In 2026, Our Robot Ump Overlords Arrive! Meekly Peek Their Heads Through The Doorway

MLB's Competition Committee has approved the limited use of an automated ball-strike challenge system for the 2026 season by a vote of 7-4. MLB owners, in control of a six-seat majority on the 11-member committee, all voted in favour of robot umps.

So – at long last – has MLB finally decided to join the 21st century (with 1/4 of it in the rear view mirror), acquire some long-overdue common sense, and agreed that baseball games should be decided by baseball players? . . . Not quite.

The new ball-strike system will allow each team only two challenges per game. Only batters, pitchers and catchers will be allowed to make a challenge (by tapping their head). If a challenge is successful, that team will retain its challenge. And a team will lose a challenge if it questions a call and the call is upheld.

Commissioner Ruining-Baseball-Every-Single-Day stated: "I commend the Joint Competition Committee for striking the right balance of preserving the integral role of the umpire in the game with the ability to correct a missed call in a high-leverage situation, all while preserving the pace and rhythm of the game."

Manfred will sleep soundly next season knowing the human element will still hover malevolently over the game, ever ready to inject itself into a game and fuck up the result, angering and frustrating millions of fans, every time. Umpires will still change the outcome of dozens of games (and act as smug as shit while doing it, of course) by blowing calls on pitches that are either not challenged or cannot be challenged (if a team has used up its opportunities). What good is finally adopting a sensible system for making correct calls but deciding to use it on an severely limited basis?

Does Manfred understand that there doesn't need to be a "high-leverage situation" for a missed call to change the outcome of a game? Maybe? Who knows? A blown call on a 1-0 or 0-1 pitch has a strong chance of changing the outcome of a plate appearance.

2025 MLB Stats (through Monday September 22):

First Pitch
After 1-0:	.256/.376/.432
After 0-1:	.217/.263/.344

1-0 Pitch
Ball 2-0:	.267/.500/.467
Strike 1-1:	.223/.302/.363

0-1 Pitch
Ball 1-1:	.223/.302/.363
Strike 0-2:	.166/.199/.256

2-1 Pitch
Ball 3-1:	.256/.592/.454
Strike 2-2:	.179/.286/.291

Teams should be allowed two challenges per batter – though, as we've all seen too many times to count, that might not even be enough.

The Worst Calls of 2025 (So Far)

Jeff Passan, ESPN:

The ABS system uses similar technology to the line-calling system in tennis, with 12 cameras in each ballpark tracking the ball with a margin of error around one-sixth of an inch. The ABS zone will be a two-dimensional plane in the middle of the plate that spans its full width (17 inches). The zone's top will be 53.5% of a player's height and the bottom 27%.

Teams that run out of challenges over the first nine innings will be granted an extra challenge in the 10th inning, while those that still have unused challenges will simply carry them into extras. If a team runs out of challenges in the 10th, it will automatically receive another in the 11th – a rule that extends for any extra inning.

During the league's spring training test this season, teams combined to average around four challenges per game and succeeded 52.2% of the time, according to the league. Catchers, whose value in framing pitches outside the zone to look like strikes could take a hit due to the new rule, were the most successful at a 56% overturn rate, while hitters were correct 50% of the time and pitchers 41%. . . .

Big league umpires call roughly 94% of pitches correctly, according to UmpScorecards.

That sounds nice, but what percentage of close pitches are called correctly? And how bad are the worst umps in that department? Pitches way outside, down the middle, and in the dirt, etc., make up a large percentage of that 94%. That's not what I care about.

The human eye is simply not sophisticated enough to determine (with the degree of accuracy necessary to properly umpire a major league baseball game) whether a pitch thrown at 85-105 mph is a strike or a ball. The technology exists to make those calls accurately – today's vote shows that MLB knows this is true – so MLB should simply stop having umpires attempt to do what evolution has not allowed human eyes to do.

This decision, while certainly a step in the right direction, is too small of a step. It ensaures that human umpires will continue to miss hundreds, if not thousands, of pitches in 2026, which will inevitably change the outcome of numerous games.

Poking around the internet for this post, I discovered some news I had missed. In February 2024, Manfred stated that he would step down as commissioner when his third term ends in January 2029! . . .  I'd be tempted to give baseball another chance if the next commissioner gets rid of the extra-inning runner. Maybe the robots will be working full-time by that time.