The robots are (almost) to come: MLB players authorized to challenge balls and strikes in 2026 | Mlb
Robot referees are called to the big leagues next season. Tuesday, the Committee for the Competition of Major League Baseball approved Tuesday the use of the automated ball / strike system in the major leagues in 2026.
Human plaque referees are still calling bullets and strikes, but teams have two challenges per game and will get additional calls in additional sleeves. Challenges must be met by a launcher, a receiver or a striker – reported with a helmet or the cap – and a team retains its challenge if successful. Critics will be displayed in the form of graphics on the outdoor field videos.
Adding UMP robot is likely to reduce ejections. MLB said that 61.5% of ejections last year were linked to bullets and strikes, just like 60.3% this season on Sunday. Big League referees properly call around 94% of the land, according to Umpcorecards.
ABS, which uses Hawk-Eye cameras, has been tested in minor leagues since 2019. MLB switched triple-a to a system of all challenges in June 2024, then used the Spring Training Challenge system this year.
The teams won 52.2% of their ball challenges / strike (617 out of 1,182) from training challenges in the spring. In Triple-A this season, average challenges per match increased to 4.2 from 3.9 to Sunday and the success rate dropped to 49.5%, compared to 50.6%. The defenses succeeded 53.7% of the challenges this year and offenses in 45%.
MLB has experienced different forms and interpretations of the striking area with ABS, including three -dimensional versions. Currently, he calls strikes only according to the place where the ball crosses the median point of the plate, 8.5 inches from the front and the rear. The top of the striking area is 53.5% of the height of the dough and the 27% lower. Each player will be measured in pre-season to endure his size is correct when evaluated by ABS.
The challenge system introduces ABS without eliminating pitch framing, a subtle art where the catchers use their body and their glove to try to look like boundaries to strikes. The framing has become an essential competence for the size of the league, and it was worrying that full -fledged abs make strong obsolete defensive sensors, although the practice is not universally popular.
“The idea that people are paid for cheating, for having stolen strikes, for having moved land that is not a strike in the area to deceive the official and making it a strike is beyond my understanding,” said former manager Bobby Valentine.
The Manager of Texas, Bruce Bochy, a large league receiver from 1978 to 1987, maintained old -fashioned referees such as Bruce Froemming and Billy Williams would never have accepted the pitch framing. He said they would have said to him, “” If you start again, you will never have a strike again. “I cut a few words.
The MLB competition committee includes team leaders as well as players such as Corbin Burnes and Cal Raleigh de l’Arizona, which leads the majors in the circuits this season.
