So American Fork is a real place. I live in the next town over, so close to AF that Oneil Cruz could reach it with a throw from my front yard after misjudging a fly ball and running first towards my neighbor across the street.
In 2025, umpire ball strike accuracy vs automated tracking system was 92.8%, the best ever. Let’s assume that every wrong call is a toss up for them, 50-50. They get 7.2% wrong, so let’s give them another 7.2% correct. 14.4% of pitches are tough 50-50 calls. There are an average of about 293 pitches per game. That’s 42 tough calls per game, with half of those coming out incorrect.
Let’s calibrate our expectations to these numbers. In an average game there are 42 challengeable tough calls. 21 incorrect ball strike calls is currently an average game. Given this context, 6 overturns doesn’t seem too bad.
57% overturns is not a lot better than 50-50, which tells me that overall, players are challenging the subset of tough calls more vs. situation than they KNOW it was wrong. It will be very beneficial to the situation to have this tough call reversed, so flip a coin and go for it.
Also, all of these calls are happening at the border of the strike zone, where pitchers are usually trying to throw, and where catchers are trying to influence and obfuscate. Umpires are insanely good at this, better than humans have ever been. (But laser trackers and robots are better)
Good work, though I think 57% is actually pretty substantial. Not over a weekend, but over a season, if you're challenging ~10 calls per game (that's probably a little high, because in some cases they will get it wrong in the early innings a couple times and lose their chance to try again, thus dropping the average number of attempts, but stick with me here...) and there are 162 games x 15 teams (because each game must be played by two teams) you've got over 24,000 challenges on the year and being off 7% from a coin flip means 1700 challenges get overturned. That's a TERRIBLE look for MLB and the umpires in particular.
Realistically, the average is probably more like 5 per game, but even with that, at a 57% success rate for overturning calls you'll have maybe 800+ overturned calls over the course of the season. So I suspect that Joe is right and that the umpires will have to get better or get out.
I am pretty impressed with how well the umpires do with the borderline calls. Which is why I am so amazed when they blow a completely obvious call (like 2 of the strikes Trout challenged that Joe shows in the article).
I think Jayson Stark reported that no group (players, managers, umpires,or fans) liked the full robo-ump mode when they tested it in the minors. I personally like the ABS system and the strategy behind the challenges. I hope they let it play out for a few years to see how it goes before they even contemplate doing it automatically. It’s fun for the fans to watch also.
I don't like it at all. Part of it is all the dumb "Umpire embarrassed again by ABS challenge!" content on the various social media, which I find nauseating and distasteful. Another part is that the zone that appears to be used doesnt even match what is prescribed in the rule book (nowhere near to the letters at the top) nor that it appears to change size based on the battery's height and stance: it's just this fixed box.
The last part is, yes, the loss of the human element. It was great that some umpires had wider zones and some had taller zones and that pitchers and hitters had to adapt to what the umpire was calling that day. Sometimes you got screwed by a bad call and sometimes you benefitted from it. That's just life and we'd all be a lot better off if people accepted that (I'm not only talking about baseball anymore).
It is not a fixed box height wise, but based on the batters measured height (27% of measured height at the bottom and 53.5% at the top. Since its based on measured height, it does not change based on batter stance. Thee width is fixed at 17 inches and the 'box' is fixed at 8.5 in behind the front of the plate.
Maybe I'm not understanding statistics very well, but a 57% overturn rate doesn't seem particularly high. It means the players were wrong 43% of the time. If each side is wrong roughly half the time, then I'm not sure what we're gaining out of the challenge system. Coin flips are still coin flips, we're just switching the sides of the coin.
Also, while umps are often credited with being right 95% of the time, that includes pitches a mile outside the zone, foul balls and ones a batter swings and misses. If you strip out those, and no-brainers right down the middle, the umps really only have to call 20-25 pitches a game and they get half of those wrong, which is pretty much a coin flip.
Being at 57% overturn is a pretty strong indictment of their ability - they’re actually worse than a coin flip. ABS, all the time, as soon as possible.
