MLB commissioner Rob Manfred spoke to members of the media about the future implementation of an automatic ball-strike (ABS) system, also known as “robo umps”, in the majors. Mark Feinsand of MLB.com and Evan Drellich of The Athletic relayed some of his comments. The commissioner said that there will likely be a challenge system in place when ABS first arrives in the big leagues, but that isn’t likely to happen next year.
Robo umps have seemed inevitable for some time now. Many other sports have seen technological advancements gradually take over duties previously carried out by human officials and the improvement of ball tracking technology has allowed baseball fans to clearly see calls missed by umpires in real time. As various websites track and grade umpires, fans have become increasingly vocal about their disappointment in umpires and the desire to move towards robo umps.
MLB has been trying out various methods in the minor leagues and in independent partner leagues for years now and Manfred said there is a “growing consensus” that players would prefer a challenge system as opposed to letting the ABS system take over completely. “Those who have played with it do have a strong preference for the challenge system over ABS calling every pitch,” Manfred said, “and that has certainly altered our thinking on where we might be headed.”
In a challenge system, the game is still called the traditional way, with the human umpire calling balls and strikes. However, each team gets a set number of challenges each game, where they can appeal to the ABS system to see if the umpire made a mistake.
This is something that Jayson Stark of The Athletic took a detailed look at in August of last year. While some fans may simply want every call to be rigorously made as the machine sees it, Stark got various reasons from baseball people as to why it would be preferable to do it with challenges.
One reason is feel for the game, with the example that a human umpire might expand the strike zone during a blowout to move the game along, something the robo ump wouldn’t do. There’s the entertainment factor of seeing the challenge play out on the scoreboard at the ballpark or on the broadcast. As an example, a minor league game last month ended on a challenged call, with video relayed by Foul Territory on X. Some want pitchers with consistent control to get a more favorable zone from the ump, as compared to a more wild pitcher. Some also don’t want the skill of catcher framing to go away.
The last point is something that Manfred touched on yesterday. “I think the players feel that a catcher that frames is part of the art of the game,” Manfred said. “If in fact framing is no longer important, the kind of players that would occupy that position might be different than they are today. You could hypothesize a world where instead of a premium catcher who’s focused on defense, the catching position becomes a more offensive player. That alters people’s careers, so those are real, legitimate concerns that we need to think all the way through before we jump off that bridge.”
Though the challenge system may be coming to the big leagues at some point, it doesn’t seem like it will be next year. “We still have some technical issues; I don’t mean technology, I mean technical issues in terms of the operation of the system,” Manfred said. “We haven’t made as much progress in the minor leagues this year as we hoped at this point. I think it’s becoming more and more likely that this will not be a go for ’25. One thing we did learn with the changes that we went through last year is taking the extra time to make sure you have it right is definitely the best approach. I think we’re going to use that same approach here.”
Per Feinsand, those issues are related to whether the strike zone is determined by a player’s height or by camera systems. “I’m not sure that anybody is wholly satisfied with either approach,” Manfred said. “We have not started those conversations [with the MLBPA] because we haven’t settled on what we think about it. It’s hard to have those conversations before you know what you’re thinking.”
Drellich also relayed some of Manfred’s thoughts on other topics in a separate piece. In that one, Manfred discusses the uniform situation with Nike, improvements to the Sacramento ballpark that will host the A’s for the next three years, the rise of pitcher injuries, the 2028 Olympics, Diamond Sports Group, pretacked balls and more. MLBTR covered some of these topics last night.
