MLB will test automated ball-strike challenge system in spring training and other notes from Rob Manfred

PHOENIX — Commissioner Rob Manfred held a press conference Tuesday as part of spring training media day in Arizona, and he discussed several pressing topics for MLB entering the 2025 season. Manfred acknowledged the overwhelming excitement for the upcoming Tokyo Series between the Dodgers and Cubs and the continued globalization of the game before fielding questions from reporters for about 30 minutes.

Here are the biggest takeaways from the commissioner’s session:

The Dodgers aren’t the problem, but Manfred knows some fans are bothered by the current state of play

Manfred was asked several iterations of questions about the Dodgers’ sky-high payroll and superstar-filled roster — and whether those have a negative impact on the game as a whole. Manfred was adamant that the Dodgers have consistently operated within the rules and thus are not deserving of scorn; rather, he places blame with the limitations of the structure in which they operate.

“If I’m going to be critical of something, it’s not going to be the Dodgers,” he said. “It’s going to be the system.”

More broadly, Manfred discussed the concept of competitive balance and how that can still be maintained in a league in which such extreme payroll disparity exists. While acknowledging that there are multiple ways to measure a level playing field, Manfred pointed out that it’s not exclusively about the objective balance of on-field success across the league; it’s also about how fans perceive their own team’s chances of being competitive. He cited free agency in particular as an aspect of the sport that can have a significant impact on fan morale.

“Maybe as important as any of those is the perception of the fan in the market. You sign a free agent … you don’t know what you’re going to get on the field. He may or may not make you better,” Manfred said. “But at least during the winter time, it generates a certain excitement that’s good for your market. It expands the impression that you’re trying, and that’s important to the business as well.”

This would seem to be an indirect acknowledgement that not enough teams are demonstrating a willingness to spend during the winter, in turn souring fans on their own teams’ ambitions to compete. With just a handful teams accounting for a huge portion of the spending in the most recent free agency, it’s perhaps less about teams like the Dodgers signing so many of the top free agents and more that so few other teams are even bothering to explore the market, limiting fans’ optimism during the season.

Don’t expect public declarations about the next CBA anytime soon

Whether it’s regarding consternation over payroll disparity or the myriad other issues involving the economic structure of baseball, the expiration of the current collective bargaining agreement on Dec. 1, 2026, looms as the largest challenge remaining during Manfred’s tenure as commissioner (he intends to step down in 2029). It’s widely expected that another lockout will take place in the winter of 2026-27 as part of negotiations, but the only thing that truly matters will be the league’s and players’ association’s ability to work out a deal in time to avoid missing regular-season games.

For now, though, the commissioner is uninterested in publicly declaring the league’s position, with two full seasons yet to take place before the CBA expires.

“I’m not going to speculate about what we’re going to propose, what we’re going to try to negotiate with the MLBPA — we’re a year away,” he said. “I owe it to the owners to give them an opportunity to coalesce around a bargaining approach.”

While the league managed to not miss any games last time around, it’s clear that the lockout that occurred during the 2021-22 offseason and lasted more than three months was an exhausting process for both those directly involved and the fans observing it from the outside.

As such, it’s clear that Manfred would prefer to not jump ahead to such discourse before absolutely necessary.

“Quite frankly, I owe it to our fans not to get into all this too early,” he said. “I mean, it’s bad enough when you’re doing it and bargaining and everybody’s worried about it. We’re just not there yet.”

The rule changes have been received favorably

Ahead of the third season featuring the pitch clock, rules limiting pickoff attempts and the ban of the defensive shift, Manfred spoke about how these rules and the resulting style of baseball have been received by big-league clubs. It’s clear that the changes have been well received by fans — Manfred noted that the league projects to increase attendance for the third consecutive season, something that hasn’t happened in decades — but just as important is how seamless the transition has been for the players and coaches tasked with operating under new guidelines.

“The teams have been uniformly more positive about the rule changes than I thought they would be,” Manfred said. “I think that everybody has come to appreciate the changes in the game. It’s not just about the minutes — it’s about the action and the athleticism that fans were looking for.”

Even more encouraging to Manfred and the league office is the degree to which the impact of the rule changes in the majors has mirrored the effects seen in the minors.