That doesn't make sense. There was no challenge system, so both sides were undefined. We'd expect very close decisions to be 50/50 and that's what the stats are telling us.
I saw a stat that the youngest umpires were only overturned 40% of the time and the oldest 60% of the time. As the old guys are shamed into calling the ABS zone or retiring, the umps are going to be even better than the players.
That's only one side of the equation. If they're getting an equal number of balls and strikes overturned, then the net result is zero.
Unfortunately, Joe tells us the first weekend situation is worse for the game. More balls are getting overturned than strikes, so offenses are getting squeezed again. ABS challenges are fun, so maybe that's a reason to have them anyway, but I don't think the system is showing that umpiring is bad or that it's making an appreciable difference in the game.
I don't know what you mean by "If they're getting an equal number of balls and strikes overturned, then the net result is zero."
A shift from zero out of 100 to 50 out of 100 is not a net change of zero. It's a net change of 50.
If you have a kid who has to eat whatever you make for dinner, and then one day they gain the ability to flip a coin and, if they win, they get to choose what you make everyone for dinner, the net change is that half the time you're now eating chicken fingers with them.
An umpire in a game calls 50 pitches balls and 50 pitches strikes. He's wrong on 2 balls and 2 strikes and gets those overturned. In the end you have a game where there were 50 called balls and 50 called strikes. That's the other side of the equation where the net result is zero. A pitch is either a ball or strike.
The 50% successful overturn rate just tells me that players are no better than umpires at judging close pitches.
CB Bucknor had a terrible game (I suspect that phrase has been written before) behind home plate in the Red Sox-Reds series. I wonder if the publicity/embarrassment which the ABS system will bring on umps could possibly fast track some of the worst umpires to retirement or some other profession. Unlike the players, the umpires cannot lose their jobs from being merely terrible at them. They're like unionized state employees at the DMV.
I actually think that this the only year we'll have this ABS challenge system. After the lockout/strike wipes out 2027, the new CBA will have a system in which umpires will hear a beep when ABS sees a strike. And then pitch framing will go the way of the buggy whip (you can't beat ABS with sleight-of-hand) and catchers can take their knee off the ground and actually get to wild pitches again. And, hopefully, catcher's interference should again be as rare as lunar eclipses, like they were when I was a kid.
I'm just excited to see that 52-year old Bobby Abreu is back in the league! And as a pitcher! Move, over Satchel, all those old-pitching records are coming down!! 😉
Or, maybe you meant Bryan? That would make more sense.
But how much fun would it have been to see Bobby Abreu try to pitch? That dude had a cannon for an arm! On the rare occasions on which he would actually get to a ball in the outfield, he could absolutely LAUNCH it back to...well...the general direction of the infield. Usually. Sometimes. 🤣
ABS may be becoming one of the most exciting things in baseball.
The sequence in Cincinnati where Eugenio Suarez had two successful challenges in the same at-bat with the bases loaded was amazing. The announcers on the broadcast said the ovation when he won both was even bigger than for the home runs the Reds had hit earlier in the game.
Salvy was 4 for 4 over the weekend. I am unsure whether I should be mad that he is apparently much better at judging the strike zone in a squat than he is in his batting stance.
I also wonder how much better his fWAR will be if he is truly as great at judging the strike zone as he was poor at framing pitches.
No, Joe, they are not guessing when they call strikes. Some of them are just better than others. There's also a long tradition of umpires having wide or narrow or low or high strike zones. When each league had a staff and there were fewer umpires, it was easy to know and figure out, right or wrong.
But I'll stick with what I've said: if hitters were as good as their jobs as umpires are at theirs, they would all have an OPS much closer to 5000.
So American Fork is a real place. I live in the next town over, so close to AF that Oneil Cruz could reach it with a throw from my front yard after misjudging a fly ball and running first towards my neighbor across the street.
In 2025, umpire ball strike accuracy vs automated tracking system was 92.8%, the best ever. Let’s assume that every wrong call is a toss up for them, 50-50. They get 7.2% wrong, so let’s give them another 7.2% correct. 14.4% of pitches are tough 50-50 calls. There are an average of about 293 pitches per game. That’s 42 tough calls per game, with half of those coming out incorrect.
