MLB approves robots referees as part of the challenge system next season

Robot referees are called to the big leagues next season.

The Committee for the Competition of 11 Men from the Major Baseball League approved Tuesday the use of the automated ball / strike system in major leagues in 2026.

Human plaque referees still call bullets and strikes, but teams can contest two calls per game and get additional calls in additional sleeves. Challenges must be met by a launcher, a receiver or a striker – reported by pressing their helmet or their cap – and a team retains its challenge in the event of success. Critics will be displayed in the form of digital graphics on the outdoor field videos.

Adding UMP robot is likely to reduce ejections. MLB said that 61.5% of ejections among players, managers and coaches last year were linked to bullets and strikes, just like 60.3% this season on Sunday. The figures include ejections for derogatory comments, the launch of equipment while protesting calls and inappropriate driving.

Big League referees properly call around 94% of the land, according to Umpcorecards.

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ABS, which uses Hawk-Eye cameras, has been tested in minor leagues since 2019. The independent Atlantic league tested the system during its 2019 All-Star and MLB game installed the Arizona autumn league technology this year. The ABS was tried at eight of the nine ball parks of the Low-A Southeast League in 2021, then went to Triple-A in 2022.

In 2019, Fred Dejesus became the first referee of a regular season match to use ABS. He remembers the first land he tested – it was a strike – and how he hesitated at the start of the new technology.

“At the start, it was like, no way, we don’t do that. I spent too much money trying to learn the job of calling balls and strikes”, he told CBS News in 2021.

In Triple-A at the start of the 2023 season, half of the games used robots for ball calls / strikes and half had human decisions subject to team calls to abs.

MLB switched to Triple-A to a system of all blows on June 26, 2024, then used the challenge system this year at 13 spring ballots welcoming 19 teams for a total of 288 exhibition matches. The teams won 52.2% of their ball / strike challenges (617 out of 1,182).

In Triple-A this season, average challenges per match increased to 4.2 from 3.9 to Sunday and the success rate dropped to 49.5%, compared to 50.6%. The defenses succeeded 53.7% of the challenges this year and offenses in 45%.

ABS was also used in this year’s All-Star game and generally received positive criticisms, CBS Sports reported. Four of the five challenges of the Dan Iassogna plaques referee succeeded in July.

Triple-A teams do not obtain additional challenges in additional sleeves. However, the proposal approved by the MLB on Tuesday included a provision granting the teams an additional challenge each round if he has no challenges.

MLB has experienced different forms and interpretations of the striking area with ABS, including three -dimensional versions. Currently, he calls strikes only according to the place where the ball crosses the median point of the plate, 8.5 inches from the front and the rear. The top of the striking area is 53.5% of the height of the dough and the 27% lower.

It will be the first major change in the MLB since the scanning adjustments in 2024. They included a pitch clock, restrictions on defensive changes, launcher releases such as picking attempts and larger bases.

The challenge system introduces ABS without eliminating pitch framing, a subtle art where the catchers use their body and their glove to try to look like boundaries to strikes. The framing has become an essential skill for league size. Although full -fledged abs make solid defensive sensors obsolete, not everyone considers competence a good thing.

“The idea that people are paid for cheating, for having stolen strikes, for having moved land that is not a strike in the area to deceive the official and making it a strike is beyond my understanding,” said former manager Bobby Valentine.

The Manager of Texas, Bruce Bochy, a large league receiver from 1978 to 1987, maintained old -fashioned referees such as Bruce Froemming and Billy Williams would never have accepted the pitch framing. He said they would have said to him, “” If you start again, you will never have a strike again. “I cut a few words.”

Management officials of the Committee Committee include Seattle President John Stanton, CEO of St. Louis, Bill Dewitt Jr., President of San Francisco, Greg Johnson, CEO of Colorado, Dick Monfort, CEO of Toronto Mark Shapiro and the president of Boston Tom Werner.

The players include Corbin Burnes from Arizona and Zac Gallen, Casey Mize de Detroit, Cal Raleigh de Seattle and Austin Slater from the New York, with Ian Happ from Chicago Cubs to Casey Mize de Detroit. Union representatives make their decisions according to the contribution of players from the 30 teams.

Bill Miller is the representative of the referee.

The competition committee can unilaterally implement changes in field rules with 45 -day notice at the MLB Players Association, according to CBS Sports.