ashbury

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.

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.

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.

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.

This has been your Circus Boy Update.

Ditto. There, I'm caught up.

Ditto.

Ditto.

Yeah, seriously.

Dang it. Wrong thread.

I see you've abandoned the position I was actually responding to.

Regardless of how you define batting around, they did it just now!

"How can you think about a decision tree and hit at the same time?" -- Yogi Berra (maybe)

I think that's the joke. He isn't singing that song; for one thing, his name isn't even Yon Yonson.

Seriously? We're still doing that? This one was a first pitch called strike - just shake it off and concentrate on the next pitch. As someone else pointed out, doing that tells the pitcher and catcher that you're having trouble reading a pitch in that location - guess what you might see again tonight?

"In play, run(s)"!

Let's rack up some really big numbers before Valdez gets settled in.

Twins batting 1.000 tonight! So far.

One more and then I'm done.

Calling it hand-wringing is unnecessary and pointless. I thought Steer and CES were good trade chips to try to use. I was skeptical that someone like Mahle coming off an injury was the smart choice. His subsequent TJS had nothing to do with the shoulder injury before the trade, but there was a shoulder flareup shortly after the trade too, so we really didn't get a lot of mileage out of him. I would have preferred a trade for someone more in the Joe Ryan and Taj Bradley mold - gobs of team control on top of the underlying talent. Not impending free agency. Steer could be headed to DFA soon too, judging by his numbers so far in 2026 - and he's been below average since debuting strongly in 2022-23, a bad omen since he's earning $4M nowadays. Forgotten is pitcher Steve Hajjar who appears to be out of baseball now - I was bothered more by his inclusion than hindsight tells me I should have been. But at the time, the right way to judge aspects of a trade, these three represent a missed opportunity because together they were worth more as prospects than we got in return.

Disapproves:

Will Acton see action tonight? Or vice versa?

Can the Twins put together a graduate-level colloquium for the position players called the Science and Art of Baseball Fundamentals? (Extra Credit: the emerging science of ABS challenges)

Being able to DFA at will your 41st best player is not necessarily the aim here. 😁