Let’s calibrate our expectations to these numbers. In an average game there are 42 challengeable tough calls. 21 incorrect ball strike calls is currently an average game. Given this context, 6 overturns doesn’t seem too bad.
57% overturns is not a lot better than 50-50, which tells me that overall, players are challenging the subset of tough calls more vs. situation than they KNOW it was wrong. It will be very beneficial to the situation to have this tough call reversed, so flip a coin and go for it.
Also, all of these calls are happening at the border of the strike zone, where pitchers are usually trying to throw, and where catchers are trying to influence and obfuscate. Umpires are insanely good at this, better than humans have ever been. (But laser trackers and robots are better)
Good work, though I think 57% is actually pretty substantial. Not over a weekend, but over a season, if you're challenging ~10 calls per game (that's probably a little high, because in some cases they will get it wrong in the early innings a couple times and lose their chance to try again, thus dropping the average number of attempts, but stick with me here...) and there are 162 games x 15 teams (because each game must be played by two teams) you've got over 24,000 challenges on the year and being off 7% from a coin flip means 1700 challenges get overturned. That's a TERRIBLE look for MLB and the umpires in particular.
Realistically, the average is probably more like 5 per game, but even with that, at a 57% success rate for overturning calls you'll have maybe 800+ overturned calls over the course of the season. So I suspect that Joe is right and that the umpires will have to get better or get out.
Mr. Bucknor, the exit door is this way...
I am pretty impressed with how well the umpires do with the borderline calls. Which is why I am so amazed when they blow a completely obvious call (like 2 of the strikes Trout challenged that Joe shows in the article).
I think Jayson Stark reported that no group (players, managers, umpires,or fans) liked the full robo-ump mode when they tested it in the minors. I personally like the ABS system and the strategy behind the challenges. I hope they let it play out for a few years to see how it goes before they even contemplate doing it automatically. It’s fun for the fans to watch also.
I don't like it at all. Part of it is all the dumb "Umpire embarrassed again by ABS challenge!" content on the various social media, which I find nauseating and distasteful. Another part is that the zone that appears to be used doesnt even match what is prescribed in the rule book (nowhere near to the letters at the top) nor that it appears to change size based on the battery's height and stance: it's just this fixed box.
The last part is, yes, the loss of the human element. It was great that some umpires had wider zones and some had taller zones and that pitchers and hitters had to adapt to what the umpire was calling that day. Sometimes you got screwed by a bad call and sometimes you benefitted from it. That's just life and we'd all be a lot better off if people accepted that (I'm not only talking about baseball anymore).
It is not a fixed box height wise, but based on the batters measured height (27% of measured height at the bottom and 53.5% at the top. Since its based on measured height, it does not change based on batter stance. Thee width is fixed at 17 inches and the 'box' is fixed at 8.5 in behind the front of the plate.
Hey Joe - Have you seen the newest drop from Pop Fly Pop Shop? It’s sooo Cleveland!
CB Bucknor had a really bad day in a career of bad days. ABS is fun!
Maybe I'm not understanding statistics very well, but a 57% overturn rate doesn't seem particularly high. It means the players were wrong 43% of the time. If each side is wrong roughly half the time, then I'm not sure what we're gaining out of the challenge system. Coin flips are still coin flips, we're just switching the sides of the coin.
Right, but the default until this year was 0% players, 100% umpires.
Compared to that, 57% for the players is high.
Also, while umps are often credited with being right 95% of the time, that includes pitches a mile outside the zone, foul balls and ones a batter swings and misses. If you strip out those, and no-brainers right down the middle, the umps really only have to call 20-25 pitches a game and they get half of those wrong, which is pretty much a coin flip.
Being at 57% overturn is a pretty strong indictment of their ability - they’re actually worse than a coin flip. ABS, all the time, as soon as possible.
