Challenge System

[Major League Ready]

The Twins need to teach our players to exercise some discretion as to when they challenge.  Our players don't seem to apply any analysis of the situation.  They should understand that challenges in the early innings on calls with two out and nobody on when the call does not determine the outcome of an AB likely won't change the outcome of the inning.  They need to teach players a hierarchy.   A challenge with no outs or 1 out is more valuable that with 2 outs.  A challenge with runners in scoring position is probably the most important and a challenge that determines the outcome of an AB (K or BB) with runners in scoring position is the most important.   

They should take it away from Wallner all together.  He uses it in meaningless situations and he sucks at it.   

[amjgt]

Batters should be banned from it for all but the highest leverage situations. 

It's just too valuable for the catchers to have to be burning them on the hitting side. Last night was the prime example of that. I swear Jeffers got like 0.2 WPA just from those two challenges to end the 6th and 7th innings. 

Also... some website has to be tracking WPA for challenges (won and lost), right?

[amjgt]

I have no idea who on the team is smart and who isn't, but I also think you just lost about 1/3 of them with the word "hierarchy," so the key to maximizing the ABS challenges is probably to know the audience and give them clear instructions.

Like...

"Wallner. Its the 2nd inning and there's 1 out and nobody on. I don't care if you think strike 3 missed by 3 feet, You don't challenge here. Period."

[jorgenswest]

I think hitters will get better at it. They will learn from their mistakes. It might even make them better hitters by adding to their recognition of the strike zone. I wouldn’t put on handcuffs yet.

[amjgt]

There's an interesting side effect to Wallner making these challenges on pitches that end up being obvious strikes. Now pitchers know that he doesn't think those are strikes. I bet he gets a lot more pitches in those areas. 

[Linus]

1 hour ago, amjgt said:

There's an interesting side effect to Wallner making these challenges on pitches that end up being obvious strikes. Now pitchers know that he doesn't think those are strikes. I bet he gets a lot more pitches in those areas. 

Interesting point. 

[ashbury]

"How can you think and hit at the same time?"  -- Yogi Berra

[amjgt]

I can't believe this topic doesn't have more discussion. This is the most interesting aspect of the 2026 season, in my opinion. 

[RpR]

53 minutes ago, amjgt said:

I can't believe this topic doesn't have more discussion. This is the most interesting aspect of the 2026 season, in my opinion. 

Discussion or belly aching as to what is wrong?

Outside of who is good and bad, which umpires are wrong most or least often, not much to discuss.

[amjgt]

Completely disagree. There is so much strategy and several secondary effects of the new ABS system

[amjgt]

Some thoughts i had in early March....

-------------------

I like the direct effects of the ABS challenge system. Adding a layer of strategy. Getting more calls right. And probably adding a little bit of time to the game length in order to have those things happen.

But its the secondary effects that I think are WAAAAAY more interesting and something I've been thinking about a lot. If there's an advantage to be gained players will try to gain it. If there's a new thing to be measured, people will try to measure it. Here are the big ones in my mind. I'd love to hear other thoughts and ideas on this.
 

1.    Length of game – I think this has maybe been overstated a little. The actual time it takes to do the challenge is 10-15 seconds. We are, at most, adding like 2 minutes to game length, directly from the time it takes to perform the reviews. HOWEVER… we don’t yet know if it is the pitcher or the hitter who is going to end up with an advantage over a large sample. If the pitcher ends up with the advantage, then offense will trend down slightly, and the games will shorten. If the batters end up with the advantage, then the opposite will be true. It's hard to say which way it’ll go at this point and it might be a little bit team dependent, depending on how they allow their players to deploy the challenges

2.    The strike zone – There’s a lot here. All players have been physically measured and so now they all have their own unique strike zone within the ABS system. They’ve all theoretically had unique strike zones up to this point, but that relied on the umpires to make adjustments on the fly and I suspect that they didn’t fully account for the size difference between, say, Jose Altuve and Aaron Judge. Do smaller players now get to fully realize the strikezone advantage they should’ve been getting this whole time? Does Emmanuel Rodriguez's small stature and good eye at the plate give him and even larger advantage that he's been seeing in the minor leagues up to this point? How does digging into the box affect things? It doesn’t take long into a game for there to be a hole in the batters box. Given that the strikezone will be based on the height of the plate, not the height that the player is standing at, is there an advantage to be gained by “digging in” an inch or two below the level of the plate. The new measured strike zone would go from the top of the knee, to now higher up the leg. This would help players that struggle with low strikes and have the opposite effect on players that struggle with high strikes. Will MLB regulate the amount of digging into the batters box that players are allowed to do? What about cleat length?

