ABS Dashboard Shows Direct Impact of Challenges on Outcomes
The Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) Challenge System almost figured big-time in Sunday’s game. The concept was ably used by Diamondbacks batter Jorge Barrosa in the 7th inning of the game, turning a strikeout into a walk. That didn’t figure in their scoring, as Ketel Marte was kind enough to strike out on three pitches to end the threat. But it worked perfectly, just the same.
“It’s magic!” said imaginary Anthony Rizzo, watching. “Magic.”
And the beat goes on. Here’s a good example of why the system exists, from a recent Tigers/Braves game:
"It is… Yikes"
Calls like this are why we have ABS pic.twitter.com/GqeOcl6XdH
— Talkin' Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) April 30, 2026
You gotta love it. The quote, btw, is from former Chicago announcer Jason Benetti. The last article on this subject noted that Nico Hoerner is bad at ABS challenges, inexplicably. He’s worse now. Max Ralph of MLB.com posted this neat nugget last week, also involving Dodgers’ catcher Dalton Rushing, who has been much in the news lately. Hoerner was wary of the system before it was incorporated and shared his thoughts on The Score.
“I think the challenge system is going to be effective and kind of entertaining,” Hoerner said. “I’m wary of it just because I think going fully robot, I’m not a fan of that personally.”
We haven’t yet gotten to that point, but you can see the road being measured for paving. MLB is just trying to maximize product impact. I don’t like a lot of the moves. Probably I’m the only one, but I don’t mind a bit when the batter gets tense and keeps stepping out to adjust their gloves, etc, or when the pitcher digs a moat around the pitcher’s mound. Bring the human drama of athletic pursuit. I’m down.
I like the pitch clock like I like a time clock. Don’t even get me started about the Manfred man. But I digress. Let’s look at the ABS dashboard and see what we see:
- The Cubs are now 14-18 (44%) as a batting team.
- The Rangers top the list at 54%, with the lowly Guardians at 33%.
- But the Cubs are 24-11 (69%) as a fielding team. More power to the immortal John Larroquette. The Cubs’ catchers are good at this part of the game.
- Batters, not so much. The leaderboard shows that Carson Kelly ranks 32nd as a batter and 11th as a catcher. Seiya Suzuki is the only other Cubs batter in the top 50. Miguel Amaya is 24th as a catcher, and Moisés Ballesteros is 58th.
That’s good stuff. I notice that Baseball Savant has added a runs lost/added sort of definition to the original sheet, and that’s a plus to me because it directly indicates the impact of this new data. That dashboard is cool, too, I have to say. You can make it do tricks. Next time, we’ll get a little more in-depth with team and player comps.
