By Roger Grossman
News Now Warsaw
New things usually don’t work perfectly, but I think baseball has gotten the Automated Ball-Strike system (ABS) just right.
If you aren’t following baseball closely, this is baseball’s current answer to helping get a much higher percentage of pitches called correctly.
Here’s how it works: The pitcher pitches the ball, and the umpire calls it a strike. The batter thought it was outside or low or inside or high. Or maybe the pitch was called a ball, but the catcher believes it should have been a strike. Either way, the allegedly-offended party can tap the top of their head and the home plate umpire turns around and announces to the press box that the pitch is being challenged.
Then, the fun starts.
The video board at each park switches to a computerized dramatization of the pitch approaching the plate in relation to the strike zone.
The best part of it is that everyone — the umpires, the players, the managers and the fans—all find out whether the pitch was a strike or a ball at the exact same time.
Each team gets two ABS challenges per game. If you get the challenge right, you keep your challenge. If you’re wrong, you lose one.
When you lose both challenges, obviously, you can’t challenge anymore pitches.
I believe this might be the best of the new rules Rob Manfred has put forth over the last three seasons, and that’s a significant statement because I think the pitch clock, the limits on throwing to first base and the extra-inning runner starting on second base have really helped the game.
Why do I like this so much?
First, the mechanics of how we get from a challenge being made to a resolution to being ready for the next pitch is about 20 seconds.
To get pitches right, 20 seconds is worth it.
I was hopeful that this would end the arguing from the dugout and angry batters, pitchers and catchers that certainly slow the game down.
It hasn’t ended it, but it has cut it back significantly.
According to Major League Baseball’s ABS website, 54-percent of all challenges by players have been successful — meaning the umpire got the call wrong 54-percent of the time when a call is challenged.
To the surprise of no one, the catchers get their challenges right 59-percent of the time compared to 47-percent by batters. Catchers are seeing the ball and the plate in the same way the umpire does, while the batter is standing next to the plate, looking at every pitch from a very different angle.
I thought it would be, and it has been, a big step toward holding umpires accountable for their ability, or lack of ability, to accurately call pitches. There is no hiding when an umpire gets it wrong now.
What has not been expressed by anyone that I have heard or read is whether the league is charting how umpires are doing on all pitches, regardless of whether they were challenged or not.
One of the things baseball got right with this is limiting teams to two challenges each (with an additional challenge for each extra inning) and allowing teams that correctly challenge a call to keep that challenge.
A team shouldn’t be punished because their home plate umpire that night was bad. I mean, if an umpire gets 20 pitches wrong in a game — and that has happened already this season—then they should be able to get all 20 changed, right?
The whole point of using technology for replay and ABS challenges is to get calls right. And it’s doing that.
Of course, there is a strategic element to when and how to use your two challenges.
It makes no sense at all for a batter to challenge a pitch he thought was outside that made the count 1-2 with the bases empty and one out in the first inning. If he’s right, it’s fine. But if he’s wrong and you lose a challenge that you might need on a 3-2 pitch with the bases loaded in the 8th inning of a tie game … that could be game-changing.
You can’t believe the ump was wrong; you have to know they were wrong.
And the natural emotion of sports doesn’t do any favors in this process. Teams with players who can control the emotion of the moment will deal with challenges better than those who can’t. There is also a place for the pride and ego of the player to inject itself when it comes to this.
And the batter, catcher and pitcher are required to declare their challenge immediately. No one from the dugout can yell out to help them.
I was slightly skeptical about this rule change at the major league level, but my hope that it would work was based in the fact that the minor leagues have been using it.
Well, it’s working.
Good for us.
