New York (AFP) – Major League Baseball will begin pre-season testing of an automated system to allow challenges of ball-strike calls on Thursday, with the technology backstopping home plate umpires in about 60% of exhibition games. The Automated Ball-Strike System (ABS) will receive its first test at Glendale, Arizona, between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs.
Umpires have been declaring pitches in or out of the strike zone since the birth of the sport in the 1800s, with plenty of disputes and argued calls since then. But the ABS will be used in spring training games to help decide if such a system is ready to be used in future MLB regular-season contests, although it will not be used in the 2025 MLB campaign. “This is a pretty big decision for the game of baseball that we want to get everybody to weigh in on,” MLB executive vice president of baseball operations Morgan Sword said.
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The ABS technology will be used in 13 pre-season ballparks shared by 19 teams, so every club will have a chance to play with the ABS, which features a challenge system for ball and strike calls teams feel went the wrong way. Home plate umpires will call balls and strikes on pitches as normal, but the Hawk-Eye technology will monitor exact pitch locations relative to the strike zone for each batter.
Only a batter, pitcher, or catcher can challenge an umpire call under the rules of the system, which allows each team to start with two challenges each. Any challenge must be made immediately after an umpire’s call, without assistance from the team dugout or other players, with a player tapping his cap or helmet to indicate his desire to challenge. The Hawk-Eye positioning review is shown on the video screen at stadiums and on television.
A team loses its challenge only if an umpire call is confirmed, so clubs can retain challenge rights for more than two challenges. No extra challenges are added should a game go beyond the regulation nine innings. Testing in minor-league games averaged only an extra 17 seconds added to game times for each challenge. It also showed fans preferred the human element of umpiring to remain in the game rather than a move to a fully automated system.
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