3.    Catcher metrics – Pitch framing is no longer quite as important, but will there be a new metric of “Catcher Judgement?” I think most people agree that the catcher is in the best position to accurately judge whether a pitch was incorrectly called a ball. I’m envisioning two new measurements. A) challenge accuracy. This one is simple. How many challenges did they call for and how many of those were correct, but B) one more layer deep we will be able to analyze how many calls they SHOULD have challenged and the leverage of those pitches. You’d love to correctly challenge every missed call, but a missed 0-0 pitch that just clips the corner isn’t nearly as impactful or as big of a miss as a missed strike 3 call that caught a lot of the plate. "Catcher Judgement" feels like it's going to be a massively impactful statistic. Also, Catcher receiving position has been a hot topic the last few year. Mostly, I believe, catchers have tried to get lower behind the plate, in order to get more low strikes called. Does that matter as much any more? Will catchers go back to a more traditional crouch because it gains them back a slight advantage in throwing out runners?

------------------------

That advantage (of catcher/pitcher vs hitter) MIGHT be so stark that teams don't even really want their hitters triggering ABS challenges because of the much higher likelihood that they are wrong and they don't want their catchers to lose that ability going forward in the game. It could be that they only allow the hitters to challenge in truly extreme leverage positions, whereas, as the catchers prove out their ability to be correct a high percentage of the time, they have a much longer leash in terms of when teams allow their catchers to challenge. 

Said another way... Just because, if looking back at old data, the misses that umps make tend to be more likely balls that were called strikes (calls batters would challenge), doesn't mean that those are the calls more likely to be correctly challenged. It could be that catchers would also be really good at identifying those calls, but they are, of course, not going to challenge calls that have benefitted the pitcher. 

[Mike Sixel]

Big fan of this step by baseball. Getting more calls correct is great for fairness. Glavine would have been out of the league in a year if he had to actually throw strikes.....

[ashbury]

Like other posters, I am interested in the unintended consequences of this partial step toward automation.

Suppose the conventional wisdom becomes to give certain catchers more of a free rein, batters much less, and pitchers zero.  What's the effect on team dynamics or player strategy or the mental aspects of the game?  Here's a couple I thought of.

• Pitchers have traditionally had catchers they liked better than others, due to framing and blocking and so forth.  Will ABS challenge become predominant among these qualities?  Will resentment become overt? "You didn't challenge a single one of my walks the last two games, You challenged three pitches just yesterday for our ace. WTF man?"  A pitcher can criticize a catcher's ability to block a ball in the dirt without making it quite so personal as to accuse him of doing better for another pitcher.  A player will be a man about it, until things come to a head for some reason, and then it spills out.
• Suppose the manager tells a batter, let's call him Mattner, not to challenge any pitches unless he, the manager, has told him when he leaves the on-deck circle that the game situation is important enough to consider doing it.  Will this bring harmful pressure exactly when maybe you want Mattner to just relax and pick a pitch to drive?  Other side of the coin, will Mattner come to view two-out nobody-on situations, where he's not given the authorization to challenge pitches, as unimportant, and develop bad habits?
• Someone else brought this up and I find it intriguing: if a batter challenges a strike call and it's upheld, does it give the opposing team (and maybe the "book" on the batter around the majors) important insight as to what pitches or locations the batter has the most trouble judging?
• Someone also brought up that "decision trees" and so forth will be above the pay grade for certain players.  I wasn't joking when I invoked Yogi Berra's chestnut about thinking and hitting. Some guys, you can just tell, will get frozen with indecision if given too many strategic things to think about.  You go up there to the plate with a plan, and adapt as the at-bat unfolds, and that's about all you can ask from some hitters as they cope with 96 MPH balls potentially buzzing their foreheads and breaking pitches destined for the dirt.
• What happens after a batter's challenge is upheld?  Do batters given a reprieve from a called strike-three go on to bat statistically better than average?  It could be that the occasional home run makes up for a certain number of misguided challenges.

