Seattle Mariners left fielder Randy Arozarena came to the plate of the ninth inning of last week’s MLB All-Star Game with a prime opportunity to deal the final blow of the American League’s stunning rally.
Down 6-0 in the top of the seventh, the AL lineup ended the shutout scare on Brent Rooker’s three-run homer, then tied it up with three more runs in the top of the ninth on a trio of base hits. The All-Star Game doesn’t affect the outcome of the postseason any longer (in previous years, the winning league would earn home-field advantage in the World Series), but Arozarena was in position to become the hero in one of the sport’s most visible showcases.
Instead, Arozarena didn’t swing at a single pitch from Mets closer Edwin Diaz. The first two pitches were clear strikes, putting the former Rays slugger in an 0-2 hole, but the third appeared to be on the boundary of the strike zone and was initially ruled a ball by umpire Dan Iassogna. That led to the use of the automated ball-strike challenge system — and potentially a glimpse into baseball’s future.
In less than a minute, the ABS challenge system engaged its video technology to overrule the call, with a video supplement confirming that the pitch nicked the strike zone. The call reversal turned a 1-2 count into a strikeout that ended the inning, and the National League ultimately came out on top in an extra-inning home run derby. Rather than disputing the call or agonizing over the at-bat’s outcome, Arozarena reacted with a smile and seemed to recognize the humor of the moment, while Diaz laughed while walking off the mound.
Don’t expect Arozarena to be the last victim of a digitally confirmed strikeout. As I discussed with friend of the blog Steve Shuster the next day, the efficiency of the electronic umpire was a standout moment from the showcase and merits discussion beyond All-Star week. The ABS technology too closely aligns to Major League Baseball’s ultimate objectives to be stashed in the minor leagues forever and should be rolled out as MLB’s next innovation.
One of my favorite activities growing up as a young sports fan was imagining the future of sports or seeing depictions of what could be next in the Sports Illustrated Kids magazine. Some of those ideas have come to fruition — virtual reality video games, watch bars that show up-close, panoramic views — while others were just plain wacky at the time and haven’t caught on. Electronic umpires in baseball were the epitome of potential sports innovations, an invention that would mark a clear line of delineation between the past of the nation’s pastime and a more digital future.
The electronic ump has arrived. Crucially, the product itself works and makes baseball better. Under the current rules, pitchers, catchers or batters can signal to the human umpire to initiate a review, and a Hawkeye video replay system similar to the one used in tennis matches reviews trajectory and location to determine whether the challenge is successful. Each club can whiff on up to two challenges before losing the ability to initiate a review, so that the process isn’t abused and doesn’t slow down games.
MLB has wisely adopted a diligent approach to introducing and experimenting with a digital aid to umpires, similar to the recent inclusion of a pitch clock to speed up games and instant replay for bang-bang plays. Prior to its showcase at Truist Park for the All-Star Game, the system was an option in the majority of Spring Training games and is used in Triple-A baseball contests. MLB released encouraging statistics from the Spring Training matchups: games included an average of 4.1 challenges that added an average of 13.8 seconds to game duration, challenged pitches only accounted for 2.6 percent of called pitches and challenges were utilized most often in high-leverage counts, such as two-strike counts.
According to MLB.com, league officials will meet at the end of the summer to decide whether to promote the ABS challenge system to full-time status in the big leagues. The development of the ABS challenge system has never been a rush — ensuring that the features work correctly and can be ingrained in the sport seamlessly — and it appears ready for big-league action.
The clearest argument against a form of an electronic umpire is that it fundamentally changes baseball, taking the decision-making out of the hands of humans and letting a computer decide. In a sport that already has been transformed by the data revolution and employs both traditional and advanced metrics in decision-making, should umpiring be immune? Umpires might also feel the technology undermines their authority in what is already a grueling job, physically and mentally.
Those concerns should be secondary to the significant improvements the ABS challenge system offers. The most obvious and impactful advantage of its adoption will be more accurate ball and strike calls. Baseball games last a minimum of 54 outs and can take hundreds of pitches, but just a couple of corrections in high-leverage, late-game situations can turn a win into a loss, and vice versa. Why would baseball want to willingly disregard a way to make these calls more accurate? The challenges are time-efficient, give a clear answer and make gameplay more fair — advantages that also benefit the viewer — and have guardrails that can be adjusted through the first years of its adoption.
Umpires may end up being among the staunchest advocates for the technology. Disagreements over ball-strike calls inflame batters and pitchers nearly every game, with the umpire taking the brunt of the frustration. An almost-instant answer and determination shuts that down. The ABS challenge system also leaves plenty of room for umpires to do their job and assert their authority — if four challenges are used in a game, that leaves hundreds of others to be decided by the umpires. Having a call rebuked by technology might be hard to stomach at first, but having the ABS challenge system catch a clearly incorrect call could save an umpire from an off-call impacting the outcome of the day’s game.
“I feel for the most part, we know what’s borderline,” San Francisco Giants pitcher Logan Webb said at the MLB All-Star Game festivities, per MLB.com. “That’s something that I used in spring, when I threw a pitch that I knew wasn’t borderline. I knew it was a strike. I ended up getting it right.”
Major League Baseball’s priority in the coming decades should be to balance improving gameplay while maintaining the traditions and charm of the sport. The ABS challenge system, a technology that has been diligently developed and tested, achieves that first objective of improving gameplay, while limiting its exposure and impact to a few, high-impact moments that won’t bog down or tarnish what baseball fans love about the sport. A rollout could take place over a couple of seasons, such as starting with the regular season before a postseason expansion, but 2026 would be an excellent start date to employ the ABS challenge system in some capacity.
Few changes to a sport receive universal support, but this innovation can make all sides happy — players, managers, spectators, MLB executives and umpires — and can make baseball a better product.
Well, maybe not every side. Without the typical target of an umpire, I can already picture fans and players on the wrong side of a challenge wanting to exchange some unkind, ejection-worthy words with the computer system itself and search for the plug.
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