MLB appears ready to add another element of replay review to its game as early as next year.
Rob Manfred said Tuesday he plans to propose a plan to bring the automatic ball-strike system to the majors for 2026, The Athletic reported from MLB headquarters.
A proposal will go to the 11-person competition committee, and it appears likely that it’ll have enough votes to get passed, with the league office having enough seats to make it happen, the outlet added.
ABS has been tested since 2019, first in the independent Atlantic League before coming to the affiliated minor leagues in 2022.
In 2023 and 2024, the Triple-A level used a mix of full ABS — meaning all of the pitches were called by an automatic strike zone — and a challenge system.
This year’s spring training had the system in place, allowing a batter, pitcher or catcher to challenge a given pitch, with each team given two challenges per game.
The strike zone was determined by the Hawk-Eye tracking system and depended on a batter’s height.
“I think that teams are really positive about ABS,” Manfred said, according to The Athletic. “You know, I do have that unscientific system that I use — my email traffic — and my distinct impression is that using ABS in spring training has made people more prone to complain about balls and strike calls via email, to me, referencing the need for ABS. That is undoubtedly true, undoubtedly true.”
Manfred added that he hopes to make a system that’s “acceptable” to the players and that a check-swing challenge was unlikely to be tested in spring training next year.
MLB first added replay review late in the 2008 season to check home run calls before making significant additions in 2014 that included fair/foul, boundary calls and safe/out calls chief among them.
The strike zone was always seen as the next frontier, and after a spring of testing, scores of fans and pundits have called for the change.
There was even one contentious incident over that weekend that centered on a lack of ABS.
On Sunday, Taylor Walls of the Rays was ejected after tapping his helmet — in an apparent nod to an ABS challenge — when he disagreed with a called strike from home plate umpire Nic Lentz, though Walls denied he was referencing the system.
“That’s what [Lentz] told me. ‘You’re not going to do that. You’re not going to tap your helmet.’ And so at that point, like, I know that they think that’s disrespectful,” Walls said after the game. “I watched the video, and I could see where he may have thought that.”