Teams will be allowed two challenges per game
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NEW YORK – Robot umpires are getting called up to the big leagues next season.
Human plate umpires will still call balls and strikes, but teams will be allowed two challenges per game, with additional appeals in extra innings. Challenges must be made by a pitcher, catcher or batter – signaled by tapping their helmet or cap – and teams retain their challenge if successful. Reviews will be displayed as digital graphics on outfield videoboards.
New York Yankees outfielder Austin Slater, one of four players on the competition committee, said three voted in favor after receiving support from 22 of the 30 teams. All six management representatives voted in favor.
“I think with any sort of technology, there’s not 100% certainty of the accurateness of the system,” Slater said. “I think the same can be said of umpires. So I think it’s just coming to grips with the impact that technology is going to have and whether or not we were willing to live with that error that was associated with the system, even if the error is very, very miniscule.”
Big league umpires call roughly 94% of pitches correctly, according to UmpScorecards.
Adding robot umps is expected to reduce ejections. MLB said 61.5% of ejections among players, managers and coaches last year were related to balls and strikes, as were 60.3% this season through Sunday.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone, who leads the American League in ejections for the fifth straight year, called the adoption “inevitable.”
“Throughout the year, I’ve been a little not totally on board with it or exactly how it’s going to be implemented, but it’s going to be here and hopefully that’s a good thing,” he said. “A lot of the things that Major League Baseball has done I think have been really successful in the changes they’ve made and hopefully this is another one of them.”
Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said players will have to adjust.
“You can like it, dislike it, it doesn’t matter,” Vogt said as Cleveland prepared to open a critical three-game series with Detroit. “It’s coming. It’s going to change the game. It’s going to change the game forever.”
The Automated Ball-Strike System, which uses Hawk-Eye cameras, has been tested in the minor leagues since 2019. It was used at eight of nine ballparks in the Low-A Southeast League in 2021, then moved to Triple-A in 2022.
At Triple-A in early 2023, half the games used robots for ball-strike calls and half had a human umpire with team appeals to the system.
MLB switched Triple-A to an all-challenge system on June 26, 2024, and used the challenge format this year at 13 spring training ballparks hosting 19 teams for 288 exhibition games. Teams won 52.2% of their ball-strike challenges (617 of 1,182).
“I love it. I loved it in spring training,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said. “Not all of the players, but most of the players, if you ask them, they really liked it too. I think it keeps everybody accountable. It keeps everybody on their toes.”
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At Triple-A in early 2023, half the games used robots for ball-strike calls and half had a human umpire with team appeals to the system.
MLB switched Triple-A to an all-challenge system on June 26, 2024, and used the challenge format this year at 13 spring training ballparks hosting 19 teams for 288 exhibition games. Teams won 52.2% of their ball-strike challenges (617 of 1,182).
“I love it. I loved it in spring training,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said. “Not all of the players, but most of the players, if you ask them, they really liked it too. I think it keeps everybody accountable. It keeps everybody on their toes.”
At Triple-A this season, the average number of challenges per game increased to 4.2 from 3.9 through Sunday, while the success rate dropped to 49.5% from 50.6%.
In the first test at the big league All-Star Game, four of five challenges to plate umpire Dan Iassogna’s calls were successful in July.
Triple-A teams do not receive extra challenges in extra innings. The proposal approved Tuesday includes a provision granting teams one additional challenge per inning if they have none remaining.
MLB has experimented with different shapes and interpretations of the strike zone using the system, including three-dimensional versions. Currently, it calls strikes based solely on where the ball crosses the midpoint of the plate – 8.5 inches from the front and back. The top of the strike zone is 53.5% of the batter’s height, and the bottom is 27%.
“Throughout this process we have worked on deploying the system in a way that’s acceptable to players,” Commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement. “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.”
This will be MLB’s first major rule change since sweeping adjustments in 2024, which included a pitch clock, larger bases, and restrictions on defensive shifts and pitcher disengagements such as pickoff attempts.
The challenge system introduces the technology without eliminating pitch framing – a subtle art where catchers use their body and glove to make borderline pitches appear as strikes. Framing has become a critical skill for big league catchers, and there was concern that full implementation would make strong defensive catchers obsolete.
“Unless you have a really good eye … only getting two (challenges), I think a lot of the borderline ones are going to stay the same,” Rangers catcher Kyle Higashioka said. “So it keeps some of the human element in the game.”
In addition to Slater, the other players on the competition committee are Arizona’s Corbin Burnes and Zac Gallen, and Seattle’s Cal Raleigh, with the Chicago Cubs’ Ian Happ and Detroit’s Casey Mize as alternates.
Umpire Bill Miller is the committee’s umpire representative. The Major League Baseball Umpires Association declined to comment Tuesday, saying its members “are focused on the 2025 season and postseason.”
[SRC] https://www.tricityrecordnm.com/articles/major-league-baseball-will-use-robot-umpires-in-2026/
