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Major League Baseball expands 'robot umpire' use throughout all 30 Triple-A ballparks
Major League Baseball is expanding the use of electronic-strike zone technology throughout all 30 Triple-A parks in 2023, DailyMail.com has confirmed.
The decision is still pending approval from MLB team owners, which is expected in February. ESPN was the first to report the development.
It is the latest step in the maturing technology’s march towards the majors. It was first used at Triple-A in 2022, but now MLB wants to see it implemented throughout the highest level of the minors.
TrackMan, the ABS used by the Atlantic League in 2019, sits above home plate, and is typically fastened to the outside of the press box (right). After each pitch, the ABS system operated seated at a scorer's table would then communicate balls and strikes to the home plate umpire, who are fitted with an earpiece (left). The system will be used throughout Triple-A in 2023
The ABS (Automated Balls and Strikes) system will be used in two different ways in Triple-A: Half the parks will use it to determine all balls and strikes, whole the other 15 will use it as a challenge system, similar to the one used in high-level tennis. According to ESPN, teams will be given three challenges per game, but can retain the challenge if it overturns a call.
A challenge system has already been adopted in the Single-A Southeast League, where pitches, catchers and hitters each have the power to challenge calls.
At first glance, the unit looks like a simple black box or radar gun, but is really a 3-D Doppler radar that analyzes each pitch. The system is automatically recalibrated for each hitter's height and stance, so a tall player won't have the benefit of a shorter hitter's strike-zone dimensions.
After each pitch, the ABS system operated seated at a scorer's table then communicates balls and strikes to the home plate umpire, who is fitted with an earpiece.
At first glance, TrackMan looks like a simple black box, but is really a 3-D Doppler radar that analyzes each pitch. The system is automatically recalibrated for each hitter's height and stance, so a tall player won't have the benefit of a shorter hitter's strike zone dimensions
Club staffers were impressed with the system in its first year, according to ESPN, which reports one official saying that it added an intriguing layer of strategy.
However, the implementation of ABS in the majors would negate catchers’ ability to frame pitches, which has been one of the most important aspects of the position for more than a century.
Little Harvey, a $10,000 ball-dispensing robotic rabbit, making his debut in Oakland in 1968. It was previously used by the Athletics in Kansas City before moving to California
Meanwhile, ESPN reports that the Commissioner’s office is working to lower the top end of the strike zone, where many pitchers have feasted on hitters amid rising strikeout rates.
The Major League Baseball Umpires Association agreed in its labor contract that started in 2020 to cooperate and assist if Commissioner Rob Manfred decides to utilize the system at the major league level.
'It's hard to handicap if, when or how it might be employed at the major league level, because it is a pretty substantial difference from the way the game is called today,' Chris Marinak, MLB's chief operations and strategy officer, said in March of 2020.
The Doppler system is not he first technological advancement within the umpiring profession.
In the 1960s, the Kansas City and Oakland Athletics used a mechanical rabbit that would emerge from underneath the grass near home plate with a basket of fresh baseballs for umpires.
Rob Porter, left, TrackMan operator for Major League Baseball, fits Baltimore Sun baseball writer Nathan Ruiz, right, with an earpiece for the new roboump/automated balls and strikes radar tracking system at Regency Furniture Stadium in Waldorf, Maryland