I know I'm kind of overstating the direr consequences, but it's to illustrate what I see as new challenges (no pun intended) for the manager to deal with for clubhouse chemistry.  That's a key skill that any manager surely has, so maybe he'll know when "a word" will be sufficient and that will be it.  Shelton not having lowered the boom yet on Mattner Wallner seems to be an example of intentionally overlooking a minor problem in the interest of something larger.

[amjgt]

Another one -

Will team-level decisions be made based on the Home Plate Ump that day?

For example, if you know you've got CJ Bucknor behind the plate, do you say to your hitters something like "we really need the catchers to have the challenges today. There are still wituations where it's ok, but I need you to be really sure, especially in the first 5 or so innings"

Will you put a different catcher behind the plate that day?

[ashbury]

53 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

Big fan of this step by baseball. Getting more calls correct is great for fairness. Glavine would have been out of the league in a year if he had to actually throw strikes.....

I remember being frustrated by Willie Banks and thinking that if the ump would give him the calls that he gives other pitchers the guy could have been a star.

[amjgt]

I have to think there have been SOME discussions in the clubhouse about when hitters should be using their challenges, but the last few games the hitters have been making SUCH bad decisions that it actually makes me a little worried that Shelton is treating this a little too unseriously. 

The last two games having the ABS challenges in the late innings has had such a massive positive effect that it seems like the perfect real world example to use in that discussion. 

"Austin, I know you thought it wasn't a strike, But regardless of whether you were right or wrong, that strike just didn't mean that much. Just look at what Jeffers has been able to do to help out our pitchers late in the ballgames. We need to keep our challenges. It's critical to winning ballgames."

Edited to add:

I don't know the numbers, but it wouldn't surprise me if those 4 correct challenges by Jeffers had close to a +1 Run Saved. If Martin would've been correct with his challenge yesterday, it would've been like +0.005 runs gained. Meaningless.

[ashbury]

10 minutes ago, amjgt said:

Another one -

Will team-level decisions be made based on the Home Plate Ump that day?

For example, if you know you've got CJ Bucknor behind the plate, do you say to your hitters something like "we really need the catchers to have the challenges today. There are still wituations where it's ok, but I need you to be really sure, especially in the first 5 or so innings"

Will you put a different catcher behind the plate that day?

Another one^2

I've mentioned this before, too.  Suppose the conventional wisdom becomes really extreme, and batters never challenge and only catchers do.  What will the umpires do in response?  They're only human - once or twice a game when they're only guessing, they'll call the close pitch a strike because they know it won't be overturned.

Of course they want to be accurate because they are being judged by the league against the ABS on every pitch.  But every game has "guess pitches," and maybe this will weigh slightly.

[amjgt]

1 minute ago, ashbury said:

Another one^2

I've mentioned this before, too.  Suppose the conventional wisdom becomes really extreme, and batters never challenge and only catchers do.  What will the umpires do in response?  They're only human - once or twice a game when they're only guessing, they'll call the close pitch a strike because they know they won't be overturned.

Of course they want to be accurate because they are being judged by the league against the ABS on every pitch.  But every game has "guess pitches," and maybe this will weigh slightly.

In some ways this is why I think teams will never be like "We told Wallner not to challenge" 

Other than placating the fans, what's to be gained with that. So I've been hopeful that the reason we haven't heard things like that through the media was that there was no real incentive for the Twins to put that out there. But the hitters decisions have been so bad (I know I keep harping on that, but they've been really bad), that I've become skeptical that these discussions are happening even behind the scenes. Which is a real problem, in my opinion. 

[Mike Sixel]

13 minutes ago, ashbury said:

I remember being frustrated by Willie Banks and thinking that if the ump would give him the calls that he gives other pitchers the guy could have been a star.

I got his autograph and thought he'd be a star. 

[ashbury]

25 minutes ago, amjgt said:

In some ways this is why I think teams will never be like "We told Wallner not to challenge" 

Other than placating the fans, what's to be gained with that. So I've been hopeful that the reason we haven't heard things like that through the media was that there was no real incentive for the Twins to put that out there. But the hitters decisions have been so bad (I know I keep harping on that, but they've been really bad), that I've become skeptical that these discussions are happening even behind the scenes. Which is a real problem, in my opinion. 

