-brewers","tag-baseball","tag-brewers","tag-milwaukee","tag-milwaukee-brewers","tag-milwaukeebrewers","tag-mlb","tag-robot-umpires"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116126842677731007","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590563","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=590563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}