\u201cThere are opportunities to be super aggressive,\u201d Swanson said. \u201cThe dealer\u2019s got 2-7? Let\u2019s go. Let\u2019s push our chips in here.\u201d<\/p>\n
So far, the general approach has served the Yankees well.<\/p>\n
Going into Friday\u2019s home opener, New York\u2019s 13 successful challenges were the second-most in the majors, behind the Minnesota Twins\u2019 19<\/a>. The Yankees\u2019 81.3 conversion percentage (13-for-16) was also second-best in the game, trailing just the Baltimore Orioles\u2019 85.7 percent (12-for-14).<\/p>\n Part of it is that the Yankees simply have been presented with ample chances to correct calls, and that they have smart players with keen eyes.<\/p>\n \u201cOpportunity,\u201d manager Aaron Boone said. \u201cOur guys being, I think, good at it. I think we\u2019ve kind of established that we want to be aggressive with it. Smartly, but aggressive.\u201d<\/p>\n Another part? Constant communication.<\/p>\n Pitching coach Matt Blake said the Yankees have been analyzing their challenges and those made across the majors, and honing their approaches accordingly. He said talking through it all could prepare a player so that when a chance to challenge arrives, deciding whether to do so could feel more like a reflex than trying to make a fully thought-out decision within the two-second challenge time limit.<\/p>\n \u201cJust bringing some attention to the types of times we would want to challenge,\u201d Blake said, \u201cwho should be challenging, what some of the discrepancies are in calls when you might get a ball or strike called and why it might get overturned. Bringing some awareness to the group on all of the situations that might come up so that they\u2019re more prepared.\u201d<\/p>\n The Yankees also don\u2019t want players to be \u201cscared to use challenges early.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re definitely not saving them for situations that may never come up with an understanding that those later or high-leverage situations are worth more,\u201d Swanson said. \u201cBut there\u2019s a lot of value early. The first pitch of the game is one of the highest-missed pitches throughout the game, for whatever reason. We want to be willing to take a shot there if we think an umpire missed a call. We want to be good early. There\u2019s value to be had early. There\u2019s value in between. We\u2019re trying to be good at both.\u201d<\/p>\n But, for the Yankees, ABS is hardly new.<\/p>\n Their front office has been analyzing its effect on the game since it was introduced in the minor leagues during the Arizona Fall League in 2021, and using the data to try to project how it could affect the major leagues.<\/p>\n Yankees qualitative analysts researched the system and presented their findings to the coaching staff, which then decided how to best craft and implement strategy, and how to share the information with players, Swanson said.<\/p>\n It all goes back even further than that.<\/p>\n For years, the Yankees have been researching the strike zone and how it\u2019s been called \u2014 particularly with the idea of how to become better pitch framers, Swanson said. He explained how it\u2019s long been understood by the organization that the strike zone typically grows in a 3-0 count and shrinks in two-strike counts. He said an umpire\u2019s zone also often could be dependent on less obvious factors such as where the hitter sets up in the box, his tendencies at the plate and the uniqueness of the delivery of the pitcher.<\/p>\n Insights gleaned pre-ABS have helped the Yankees today, Swanson said.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve (helped) arm our guys with more information about how to anticipate blind spots in the strike zone and even blind spots out of the strike zone,\u201d he said, \u201cand areas that we would normally get calls and we don\u2019t. That tells us something about the confidence level of whether the umpire missed the call or not. All those things have given us a leg up in trying to be able to hit the ground running with this stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n \n Aaron Boone manages from the dugout during spring training, when the Yankees led all teams with 24 calls overturned via ABS. (Mark J. Rebilas \/ Imagn Images)<\/p>\n Players were given their first lessons on ABS at the start of spring training, and the Yankees told them to immediately use it. One of their goals, Swanson said, was to try to be the team with the most successful challenges by the end of spring training. They accomplished that, flipping 24 calls.<\/p>\n Now, the Yankees want to have the most for the full season.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to see how many calls we can overturn throughout the course of a season,\u201d Swanson said, \u201cand understand how every one of those overturns has a run value, and if you add them together, you\u2019re talking about two, three, four or a handful of wins, which we all know how impactful that can be \u2014 the difference between winning the division and not winning the division.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s definitely an edge to be had for teams that are good at this, and it could be really detrimental to teams that are maybe for the first time trying to figure it out.<\/p>\n \n \u201cThere are opportunities to be super aggressive (in challenging),\u201d said Yankees director of catching Tanner Swanson, pictured with catcher Austin Wells. (New York Yankees \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n A not-so-secret weapon? Catcher Austin Wells, who finished third in the majors last year in framing runs added with 11, according to Baseball Prospectus. Wells leads the team with four successful challenges. The Yankees believe that good framing, paired with good ABS decision-making, could be a major boost.<\/p>\n \u201cOur general outlook going into this is, if we can continue to be really good at receiving and be good at challenging, the net value of that might be greater than just pre-ABS receiving in itself,\u201d Swanson said. \u201cWe\u2019re certainly not punting on receiving and let\u2019s just be good challengers. It\u2019s the foundation of what we do.\u201d<\/p>\n The players haven\u2019t seemed to have trouble with it.<\/p>\n Trent Grisham, who is 2-for-2 on challenges, said he has thought the implementation of the system has been \u201cfine\u201d and \u201cpretty self explanatory.\u201d Aaron Judge, who is 1-for-1, has said it\u2019s felt \u201cweird\u201d but that he won\u2019t hesitate to use it \u201cif it\u2019s a big spot.\u201d<\/a> And the Yankees will forever be connected to the early history of ABS: On Opening Day, Jos\u00e9 Caballero became the first MLB player to use it<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to be good at it,\u201d Boone said. \u201cThat\u2019s the expectation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When it comes to the new Automated Ball-Strike system, New York Yankees catching coach Tanner Swanson wants players…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":660619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2376],"tags":[5,4,1690,62,2548,2547,142],"class_list":{"0":"post-660618","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-yankees","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-yankees","12":"tag-newyork","13":"tag-newyorkyankees","14":"tag-yankees"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116340360226099573","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660618","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=660618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/660619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/USATSI_28577194-scaled.jpg\")
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