Major League Baseball (MLB) is finally taking steps toward eliminating human error and holding umpires accountable, announcing Tuesday that it will institute an Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) challenge system for the 2026 season.
The system, which will use cameras set up around the perimeter of the field to track the location of each pitch relative to the batter’s zone, will allow a pitcher, catcher, or batter to request a review to overturn a pitch’s judgment by the home-plate umpire.
Each team will get two challenges, which must be requested immediately after a pitch. If they’re successful, the team can keep them. The challenger must tap his hat or helmet to alert the umpire, and help from the dugout or any other outfield player is prohibited.
In extra innings, each team will have one challenge if it has used up its previous two.
Upon a player’s request, the pitch images will be transmitted over T-Mobile’s 5G private network to the ballpark’s videoboard and to television broadcasts, allowing the viewer at home to see the challenge’s results. The ball-strike call will then either be confirmed or overturned, providing a seconds-long interruption.
“The previous rule changes that have been adopted by the Joint Competition Committee have had staying power and created momentum for the game,” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said. “We used the same process with ABS that started with listening to fans, conducting extensive testing at the minor league level, and trying at every step to make the game better. Throughout this process, we have worked on deploying the system in a way that’s acceptable to players. The strong preference from players for the challenge format over using the technology to call every pitch was a key factor in determining the system we are announcing today.”
