Scott Gulbransen
The debates about robot umpires have been loud, messy, and largely missing the point. What MLB is actually rolling out in 2026 isn’t a robot takeover. It’s a challenge system, and one of baseball’s sharpest minds thinks it might be exactly what the game needed.
On this week’s new Sportsnaut Interview podcast, Tom Verducci, the longtime Sports Illustrated writer and Fox Sports analyst, says he has been watching the Automated Ball-Strike system develop for some time. He’s a believer. But not for the reasons most people assume.
“I’m not a fan of the full-on every call made by the robo system — that’s just technology encroaching too much in the game,” Verducci said. “But I am a big fan, like we are on replay, on the basis of getting really bad calls right. And I’m talking about bad calls in big spots.”
That’s the key distinction. This isn’t about replacing umpires wholesale. It’s about giving teams a limited number of challenges to correct the calls that genuinely alter outcomes. In the minor leagues, where the system has been tested, it averages roughly four challenges per game. Each one takes about 15 seconds. Do the math — you’re adding maybe a minute to a ballgame. Anyone worried about pace of play can relax.
What Verducci finds most compelling, though, isn’t the accuracy piece. It’s the strategy.
“I like anything that introduces more strategy in baseball,” he said. “Because you only have a couple of challenges, you have to be really judicious about when to use them. It’s not like every pitch, willy nilly, we’re gonna challenge. No. You better be careful with them.”
That calculus changes how teams think. It rewards players with elite strike zone awareness. Verducci pointed to Alex Bregman as the prototype — a hitter so tuned in to the zone that former Houston manager A.J. Hinch once told him Bregman was right 99% of the time when he argued a call walking back to the dugout. Guys like that become a genuine asset.
Catchers matter even more. In the minors, pitchers challenging calls from 60 feet, six inches away had a significantly lower success rate than catchers did. Position, vantage point, and instinct all factor in.
Critics say ABS strips the human element from the game. Verducci pushes back on that framing directly. “I think in this case we’re adding some human element when it comes to the choices made by catchers.”
Hard to argue with that.
