Rob Manfred States Robot Home Plate Umpires Unlikely for 2025 MLB Season

The ABS challenge system likely won't be coming to the big leagues in 2025.

Feb 15, 2024; Tampa, FL, USA; MLB commissioner Rob Manfred talks with media at George M. Steinbrenner Field. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement Neitzel-USA TODAY Sports / Kim Klement Neitzel-USA TODAY Sports

Major League Baseball almost certainly won't have robot umpires calling balls and strikes in 2025. Commissioner Rob Manfred all but confirmed that at a press conference on Thursday, disappointing legions of fans.

Manfred claimed the holdup is technical issues that need to be worked through as MLB has continued to experiment with an automated system for calling balls and strikes since 2019. The automated ball-strike system (or ABS) is currently being used in Triple-A for the second season.

"We still have some technical issues," Manfred said. "We haven't made as much progress in the minor leagues this year as we sort of hoped at this point. I think it's becoming more and more likely that this will not be a go for '25."

This season in Triple-A, a fully robotic strike zone is used for the first three games of each series, while a human with a challenge system is used in the final three. The challenge system allows hitters or pitchers on either team to dispute a call made by a human umpire and ABS then determines the result. Each team is afforded three unsuccessful challenges per game, with successful challenges not counting against that total.

According to Manfred, the consensus among players is that the challenge form of the system is what should be used at the big league level, at least to begin with.

While ABS doesn't seem to be ready for the big leagues yet, it seems everyone realizes changes need to come. When umpires are as bad as they have been over the past few years, removing the most contentious part of their job makes sense. It can't come soon enough for some fans.