MLB ABS system stats are coming in: What players are best at challenges?
MLB ABS challenge system has a few weeks under its belt and here's some stats to know.
Ten percent of the season is in the books. Does Major League Baseball play any differently after three weeks of the automatic ball-strike challenge system ? Perhaps.
Certainly, it is a nascent and evolving niche within the game, filled with trial and error, hot hands and teachable moments all in the name of trying to gain an edge – 0. 1% of an edge, even – on the corners of the strike zone. While things will certainly change, and something resembling normalization will occur over the rest of the season, there are a few hard and fast maxims about ABS that we feel comfortable rolling with.
A look at six truths the so-called “robot umps” have yielded so far: Games are longer It’s true: The average nine-inning game is averaging 2 hours, 42 minutes, longest in the four years of the pitch-clock era. (The first three seasons produced nine-inning averages of 2:39, 2:36 and 2:38). Certainly, there are plenty of factors that contribute to game time beyond the 30 or so seconds every ABS challenge takes.
Teams are using 4. 34 pitchers per game, the highest mark since 2021 and possibly a function of the early-season glut of off days enabling managers to more liberally deploy relievers. Pitchers are also issuing 3.
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