It\u2019s fun. The strategy is enticingly second-guessable. And it\u2019s game-changing.<\/p>\n
So why would any commissioner want to mess with that? Not just now, but ever?<\/p>\n
Well, there might be one reason: Because in time, said an executive of one National League team, \u201cthe newness wears off.\u201d And when it does, he said, this will become a very different decision.<\/p>\n
That time could be months or years away. But when the novelty is no longer driving the appeal of Robots On Demand, that exec believes, MLB will have a fundamental question to answer:<\/p>\n
Is baseball better or worse with \u201cfull ABS,\u201d if it unleashes those robot umps to get every call of every game \u201cright\u201d?<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a question this league has tackled before. What it learned in that process provides an important lesson in how to implement change in any sport. But are those old lessons a precursor to what might happen in the future? You never know.<\/p>\n
So would baseball be a better sport if it went big tech \u2014 all robots all the time? We\u2019ve spent the last two weeks digging into that question. Here are some of the factors that would go into that decision.<\/p>\n
How much ABS is too much? <\/p>\n
Has it occurred to you yet how much ABS is transforming this sport?<\/p>\n
With one tap on the noggin, strikeouts can turn into walks. Walks can turn into strikeouts. Dead rallies can spring back to life. Even when a 1-2 count turns into a 2-1 count, that flip in baseball math can turn the leverage of a whole at-bat upside-down.<\/p>\n
So is it a surprise that we\u2019ve already seen more than 1,000 taps on those caps and helmets? In the first three weeks of this season, there were 1,082 ABS challenges of ball\/strike calls that used to be a job for humans alone.<\/p>\n
If this keeps up, we\u2019re heading for nearly 10,000 challenges \u2026 and more than 5,000 calls overturned by the time this season is over. That\u2019s about 200 counts that will get flipped every week.<\/p>\n
Understand what that means:<\/p>\n
Innings change on those flips. Games change. Whole seasons could have a different narrative, all because one high-impact strike turned into a ball \u2014 or vice versa.<\/p>\n
But \u2026 if this sport ever went to full-time robot-ump mode, those numbers would shift dramatically. Do we really want ABS to tell us whether 700,000 pitches a year are balls and strikes? That\u2019s a momentous question because it would be such a momentous change.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou should only make changes if it makes the game better,\u201d former Cubs\/Red Sox\/MLB rules visionary Theo Epstein said, as far back as 2023, in an appearance on the Starkville podcast with me and my co-host, Doug Glanville. \u201cYou have to figure out exactly what you\u2019re solving for. With ABS, you don\u2019t want to force a solution without a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
So how did MLB figure out what it was solving for? This is the perfect time to look back at \u2026<\/p>\n
What happened in Triple A <\/p>\n
What a time to be alive. It\u2019s now technologically possible (theoretically) to play games in which every strike is a strike, every ball is a ball and 100 percent of all pitches are called \u201ccorrectly.\u201d<\/p>\n
So in 2023 and half of 2024, MLB conducted an experiment. It helpfully gave all the citizens of Triple-A baseball a chance to experience life on that all-robot planet. And just as most expected \u2026<\/p>\n
Nobody wanted to live in a world like that.<\/p>\n
When you think about that, it\u2019s almost hilarious. We could get every call right \u2014 but nah, let\u2019s not? You might think that defies all logic. Now let\u2019s explain why it actually makes sense.<\/p>\n
Because life in Triple-A affiliates such as Rochester and Albuquerque is so different from life in the big leagues, baseball was able to test both versions of ABS. That test changed everything.<\/p>\n
One version of that test involved challenges and robot cartoons rolling on the video board, almost exactly the way they do in the majors now. In Triple A, they played games using that challenge system three days a week. The other version unleashed the robots to call every darned pitch. They used that format on the other three days of the minor-league week.<\/p>\n
This went on for a season and a half. Along the way, the survey-takers from MLB asked players, managers, coaches and fans what they thought. At first, those survey-takers could hardly believe what they were hearing and seeing.<\/p>\n
Check out the results from this survey, conducted in August 2024. Players and coaches were asked: Which ABS format do you prefer? You might want to look away because \u201cfull ABS\u201d is about to take a hellacious drubbing.<\/p>\n
Challenge system \u2014 54 percent
Full ABS \u2014 8 percent
Human umps \u2014 38 percent<\/p>\n
(Source: Major League Baseball)<\/p>\n
Eight percent? They were being offered a chance to get every call right, and not even one in 10 wanted that? I think they were trying to tell us something.<\/p>\n
Fans in Triple A weren\u2019t quite that vociferous. But it was still more than a 2-to-1 runaway win for the challenge system over full ABS.<\/p>\n
