Article: The ABS Challenge System Is Coming. What Does That Mean for the Blue Jays?

[Jesse Burrill]

Robots aren’t quite taking over baseball, but MLB is making another drastic leap going into next season.

On Tuesday, it was announced that the automated ball strike (ABS) challenge system will be coming to regular season MLB games starting on Opening Day in 2026.

It's a system that has been used in the minor leagues for the past few years. The 2023 and 2024 Triple-A seasons featured a mix of a full ABS and the challenge system, and since the end of 2024, it has been the full challenge system.

The system won't eliminate the job of the home plate umpire. They will still call balls and strikes, and if either the pitcher, catcher, or batter disagrees with a call, they will tap their helmet or cap, and Hawk-Eye technology will quickly reveal if the pitch was called correctly or not. If the challenger is deemed successful, their team retains the challenge. If they are unsuccessful in their attempt, they lose a challenge. Each team will start every game with two challenges. 

This will have an effect on everyone in Major League Baseball, and the Blue Jays are no exception. In fact, the challenge system would have been very welcome on Tuesday night, right after George Springer hit a ball down the third base line that was deemed foul by the third base umpire. The very next pitch was a slider by Lucas Giolito that Springer took. Here’s where the pitch ended up:

As the rules currently stand, all Springer could do was accept the call and head back to the dugout, and he was clearly frustrated with the decision.

This doesn’t just happen to the Blue Jays; bad calls happen to all teams across baseball, but it's plays like this, especially in the highest leverage points of games, that are a big part of the reason why this change is being made. The players should decide the results of a baseball game on the field, not the umpires. You could argue that the Red Sox did a good job of framing and fooling the umpire into calling the pitch a strike (more on that later) but ultimately, pitches in the zone should be called strikes and pitches outside of the zone should be called balls, and with the challenge system, MLB will be closer to that reality without completely removing the human element of baseball from the game.

Now the real question is, how will this rule change affect the Toronto Blue Jays specifically? In 2025, the Blue Jays' batters have taken 8,044 pitches outside of the zone, and 357 of them have been called strikes. That 4.4% rate has them 19th in baseball, right around league average. On the pitching side, that number is notably higher for the Blue Jays, with 452 of 8,429 pitches taken outside of the zone called strikes. That 5.4% rate is the third-highest in baseball, behind only the Giants and Yankees.

Now, this just isn’t by random chance that these three teams are at the top of this list. Here are the top three teams in framing runs (per FanGraphs):

1. Giants - 22.3
2. Yankees - 12.9
3. Blue Jays - 12.8

Alejandro Kirk, Austin Wells, and Patrick Bailey each individually rank in the top five in baseball at turning pitches that aren’t strikes into strikes. He and Tyler Heineman have added close to 13 runs of value for the Blue Jays by being able to “steal” strikes.

According to this piece, roughly 10 runs of value is what it takes to add one win to a team or player's FanGraphs WAR, so the Blue Jays' framing has given them at least one extra win based on where they would be if they had league-average framers behind the plate. This seems very relevant, as the Blue Jays are currently tied with the Yankees in the AL East.

Now with the challenge system in place next season, the Blue Jays won't get as many pitches outside of the zone called strikes, but they will still get some. So, although their framing may not add quite as much value, it will still be something on the margins that can help the team win.

On the hitting side, the Blue Jays have some players who may benefit from the ABS challenge system. Baseball America ran a list of the players who have had the highest percentage of pitches in the “shadow zone” (the area within one full baseball's width inside and outside of the strike zone) that were taken for called strikes. Anthony Santander was 19th on that list with 50.97% of those pitches being called strikes. Davis Schneider was 35th at 49.24%, while Myles Straw (47.83%), Isiah Kiner-Falefa (46.91%), and Ernie Clement (46.67%) also made the top 100. Each is a candidate to see that number improve next season.

Schneider seems like one of the most likely candidates for this. First, per Baseball Savant, only Hyeseong Kim of the Dodgers has seen more pitches outside of the strike zone called strikes than Schneider. Pair that with the fact he’s seen a team-high 4.44 pitches per PA on the season, and Schneider has a good chance to see more of those borderline pitches go his way.

He also has a good deal of experience with the system already, as he has spent time in Buffalo in three of the last four seasons. Although we don't have public data on exactly how successful he was at those challenges, his walk rate and zone rate numbers have each been better in his two most recent minor league stints than in his major league stints. With a Blue Jays coaching staff that has preached “selective aggression” at times, Schneider seems like the Blue Jay who could benefit the most from this.

In conclusion, the addition of an ABS challenge system may not have a dramatic effect on the field of play for the Blue Jays. If anything, it may be a net negative for the team because they have been able to frame pitches so well, giving them a competitive edge in that part of the game. However, framing is still going to be important. Not every borderline pitch is going to be challenged, and being able to fool the umpire and even the batter into challenging a pitch they shouldn't will only help the Blue Jays as games go along.

The reality is that the technology is here, and for a sport that has typically been slower than others to adjust to technology, it's important that MLB gets the call right: let the game be decided by the players on the field and not hinge on the decision of a bad call by an umpire at the wrong time. George Springer would surely agree with that.

Stats updated prior to games on September 26.

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[Spanky__99]

Kirky!

 

[Mike LeSage]

I'm interested to see what players and teams are bad at using the ABS system and squander their challenges. Like, will there be certain hitters that the team(s) tell to stop challenging? The pitching/catching tandem will at least have a second to (even wordlessly) communicate with each other before making a challenge, but will the hitter have time to look to their dugout or elsewhere?

I'm in favour of the system, but I'm also excited to see what new chaos it brings.

[Spanky__99]

16 hours ago, Mike LeSage said:

I'm interested to see what players and teams are bad at using the ABS system and squander their challenges. Like, will there be certain hitters that the team(s) tell to stop challenging? The pitching/catching tandem will at least have a second to (even wordlessly) communicate with each other before making a challenge, but will the hitter have time to look to their dugout or elsewhere?

I'm in favour of the system, but I'm also excited to see what new chaos it brings.

If a player looks to the dugout,the challenge won't be accepted. Kirk was phenomenal in ST, he missed one call all Spring.