When the Cincinnati Reds open their Cactus League season Saturday in Goodyear, Ariz., don’t expect to see too many players challenge a ball or strike call via the Automated Ball-Strike System (ABS) being piloted by Major League Baseball this spring. Manager Terry Francona said he’s told his big leaguers not to use the experimental rules in spring training.
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“We’re not using it (in the regular season), so why work on a strategy we’re not going to use?” Francona said. “It just muddies the waters.”
Reds’ minor leaguers, however, have been given the green light.
The ABS challenge system was implemented in a big-league exhibition game for the first time Thursday when the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs opened Cactus League play at Camelback Ranch in Phoenix.
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Five parks in Arizona and eight in Florida have been fitted with the challenge system technology this spring and it will be in place in all Triple-A parks this season.
Under the ABS challenge system, a hitter, pitcher or catcher can challenge the call of a ball or strike from the umpire. Teams are awarded two challenges per game and as with instant replay, if a challenge is accepted, the challenge is retained. According to MLB, 51 percent of the challenges in the minor leagues last season were overturned.
“I’ll be interested in seeing how it works, but I’m OK with seeing our younger kids do it because they’ve done it,” Francona said. “It’s not a strategy for us (at the major-league level), so why work on it? I don’t want to make a farce of anything, but we’re here getting ready for a season and that’s not helping us get ready.”
Though the challenge system is currently optional, Major League Baseball is hopeful teams will elect to try it out this spring.
“Every team will have their own approach to (strategy), but what we’ve asked clubs to do for spring training purposes is to just start challenging,” MLB executive vice president of baseball operations Morgan Sword said Tuesday in a presentation to reporters in Arizona. “We just want to get people some reps experiencing the system and seeing how it feels, particularly how the strike zone feels.”
Major League Baseball first tested a full ABS system in the independent Atlantic League in 2019. The ABS challenge system was introduced in the Low-Class A Florida State League in 2022 and both full ABS and the ABS challenge system were used in Triple A in 2023 and 2024. In 2024, Triple A stopped using full ABS and went with the challenge system only.
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In his presentation earlier this week, Sword said the ABS challenge system scored favorably among focus groups of players, minor-league managers, coaches and fans.
“We’re going to be looking at a mix of quantitative and qualitative factors (this spring),” Sword said. “I think one of the biggest ones is just what players and coaches think about it, their experience with the system.”
The earliest the system could be used in regular-season play would be the 2026 season.
“This is a pretty big decision for the game of baseball and we want to make sure we get everybody to weigh in,” Sword said.
Only pitchers, catchers and hitters can challenge and they must do so within a second or two of the initial call. A challenge is signaled by tapping the side of a helmet or hat.
After a challenge is signaled, the umpire calls time and a computer image of the call from the Hawk-Eye system is shown on the scoreboard. The computer uses the midpoint of home plate as the point where a ball or strike is determined. The strike zone is the width of the plate, and the height is a percentage of each player’s height, which will be measured by MLB.
In testing last season, MLB said the entire process of a challenged call averaged 17 seconds.
So far in the minors, challenges are most commonly used in later innings and in counts with either two strikes or three balls.
Francona said he thought players may have issues determining the right time to use the challenge, which could complicate things for a team trying to prepare for the season.
“If you leave it open to only use it if it’s important — I’m using it in my first at-bat,” Francona said. “It’s important to me. I need a hit. We’re going to stay away from that.”
(Photo of Terry Francona: Frank Bowen IV / The Enquirer / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)
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