It’ll be a bit different than it was in the minor leagues.
Last month, I posted about the ball-and-strike challenge system being used in the Arizona Fall League and that MLB was going to test it further during Spring Training next year.
In this article in The Athletic, Evan Drellich has some details about how that system will be used next spring.
The key points are, per the article:
- The system won’t be used at every spring park, but every team will have an opportunity to use the system. We don’t yet know, for example, whether it will be used at the Cubs’ home park, Sloan Park.
- Unlike the system in use in the minor leagues for the last couple of years, teams will get only two challenges per game instead of three. But, from the article:
At the end of 2024 in the minors, MLB started testing two challenges rather than three, and it wants to continue looking at that setup. Teams retain the challenge when they are correct, and so three challenges could amount to a higher volume of in-game stoppages.
This is fine, as far as I’m concerned. Teams would just have to be more judicious about when to use the challenges. You probably wouldn’t bother with nobody on base in the early innings. But later in the game, when a bad ball/strike call might kill a rally, that would be the time to use one of your two. And, you’d still get to retain it if you’re correct.
Further, from Commissioner Rob Manfred, quoted in the article:
“I would be interested in having it in ’26,” Manfred said at MLB’s central office.
Personally, I think it could be implemented in 2025 if there’s enough good feedback from the Spring Training tests. But if they want another full year in the minor leagues to make sure they get this right, I suppose that’s okay. Also important:
Manfred also has to collectively bargain a new contract with major league umpires, whose contract expired after the season, and the automated strike zone is a part of that negotiation.
So that’s also something to keep an eye on this winter, the negotiation between the league and the umpires’ union.
As always, we await developments.