Challenge system \u2014 47 percent
Full ABS \u2014 23 percent
Human umps 30 percent<\/p>\n
(Source: Major League Baseball)<\/p>\n
To MLB\u2019s credit, it listened. It pulled the plug on the \u201cfull ABS\u201d portion of the experiment halfway through the 2024 season. It took the 2025 minor-league season to iron out a few more glitches in the challenge system. Then it brought that Robots On Demand challenge model to the big leagues in 2026.<\/p>\n
This is how change ought to work. Give the people what they want. That actually happened here. The commissioner has said repeatedly that the reason we\u2019re seeing this system is because it is what players wanted.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere we are on ABS has been fundamentally influenced by player input,\u201d Manfred said last summer during a Q&A with members of the Baseball Writers\u2019 Association of America. \u201cIf two years ago, you had said to me, \u2018What did the owners want to do?\u2019 I think they would have called every pitch with ABS as soon as possible. And that\u2019s because there is a fundamental \u2014 a very fundamental \u2014 interest in getting it right.\u201d<\/p>\n
But then they all learned that players and coaches hated life in that get-them-all-right alternate universe. So the league pivoted.<\/p>\n
But what was it about full ABS that all those players and coaches hated so much? And what about the challenge system did they prefer?<\/p>\n
We might miss those humans![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2272087635-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n There were 1,082 ABS challenges in the first three weeks of the season. But would MLB ever want to expand to full ABS \u2014 computerized ball-strike calls on about 700,000 pitches a year? (David Berding \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
For 149 seasons, MLB was the most human-friendly sport ever invented. It was a game played by humans, umpired by humans and happy to sell hot dogs, pizza and bubbly beverages to any human who stopped by.<\/p>\n
And then \u2026 the robots showed up.<\/p>\n
But at least they\u2019re popping out there just a few times a night, by cap-tapping invitation only. In Korea, the KBO is using ABS on every pitch these days. And not to question the wisdom of anything the KBO does, but on our side of the Pacific, you know the biggest lesson we learned when those Triple-A leagues turned over the whole shebang to ABS?<\/p>\n
Humans do not think humans are overrated.<\/p>\n
Take it from Morgan Ensberg, manager of the Rays\u2019 Triple-A Durham team. He lived through more than 100 games of the full-robot experience. He described those games as having \u201cno color, no spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just weird, man,\u201d said Ensberg, a longtime challenge-system fan. \u201cLike, a robotic voice is saying, strike or ball, and you\u2019re going to have problems with that, because you kind of want humans. You know, we all have our brains. And you want to have humans hitting, and humans pitching, and humans calling the games, because we\u2019re going to see things more similarly.\u201d<\/p>\n
All it took was the invasion of the robots to make humans appreciate the work of human umpires more than ever. This might come as a revelation to the CB Bucknor Fan Club, but many recognize that umpires have a larger, more impactful presence than some give them credit for.<\/p>\n
Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo was one of the few people we spoke with who said he\u2019d be open to the idea of full ABS someday. But the next thing we knew, he was getting all nostalgic about what we\u2019d be losing if that ever happens.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I would miss,\u201d Lovullo said, \u201cis the umpire\/manager, umpire\/catcher, umpire\/pitcher\/batter relationship. I don\u2019t think that needs to go away. I think you have umpires that are loaded with personality, and it\u2019s good for the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Imagine the absurdity of going to full ABS but forcing the home-plate umps to stand there all night behind the catcher even though computers are calling every pitch. Might as well just give them a comfy deck chair to lounge in until there\u2019s a play at the plate.<\/p>\n
Also: Better hope the ABS computers don\u2019t crash.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t have full ABS and still tell umpires they have to be locked in on the strike zone,\u201d said one of the half-dozen baseball executives who told us how opposed they are to the full-robot version. \u201cIf there\u2019s an issue, what happens if you can\u2019t reboot the system? You\u2019re going to ask an umpire who hasn\u2019t called a ball or strike in three months to start calling the pitches in the eighth inning of a playoff game?\u201d<\/p>\n
Does anyone want that? Based on the experience of the people who have lived it \u2014 no: Full robot-ball was no fun.<\/p>\n
Do we even want every pitch called \u2018correctly\u2019? <\/p>\n
