What you need to know about MLB’s ABS robot umpire strike zone system
MLB introduced the ABS Challenge System as players tested the decisions of robot referees during the groundbreaking season.
SAN FRANCISCO — For the first time in major league history, a machine decided the outcome of a strike call there.
It happened Wednesday night in the bottom of the fourth inning of the season opener between the New York Yankees and the San Francisco Giants at Oracle Park, with a packed crowd staring at the scoreboard awaiting the results.
Yankees shortstop Jose Caballero challenged Logan Webb’s strike call on the pitch, but his appeal was denied after MLB’s new ABS system confirmed the umpire’s original call.
This was the first regular-season game in which a player contested a ball from the home plate umpire, in this case veteran umpire and crew chief Bill Miller, and was allowed to call a strike.
Each team was allowed two challenges to start the game, and only pitchers, catchers, and batters were allowed challenges. The umpire recognized the challenge and the pitch was replayed on the stadium scoreboard and on the television broadcast. If a team wins a challenge, they are given another challenge, but if two wrong challenges occur, the team ends the game.
He averaged 4.32 attempts per game in spring training, of which 53% were successful.
“We expect to be really good,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “I met with the position players and catchers and talked about it. I talked about it from my philosophical feelings about it. I feel like I went through some situations that happened this spring and talked about each one. So I was really trying to get our players to understand leverage intuitively, intuitively in the moment.”
“I want them to be aggressive, but obviously sometimes it’s a bad idea to try something you’re not sure about. Our pitchers have done a pretty good job most of the time. … The expectation is that we do it well, and we continue to evolve and continue to talk about things as they happen.”