Maybe it's going to come down to hitting coaches taking the lead on this.  The coach is in charge of translating the team's strategy into terms the batter will be able to act on.  Each batter will be different - some you may even attempt a bit of game theory like in economics, others you just keep it basic.  ABS challenges are one among dozens of things to think about at the plate.  Taking a called strike is an emotional moment, especially when it's the third, and the batter's first instinct is to challenge now that he has that right - but the batter learns from all his coaches from the low minors on up that acting on impulse or emotion has to be kept in check, and this is just one more thing.

It's hard to keep the big picture in mind when you're in the moment.  The batter is there, I mean in this or any sport, because he likes to WIN.  A challenge gives him one more chance.  He's gonna take it, absent training to do otherwise.

Coaching, not rules.  And it's early so the coaches themselves are still feeling their way through this.  Last thing you want to do is rob your batters of aggressiveness at the right time.

[Linus]

Great topic - lots to respond to. The concept of a decision tree might work with a few players but not a lot. Wallner doesn’t even know the dead ball rule and he is going to effectively judge when game strategy calls for a challenge - don’t think so. Jeffers is really adept at it making his usage far more important than a hitter. I would treat it like stealing a base for the hitters. If you haven’t been given the green light you don’t challenge. That way the manager can decide who and when are the right times to challenge. From a game theory perspective there is almost no time a hitter should challenge at the beginning of the game. 
Lastly, each club keeps track of umpire tendencies so the catchers can really go to school on where the ump is likely to miss. Likewise, clever pitchers and catchers will note where a hitter has incorrectly challenged a call as it is a sure tell of a hole in the batter’s judgment. Not to pick on Wallner but I believe all his bad challenges have been on balls up in the zone. 

[TheLeviathan]

I love the discussion on this.  I'm curious to see where many of these threads wind up.  It is really refreshing to be talking like this about major league baseball again!  

That said.....tell these bozos there are no challenges in the first three innings unless there is an exceptional situation the bench communicates about.  Watching some of these dopes blow a challenge on ball two in the first is a new sort of pain I'm not ready for.

[bunsen82]

This is a great topic and a really interesting discussion.  

It is fairly clear that catchers at the best and knowing what is and isn't a strike,  which they should.  There are also catchers that are better at this than not - and Caratini and Jeffers right now are doing a great job.  Below is the tracker.  The Jeffers calls had massive effect on the game.   The other interesting thing is so far the hitters have the most overturns as well.   The first couple games I really feel like the Twins struggled utilizing the challenges effectively,  and was a difference in the game.  The last week I have felt the Twins have used their challenges much more wisely.   Add in that the winning percentage has flipped as well.   This is having more impact on the game because you have to utilize the challenges wisely.   

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/abs

1. Each inning that goes by increases the value of challenge.  So late in the game vs not.  

2.  The closer the game the more impact a challenge has.  

3. The higher the pitch count  3-2,  2-2  have higher values that pitches early in the counts.  

4. Number of runners on base increases the value.  Bases loaded on a full count will obviously have a massive impact - be actually scoring a run or saving a run on a reversed call.   

Matt Wallner should be challenging less until he becomes better at it.  Effectively challenge in his head then check later,  and then see if its improving or not.  Even still this is an interesting video.  

 

[bunsen82]

Twins have Gained 5.5 Runs so far on the challenge system and are 3.1 runs gained above expectations.  The Twins have challenged the most of any team,  42 times,  and have won 25 of those.   As a percentage they are 9th, but no other team in the top 10 have challenged more than 28 times.  

https://www.minnesotasportsfan.com/minnesota-twins/mlb-abs-challenge-early-success-mn-twins-ryan-jeffers/

Jeffers and Caratini alone have saved 3.2 runs with their challenges.   

[stringer bell]

4 hours ago, bunsen82 said:

Twins have Gained 5.5 Runs so far on the challenge system and are 3.1 runs gained above expectations.  The Twins have challenged the most of any team,  42 times,  and have won 25 of those.   As a percentage they are 9th, but no other team in the top 10 have challenged more than 28 times.  

https://www.minnesotasportsfan.com/minnesota-twins/mlb-abs-challenge-early-success-mn-twins-ryan-jeffers/

Jeffers and Caratini alone have saved 3.2 runs with their challenges.   

So the non-catchers have actually cost the Twins a tenth of a run? Sounds about right.

What is apparent is that challenges diminish framing proficiency. Also, a system that gets more calls right is good in my book. The zone is now a square and the "old automatic" on 3-0 isn't automatic, nor is the waste pitch on 0-2.