So you think that\u2019s a ridiculous question, huh? You\u2019re thinking a strike should always be a strike, a ball should always be a ball, and the strike zone should always be the strike zone.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ll never believe who doesn\u2019t think that: Baseball players.<\/p>\n
Oh, they want The Big Call to be 100 percent right. That infamous final pitch<\/a> of Team USA versus the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic last month? They\u2019d challenge that call 1,000 times out of 1,000.<\/p>\n But do they want those non-human robots calling their inflexible, pre-programmed technological strike zone when it\u2019s a 14-3 game in the eighth inning and there\u2019s a 100 percent chance of heavy rain in the next 17 minutes? Oh, no. They definitely do not.<\/p>\n In games like that, Arizona Diamondbacks catcher James McCann said, \u201cof course you want every strike to be a strike. But there\u2019s also an understanding of, OK, we need to get this game moving.\u201d<\/p>\n Well, you know who doesn\u2019t give two gigabytes about the score or the precipitation probability? That robot ump, who doesn\u2019t know a forecast from a four-bagger. All it knows is how to do the not-necessarily-human-friendly stuff it was programmed to do.<\/p>\n So when players say they hate ABS, what they hate most is that those robots have none of the feel that human umpires have for every situation, every moment. A couple of years ago, then-Rangers pitching prospect Owen White shook his head and told us that it makes him antsy when ABS rewards him for pitches that even he thinks should not be a strike.<\/p>\n \u201cLike, backed-up sliders, where the catcher sets up on the outer third (of the plate) and then he catches them on the inner third?\u201d White said. \u201cTo me, whenever you make the catcher look bad, those really shouldn\u2019t be a guaranteed strike. But the ABS calls them strikes.\u201d<\/p>\n When even the pitchers feel like they should be arguing against their own called strikes, does that sound like the kind of rich human experience we get every time we walk into a ballpark?<\/p>\n \u201cThat,\u201d Ensberg said, \u201cwould be a terrible brand of baseball. Nobody would show up for that.\u201d<\/p>\n Do robots hate catchers? <\/p>\n \u201cYou have to have a catcher,\u201d Casey Stengel once said, \u201cbecause if you don\u2019t, you\u2019re likely to have a lot of passed balls.\u201d<\/p>\n Well, if old Casey thought catchers were important then, he ought to watch baseball now. Who means more to any team than its catcher?<\/p>\n In modern, 2026-style baseball, every catcher\u2019s leisurely day includes: watching about seven hours of video \u2026 taking a dozen foul balls off the foot, mask and every finger \u2026 guiding five pitchers through a game \u2026 framing 150 pitches a night \u2026 catching dudes who throw nine different unhittable pitches \u2026 and now, calibrating when to challenge<\/a> that sweeper that might have been a thousandth of an inch off the plate.<\/p>\n Hmmm, seems like we need those guys.<\/p>\n But you know who doesn\u2019t respect any of that? That impersonal little robot ump, who just goes about its cold, silent, robot-ump business, calling whatever it was programmed to call. So rude.<\/p>\n And that explains why, when we texted a bunch of executives to see where they stood on full ABS, one of them pounded his answer back so fast, he might need stitches in both thumbs.<\/p>\n \u201cI am very against going to full ABS,\u201d he said. \u201cI think it would be really bad for the game to essentially eliminate the catcher position, which is what I think will happen.\u201d<\/p>\n For 100 years, catchers have caught every pitch as stylishly as humanly possible, in their never-ending attempt to convince umpires that they\u2019re all strikes. But guess who isn\u2019t convincible? Mr. Robot, naturally.<\/p>\n So if we let computers call every pitch, the actual catching part of catching would be so devalued, the same exec said, that teams might as well stick Giancarlo Stanton back there. Once the catching position \u201cbasically becomes a second DH spot,\u201d he said, we\u2019d be looking at \u201ca massive change to our sport that I wouldn\u2019t embrace.\u201d<\/p>\n Think of all the catchers who have spent a lifetime honing their catching\/framing skills. Think of the teams that just drafted a catcher in a high round because of those same catching\/framing skills. It\u2019s hard to envision a world where the league says to those people: \u201cHey, it was cool you could do that stuff, but never mind. Now go learn to hit 60 homers or something.\u201d<\/p>\n Do we honestly believe that\u2019s going to happen? We didn\u2019t find anybody, in any part of the game, who was all in on that. But let\u2019s say, just for argument\u2019s sake, that the league found a way past that issue. Don\u2019t we still have to ask: With full ABS \u2026<\/p>\n Would the games get better or worse? <\/p>\n Once, the architects of ABS dreamed that they could somehow create an ABS strike zone that would make this game even more beautiful. Maybe it could put a dent in the strikeout rate. Maybe it could chip away at the walk rate. Maybe it could inspire more swinging, less missing and more balls in play.<\/p>\n Oh, well. Cool theory. But boy, did that not happen.