NEW YORK — Richie Garcia is worried about what effect robot umpires will have on their human counterparts.
Major League Baseball introduced the automatic ball-strike system for regular season games beginning this season New York Yankees‘s opener in San Francisco on Wednesday night, giving teams a chance to appeal strike zone decisions on a system based on 12 Hawk-Eye cameras.
“I think it’s embarrassing for the umpires who are calling the games. Nobody likes to be humiliated in front of 30,000, 40,000 people,” said Garcia, who was a major league umpire from 1975 to 1999. And he is the one who will measure and measure it because he has a Ph.D. in Physics. Or whatever degree you have obtained.”
García faced criticism for not striking out on a 2-2 pitch from San Diego’s Mark Langston to the Yankees’ Tino Martínez in the 1998 World Series opener, and Martínez hit a tiebreaking grand slam on the next offering that gave New York a four-game sweep.
Umpires continue to improve
Although the calls are constantly debated, the umpires were the most accurate overall last year. Not perfect like technology.
Last season, 368,898 regular-season pitches were called by big league umpires, an average of 152 per game. According to MLB, the 92.83% accuracy rate was the highest ever – an average of 10.88 missed calls per game. This is down from an average of 16.58 missed calls per game in 2016, when the accuracy rate was 89.31%.
“I’m 60 years old and I feel like the younger generation really wants this technology and they want the certainty of a pitch being a ball or a strike,” said Ted Barrett, a big league umpire from 1994 to 2022.
Under ABS, each team gets two challenges per game and retains one challenge if successful. One of the challenges gives one team an extra in each additional innings.
Sam Holbrook, an MLB umpire from 1996 to 2022, said, “As an umpire, you never want to miss anything. You want to be absolutely 100% correct, but we’re all human and that’s not possible.” It’s good to fix any bad pitches, I think it shows how good the umpires really are.”
A quarter century of electronic assessment
MLB installed an umpire information system developed by Questech in some ballparks in 2001 and upgraded to leaguewide zone evaluation as part of the PITCHf/x system in 2009. Trackman’s Doppler radar system took over as part of MLB Statcast in 2017.
Since 2009, umpires have received a ZE evaluation for each game they officiate behind the plate. Since 2014, he has also experienced backlash from extended video review.
“It’s mentally tough for an umpire because you’ve failed at your job and there’s immediate feedback for failure,” Barrett said. “Nobody wants to fail at your job, but still, thank God I didn’t lose a game or a run or a dime to that team. Nobody wants to put up with that. And so we take the positive side of it. The negative is sometimes it’s like: What am I doing there? I flipped over to first base twice.”
Under ABS, a strike is defined when the ball crosses the midpoint of the plate in a box 53.5% of the batsman’s height at the top and 27% at the bottom. This differs from the rulebook strike zone of a cube whose top is the midpoint between the top of the shoulders and the top of the uniform pants and whose bottom is in the hollow below the knee.
“They’re going to change what they call the ABS, whether it’s a challenge or not, because, remember, their performance is being evaluated based on that ABS,” Barrett said.
spring training test results from 2026
Philadelphia had the best spring training challenge success rate among teams at the plate with 61%, second only to chicago cubs (60%), Boston and Seattle (54% each), while Texas and Arizona (33% each) and Kansas City (34%) ranked lowest.
St. Louis (75%), Cincinnati (71%) and Cleveland (70%) topped fielding teams in challenge success, while Los Angeles Dodgers (43%) and Baltimore (45%) lagged behind.
Batsmen won 46% of 887 challenges and 60% of 1020 defended. The Yankees won the most championships overall, with 54, and Arizona, the Dodgers and New York Mets Tied for fewest wins with 20.
of boston wilson contreras The batsmen faced the most challenges and he was successful in six out of seven. of philadelphia Christian Cairo Four were the highest number of challenges among batsmen with a 100% success rate.
among the catchers, pedro pages St. Louis’, Cincinnati’s was 8-for-8 PJ Higgins 7-for-7 and Milwaukee jefferson quero 6 for 6.
edgar quero of chicago white sox Was 2-for-11, peyton henry 1-for-9 for the Yankees and Austin Wynns The Athletics were 0-for-7.
