Are Robot Umpires Finally Coming to the MLB?

February 27th, 2025 by Andrew Ciofalo

by Andrew Ciofalo ’25, host of After The Whistle

Baseball season is upon us as Spring Training is in full swing in Florida and Arizona. Teams look to workout prospects, get into game shape and be ready for the start of the 2025 MLB Season. This roughly months’ worth of preparation is key for these players and staffs ahead of a long, 162 game season. But the ball clubs aren’t the only ones preparing and trying out new players.

Major League Baseball is doing more tests to their Automated Ball-Strike system, or ABS for short. The ABS system is a solution to holding home-plate umpires calling balls and strikes accountable. Imagine you’re watching your favorite team getting poor calls against them over and over. Well fear no more as the ABS system looks to defeat those poor calls and judgements. MLB has already worked to add secondary eyes with the challenge system, being able to challenge out calls, among others.

So, what is this system and how will it work?

The Automated Ball-Strike system may have you thinking there won’t be a need for an umpire as a robot will be calling behind the dish. Well, that’s not the case. This won’t be a system where the umpire is completely ruled out of the equation, it’s just a challenge system, much like we’re used to already.

Challenging a call on a pitch can be done by only 3 players on the field; The batter, pitcher, and catcher. A team can only challenge 2 times in a game, if the challenge loses, you lose one of your challenges. If you win a challenge, you retain it, much like the NFL and MLB’s already existing challenge system. To challenge the call, the batter, pitcher, or catcher must initiate to the home-plate umpire by either tapping his head or telling him that they’d like to challenge to call.

The ABS system was in use in all of Triple-A last year, so this isn’t brand new technology being experimented and tinkered with. But that doesn’t mean it will be implemented for the regular season this year either. The system requires all MLB parks to “Hawk-Eye” technology (the way the system can determine where a pitch is located and determine ball or strike) and that won’t happen this year. Hawk-Eye Innovations is the same company that helps with replay assist in soccer, tennis, badminton, and cricket to name a few. However, implementing it this spring training gives MLB players a good taste of what it’s like and potentially talking about strategies of when and who should use it. The earliest MLB might use it in the regular season will be 2026.

It’s been a long road but there looks to finally be something to combat those pesky, terrible calls that we’ve seen countless times. What are your thoughts on this new challenge system? Do you think this is needed or should baseball stay pure and as human as it can be?