That doesn't make sense. There was no challenge system, so both sides were undefined. We'd expect very close decisions to be 50/50 and that's what the stats are telling us.
I saw a stat that the youngest umpires were only overturned 40% of the time and the oldest 60% of the time. As the old guys are shamed into calling the ABS zone or retiring, the umps are going to be even better than the players.
There was no challenge system before, which means the umpires were "right" by default, 100% of the time. Now they're not. That's a huge deal.
That's only one side of the equation. If they're getting an equal number of balls and strikes overturned, then the net result is zero.
Unfortunately, Joe tells us the first weekend situation is worse for the game. More balls are getting overturned than strikes, so offenses are getting squeezed again. ABS challenges are fun, so maybe that's a reason to have them anyway, but I don't think the system is showing that umpiring is bad or that it's making an appreciable difference in the game.
I don't know what you mean by "If they're getting an equal number of balls and strikes overturned, then the net result is zero."
A shift from zero out of 100 to 50 out of 100 is not a net change of zero. It's a net change of 50.
If you have a kid who has to eat whatever you make for dinner, and then one day they gain the ability to flip a coin and, if they win, they get to choose what you make everyone for dinner, the net change is that half the time you're now eating chicken fingers with them.
An umpire in a game calls 50 pitches balls and 50 pitches strikes. He's wrong on 2 balls and 2 strikes and gets those overturned. In the end you have a game where there were 50 called balls and 50 called strikes. That's the other side of the equation where the net result is zero. A pitch is either a ball or strike.
The 50% successful overturn rate just tells me that players are no better than umpires at judging close pitches.
You nailed it, James. Exactly right.
CB Bucknor had a terrible game (I suspect that phrase has been written before) behind home plate in the Red Sox-Reds series. I wonder if the publicity/embarrassment which the ABS system will bring on umps could possibly fast track some of the worst umpires to retirement or some other profession. Unlike the players, the umpires cannot lose their jobs from being merely terrible at them. They're like unionized state employees at the DMV.
I actually think that this the only year we'll have this ABS challenge system. After the lockout/strike wipes out 2027, the new CBA will have a system in which umpires will hear a beep when ABS sees a strike. And then pitch framing will go the way of the buggy whip (you can't beat ABS with sleight-of-hand) and catchers can take their knee off the ground and actually get to wild pitches again. And, hopefully, catcher's interference should again be as rare as lunar eclipses, like they were when I was a kid.
I'm just excited to see that 52-year old Bobby Abreu is back in the league! And as a pitcher! Move, over Satchel, all those old-pitching records are coming down!! 😉
Or, maybe you meant Bryan? That would make more sense.
But how much fun would it have been to see Bobby Abreu try to pitch? That dude had a cannon for an arm! On the rare occasions on which he would actually get to a ball in the outfield, he could absolutely LAUNCH it back to...well...the general direction of the infield. Usually. Sometimes. 🤣
Trout also stole a base.🙂
ABS may be becoming one of the most exciting things in baseball.
The sequence in Cincinnati where Eugenio Suarez had two successful challenges in the same at-bat with the bases loaded was amazing. The announcers on the broadcast said the ovation when he won both was even bigger than for the home runs the Reds had hit earlier in the game.
Salvy was 4 for 4 over the weekend. I am unsure whether I should be mad that he is apparently much better at judging the strike zone in a squat than he is in his batting stance.
I also wonder how much better his fWAR will be if he is truly as great at judging the strike zone as he was poor at framing pitches.
Joe. "Dub Gleeb: American Fork Hero" was sitting right there!
Love it.
IIRC, "Dub Gleeb" hit 52 homers for the 1963 American Forkers in that AI-generated home run leaders chart that was bouncing around.
No, Joe, they are not guessing when they call strikes. Some of them are just better than others. There's also a long tradition of umpires having wide or narrow or low or high strike zones. When each league had a staff and there were fewer umpires, it was easy to know and figure out, right or wrong.
But I'll stick with what I've said: if hitters were as good as their jobs as umpires are at theirs, they would all have an OPS much closer to 5000.