MLB season preview: Robot umpires, Dodgers' try for 3 in row, Rays' return to Trop as lockout looms
NEW YORK (AP) — Baseball is changing at a dizzying speed in 2026 with the arrival of robot umpires, the return home of the Tampa Bay Rays and an alphabet soup of networks televising games in perhaps the last season before a labor shutdown. Much has transpired in the 4 1/2 months since the Los Angeles Dodgers rallied in World Series Game 7 to beat Toronto in 11 innings and become the first repeat champion since the 1998-2000 New York Yankees. There was the usual free agent musical chairs that saw Kyle Tucker wind up with the Dodgers , Bo Bichette with the New York Mets , Alex Bregman with the Chicago Cubs and Pete Alonso with the Baltimore Orioles .
Venezuela became a first-time champion of a World Baseball Classic with record attendance and television viewers . But looming above the usual excitement for opening day on Wednesday is the possibility of no games in a year. Tony Clark was forced to resign as players' association head and replaced by Bruce Meyer as talk intensified about a possible management salary cap proposal the players' association vows to fight .
Major League Baseball is likely to lock out players on Dec. 2 , leaving 2027 in limbo. Cy Young Award winners Paul Skenes and Tarik Skubal are on the eight-man executive subcommittee that directs collective bargaining.
“We need people that are invested and kind of have status among players and within the game to go into the negotiations and be comfortable going toe to toe with the owners,” Skenes said. “It's not something that I sought out. Some guys nominated me for the position and that’s not something you say no to.
” Send in the robots Following testing that started in the minor leagues in 2019 , MLB decided last September to use the Automated Ball-Strike System in the regular season . While human umps call every pitch, each team has the ability to challenge two calls per game, retaining the challenge if successful, and have the possibility of at least one more in each extra inning. “You want get the egregiously wrong calls fixed and you want make sure you get it right in a big spot,” three-time Cy Young Award winner Justin Verlander said.
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