“I think that the most surprising — and pleasantly so — and, I think, important for the long term is, because of the process that went on in the minor leagues, the results we got at the big-league level were really close to what the people in our baseball operations group predicted,” he said. “And I think that’s important for the future, because it gives people confidence that you can make a change, predict what’s going to happen and get the outcome that you’re looking for. And like any institution, we’re going to need to continue to change going forward.”

The ABS challenge system will be tested in spring training

With the success of the recent new rules, MLB is continuing to explore ways to enhance the on-field product for both players and fans. One of the more prominent items under consideration in recent years has been an automated strike zone. This would involve removing — or at least decreasing — the responsibility of calling balls and strikes from umpires and instead relying on tracking technology to determine one of the core tenets of the sport.

After several rounds of experimentation at various minor-league levels, MLB has decided to move forward with further testing involving the ABS (automated ball strike) challenge system. Based on feedback from fans and clubs who have experienced ABS in the minors, it was determined that there is less interest in having all balls and strikes called automatically and a preference to use the technology as a vehicle to correct — or confirm — a select number of calls over the course of a game, at the discretion of the players on the field.

At the conclusion of Tuesday’s media day in Phoenix, Morgan Sword, the executive vice president of baseball operations for MLB, gave a presentation on how the ABS challenge system currently functions and the league’s plans to test it during major-league spring training games this year.

Under this system, teams are given two challenges per game, though they retain them if their challenges are successful. Only the batter, pitcher and catcher are allowed to challenge ball/strike calls, and they must do so immediately after a pitch is received. Challenges from the dugout or elsewhere are prohibited, and if a player takes too long to signal a challenge, the umpire can deny the request.

When a player signals for a challenge, the umpire initiates the review, and the result of the pitch overlaid over the electronic strike zone will be displayed on the videoboard in the stadium and on the broadcast, if applicable. Hawkeye tracking technology allows for ball and strike calls to be checked exceptionally quickly; challenges in Triple-A last year took 17 seconds on average from the time of the pitch to the call being confirmed or overturned, and MLB believes that time could be cut down further as the tech improves. The exact dimensions of the strike zone are determined by the size of the batter and adjusted from at-bat to at-bat; the top of the zone is set at 53.5% of the batter’s height and the bottom at 27%. MLB is currently in the process of getting official measurements for all position players in big-league camp, something necessary for this system to be applied fairly and accurately.

As for where we’ll see ABS in action this spring, it’s a bit scattered because not every spring training ballpark is equipped with the proper tracking technology. Even so, every team will get to experience the system over the course of the spring to some degree.

These are the ballparks that will host games incorporating the challenge system this spring:

Cactus League:

• Surprise Stadium (Rangers/Royals)

• Peoria Sports Complex (Mariners/Padres)

• Camelback Ranch (Dodgers/White Sox)

• Goodyear Ballpark (Reds/Guardians)

• Salt River Fields (D-backs/Rockies)

Grapefruit League:

• BayCare Ballpark (Phillies)

• George M. Steinbrenner Field (Yankees)

• Clover Park (Mets)

• Hammond Stadium (Twins)

• Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium (Marlins/Cardinals)

• TD Ballpark (Blue Jays)

• LECOM Park (Pirates)

• Publix Field (Tigers)

The result is that some teams will play more than 25 games using ABS (the Diamondbacks will play the most, at 29), and a handful will play fewer than 15 (the Cubs will play only seven). On the whole, more than 60% of 2025 spring training games will feature the ABS challenge system.

So if everything goes swimmingly this spring, and everyone adores what the challenge system brings to the game, might we see it this upcoming regular season? No, not in 2025, Sword said. The 2026 season is the earliest we could see the ABS challenge system implemented at the major-league level, but even that is far from a guarantee at this stage.

The challenge system will, however, be fully in place at the Triple-A level in 2025, which should provide the league with more insight into the pros and cons of relying on this technology and how it will impact the on-field product. At the very least, spring training this year will serve as a valuable test run for an array of fans and players alike to start to get a feel for what could be another monumental change for the sport — and perhaps another successful one at that.