Fastball

How ABS System Will Change MLB Games After Official Approval For 2026 Season

Robo-umps are coming at long last
Jackson Roberts|
The scoreboard at LECOM Park displays a message about a pitch call being challenged. Major League Baseball is testing an Automated Ball-Stike (ABS) challenge system at select spring training parks. The system allows players to challenge a limited number of ball/stike calls during a game. Calls can be overturned if the pitch tracking technology shows an umpire got a call wrong.
The scoreboard at LECOM Park displays a message about a pitch call being challenged. Major League Baseball is testing an Automated Ball-Stike (ABS) challenge system at select spring training parks. The system allows players to challenge a limited number of ball/stike calls during a game. Calls can be overturned if the pitch tracking technology shows an umpire got a call wrong. | Mike Lang / Sarasota Herald-Tribune / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

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Philadelphia Phillies

A long-awaited rule change is set to transform Major League Baseball games beginning next season.

On Tuesday, the MLB Joint Competition Committee voted to approve the implementation of the Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) system for the 2026 season. After 150 years of endless complaints about umpires' strike zones, teams will finally have the opportunity to get calls overturned by technology.

How, exactly, will the new rule be implemented? We've got all the details, per MLB's official announcement on social media.

MLB announces ABS challenge rules

The ABS system will allow teams two challenges each per game. If the challenges are successful, teams will keep them, so technically, there is no limit on how many teams will be able to successfully reverse incorrect calls. There's certainly incentive to be cautious, though, lest a team be unable to challenge a pivotal call that would have been reversed.

Teams will also be awarded an extra challenge if they are out of them when extra innings begin.

Only the players involved in the pitch (pitcher, catcher, and batter) will be allowed to initiate the challenges, with no help allowed from the dugout. And the challenge must be instantaneous, though that's up to the umpire's discretion and could certainly be applied inconsistently.

Interestingly, the party that seems to be the most divided on the change is the players.

Less than two weeks ago, two-time World Series champion pitcher Walker Buehler made it very clear that he wasn't on board with the ABS system after experiencing it in a minor-league start. Buehler isn't alone: in a poll of 134 players conducted by The Athletic, 63.4% of players opposed the ABS system, while only 17.2% were in favor.

The art of pitch-framing will be somewhat diminished as well, as catchers won't be able to "steal" strikes on pitches outside the zone if batters correctly identify them as balls. That's something that will be fascinating to track as new data emerges and we see if the catchers with the quickest hands can still be rewarded.

It's a major change, and changes take time to adjust to for everyone. But the vast majority of screaming matches between managers and umpires over ball-strike calls are likely to vanish, and that's going to be a divisive change in itself.

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Jackson Roberts
JACKSON ROBERTS

Jackson Roberts is a former Division III All-Region DH who now writes and talks about sports for a living. A Bay Area native and a graduate of Swarthmore College and the Newhouse School at Syracuse University, Jackson makes his home in North Jersey. He grew up rooting for the Red Sox, Patriots, and Warriors, and he recently added the Devils to his sports fandom mosaic.

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