The ABS Challenge System is Coming to Baseball

The Automated Ball Strike challenge system (or ABS) is officially coming to MLB in 2026! This article was published by MLB.com on Tuesday, and the following X post was also posted by MLB.com on Tuesday.

The main rules around the challenge system are:

Each team will get two challenges (but they keep them if they are successful)

Pitch calls can only be challenged by a pitcher, catcher, or batter

To request a challenge, the pitcher, catcher, or batter will tap his hat, helmet, or mask to let the umpire know

No help the pitcher, catcher, or batter on when to challenge

In each extra inning, a team will be awarded a challenge if it has none remaining

Interesting Tidbits:

It only took CB Bucknor one day to prove that the ABS won’t work while he’s still in the league.

Aaron Judge, Wilmer Flores, and Seiya Suzuki are projected to benefit the most from the challenge system.

Players and coaches reacted to the challenge system, but have mixed feelings about the new challenge system

The ABS will challenge system will not make catcher framing obsolete.

In Spring Training of 2025, catchers had the most successful challenge rate.

Thoughts:
I think I’m really going to love the ABS challenge system—and there are plenty of reasons you might too. It cleans up some of the bad calls while only adding a minute or two to the game, which honestly balances out all the recent rule changes that sped things up. The best part? Managers are out of the equation. It’s entirely on the batter, pitcher, or catcher to challenge if they think a call is wrong.

Which makes me wonder: why didn’t they add this sooner? Until just a few days ago, you could challenge almost everything—except balls and strikes. Now, nothing is off-limits.

The only downside is it cuts down on ejections, and let’s be honest, everyone loves a good ejection. At least we’ll still get some on HBPs. Who knows—maybe this even means Angel Hernandez doesn’t have to retire.

Thanks for reading!