<\/p>\n Take a look at what did happen to the walk rate in Triple A in 2023 and \u201924.<\/p>\n TRIPLE-A WALK PERCENTAGE <\/p>\n 2023 (Full ABS) \u2014 12.30 percent (Source: Baseball America)<\/p>\n The league was tinkering with the strike zone in both of those seasons, so those numbers aren\u2019t an exact barometer of what would happen in the big leagues. Nevertheless, the big-league walk rate in those seasons was only 8.6 percent in 2023 and 8.2 percent in 2024. We\u2019re thinking a 40-percent spike in that rate wouldn\u2019t be what anybody has in mind.<\/p>\n At least the strikeout rate was slightly lower with full ABS. But does this sound like a more entertaining product to you?<\/p>\n \u2022 More walks \u2014 and probably many more walks.<\/p>\n \u2022 Minimal impact on the strikeout epidemic.<\/p>\n \u2022 Longer games because robot umps forgot to attend Move the Game Along School.<\/p>\n \u201cThat,\u201d said one exec, \u201cis not the best version of our game for anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n Not to mention \u2026<\/p>\n Entertainment tonight: Challenges > Robots<\/p>\n Have you ever asked yourself: What in the world is MLB really trying to accomplish by unleashing ABS on its sport?<\/p>\n The easy answer is: To get every call right.<\/p>\n The actual answer is: Not that.<\/p>\n The truth is: The philosophy here is so similar to what the sport was trying to pull off with replay over the last decade or so. Namely: Get the big calls right! But also \u2026<\/p>\n Have you noticed that this sport is in the entertainment business? So here\u2019s maybe the most important goal of all:<\/p>\n \u201cDoing things that make the game more interesting and more fun.\u201d<\/p>\n Those words came from a baseball official who has had input in this process. And even though it\u2019s less than a month into this experiment, he has already noticed something about baseball in the ABS era.<\/p>\n People love this.<\/p>\n Yes, it\u2019s probably too early to conclude much of anything. But the league has been polling fans on their reaction to what they\u2019ve seen, by asking this question:<\/p>\n Is ABS improving the game? <\/p>\n The answer, from fans who attended games between March 26 and April 19:<\/p>\n Yes \u2014 92 percent (Source: Major League Baseball)<\/p>\n We eagerly await the results of independent polling on this topic. But if you\u2019ve spent even one night in a big-league ballpark during the past few weeks, it couldn\u2019t be more obvious. The buzz that accompanies every challenge cartoon on the scoreboard is telling us that the people paying to sit in those seats are gobbling up this stuff.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that one of the virtues of baseball is, we have things that we can argue about in a bar as we\u2019re watching a game,\u201d the same official said. \u201cSo one of the things that makes ABS challenge interesting is, you\u2019re sitting there and it\u2019s a 3-2 count, and a guy gets rung up on a called strike in the third inning with a runner on second. And you say: \u2018Why the hell didn\u2019t he challenge?\u2019 I think that\u2019s an interesting aspect of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n Remember: If you let those robot umps call every pitch, you lose all of that.<\/p>\n So if full-time robot umpiring ever becomes a real decision MLB thinks it has to ponder, would it really be willing to give up the sheer entertainment value of this challenge system? If that answer is yes, we\u2019d love to hear the explanation for that decision.<\/p>\n So, is there a middle ground? \n Twins pitcher Cody Laweryson celebrates a successful challenge. Some in the game think the current ABS system can be improved. (Matt Krohn \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n A week or so ago, we were in the middle of a long ABS conversation with one of the executives quoted earlier. Suddenly, he fired off the question of the day:<\/p>\n \u201cDoes anybody you\u2019ve talked to say: \u2018We would love to see full ABS?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The honest answer is \u2026 no. Not a soul. Not a player. Not a manager. Not a coach. Not a single club official. Not an umpire. That about covers it.<\/p>\n The umpires are a particularly interesting group to watch. Their first choice, obviously, would be all human umps all the time. Their no-way choice would be no human umps any of the time. Their jobs would be diminished in ways they could never get behind. And there\u2019s one more thing:<\/p>\n Players who have spoken with them say umpires don\u2019t believe the ABS technology is precise enough to go full ABS. They\u2019re uncomfortable with how the league is ignoring the margin of error<\/a> that has already come into play with hundreds of pitches so far. And if full ABS ever did come along, hoo boy. Are we ready for a nightly array of strikes that have never been called strikes before? We should be, they say.<\/p>\n
2023 (Challenge) \u2014 10.45 percent
2024 (Full ABS) \u2014 11.78 percent
2024 (Challenge) \u2014 11.01 percent<\/p>\n
No \u2014 8 percent<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2269866792-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n