Robot umpires flip 54% of challenged calls in ABS debut as teams learn to time appeals

NEW YORK (AP) — Robot umpires overturned 54% of challenged calls in the first season of the Automated Ball-Strike System, and catchers were far more successful than batters.

Learning when to challenge is key.

The Cincinnati Reds had a net gain of 16.8 runs, according to Baseball Savant calculations of total run value of overturns on challenges. The Los Angeles Angels were next at 14, followed by the Athletics (12.3) and Minnesota (10.1).

Cleveland was 30th at minus-13.4 and several other playoff teams rated poorly by that metric: the Los Angeles Dodgers (26th, -8.5), Tampa Bay (25th, -7.8), the Chicago Cubs (21st, -4.6), Milwaukee (20th, -2.4), Atlanta (18th, -2.1), San Diego (17th, -1.9), the New York Yankees (16th, -2.1) and Houston (15th, -0.8).

Houston’s Jose Altuve topped batters with 5.6 projected runs gained, followed by Seattle’s Cal Raleigh (4.6), Colorado’s Kyle Karros (4.5) and Cincinnati’s Sal Stewart (4.4) and JJ Bleday (4.1).

The Cubs’ Seiya Suzuki led with 5.7 runs projected lost in defensive challenges, just ahead of the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani (5.5), the Cubs’ Ian Happ (5.2) and Michael Busch (5.1), and the New York Mets’ Brett Baty (3.5).

Milwaukee’s William Contreras led catchers with 5.2 projected runs prevented, just in front of Cleveland’s Patrick Bailey (5.1), the Mets’ Francisco Alvarez (4.5) and San Diego’s Freddy Fermin, Kansas City’s Carter Jensen and Drew Romo of the Chicago White Sox (all 4.3).

“It’s like a new muscle for players to learn,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “You have instincts over what to do in certain situations. This is a new instinct of knowing when to challenge and instinctively within a second, oh, that’s a ball. What’s the situation?”

There were 10,557 challenges, an average of 4.35 per game, and 5,686 led to overturned decisions.

Catchers succeeded on 59% of their challenges, while batters had a 49% success rate and pitchers — who seldom challenged compared to catchers and batters — were at 40%.

“ABS has really impacted the game,” Houston manager Joe Espada said. “It has really changed how more selective some of these lineups are, how more disciplined they are, how we force pitchers to be more aggressive in the zone more than in the past.”

Contreras, Realmuto stand out among players

Contreras led all catchers with 185 challenges, and he also won the most with 105 (57%). Meanwhile, Philadelphia’s J.T. Realmuto had the highest success rate among catchers with at least 75 challenges at 81%. He was followed by the Cubs’ Carson Kelly (69%), Cincinnati’s Tyler Stephenson and Colorado’s Hunter Goodman (68% each), and Detroit’s Dillon Dingler (66%).

Realmuto added the first game-ending ABS challenge in postseason history this week, successfully flipping a call to end Game 2 of the Phillies’ NL Wild Card Series against Atlanta.

The lowest percentages among those with 75 or more challenges were Alvarez (47%), Fermin, Romo (48%) and Edgar Quero of the White Sox (49%).

Stewart led batter challenges with 51 appeals and won 28 (55%). Philadelphia’s Bryce Harper was next with 47, winning 21 (45%).

On success rate, Arizona’s Gabriel Moreno (68%) led batters with 20 or more challenges, followed by Miami’s Esteury Ruiz (65%), Raleigh (64%), Minnesota’s Josh Bell and San Francisco’s Bryce Eldridge (62% each).

Boston’s Ceddanne Rafaela and Colorado’s Willi Castro were at 25%, the lowest success rate among players with at least 20 challenges.

Tampa Bay’s Yandy Díaz had 686 plate appearances without attempting a challenge, by far the most in the majors by a batter, ahead of Toronto’s Nathan Lukes (450). Díaz has said he’d consider challenging a call in the World Series.

Cincinnati’s 62% success rate led MLB, followed by the Athletics and Arizona (60% each), the Cubs (59%), Texas (58%), Detroit and Philadelphia (57% each) and Miami (56%).

Pittsburgh was least successful at 47%, with the White Sox and Cleveland at 49% each, and Baltimore and San Diego at 50%.

“We’ll keep tweaking it, keep talking about it every day and keep trying to remind the players when we have challenges, when we don’t, when’s a good time, when’s not a good time,” Padres manager Craig Stammen said.

Players were more aggressive with ABS challenges in late innings

Knowing teams lose their right to challenge after two incorrect appeals, players used ABS less often early in games.

There were more challenges in the ninth than any other inning — sometimes because teams knew there would be no later innings to save them for — even though many games end without the bottom half. ABS was used in 1,366 ninth-inning challenges, with a 40% success rate.

“Having one in your pocket is kind of — it’s nice to know you have it,” Phillies interim manager Don Mattingly said.

The average for innings 1-3 was 1,005 challenges with a 61% success rate.

Teams also got more aggressive as the season went on. Challenges per game rose from 3.76 in March to 4.60 in August and 4.61 in September, with most of that increase in catcher appeals.

“You can overthink it if you let yourself,” Atlanta manager Walt Weiss said. “You start talking about saving it for certain situations, it probably doesn’t end well. My message was the lower the leverage, the more certainty you have to have.”

Overturn rate for umpires most often behind plate ranged from 42-66%

Andy Fletcher had the highest overturn rate among umpires with more than 100 challenges, getting reversed on 80 of 121 (66.1%), according to taptochallenge.com. Rob Drake was next at 64.6%, followed by Cory Blaser (64.1%), Adrian Johnson (64%), Manny Gonzalez (62.5%) and Mike Estabrook (61.7%).

Jansen Visconti had the lowest overturn rate among those with triple-figure challenges, reversed on 43 of 102 (42.2%). He was just ahead of Mark Ripperger (44.3%), James Jean (44.9%), Ryan Additon (45%), Nestor Ceja (46%) and Alex Tosi (46.9%).

“When it gets overturned by less than a 10th of an inch, they do not like it,” Realmuto said of umpires. “When it’s that small, they don’t like it. That’s for sure.”

Video review success rate drops

Among video review used for other decisions such as safe/out calls, the 52.9% success rate was down from 54.8% in 2025 and 53.7% in 2024 and up from 48.5% in 2023.

There were 1,294 team challenges, an increase from 1,197 in 2025. Among the challenges this year, 243 calls were confirmed (18.8%) and 367 were allowed to stand (28.4%) when there was not clear and convincing evidence to overturn them. The average time of a review was 1 minute, 25 seconds.

Kansas City was the most successful club, overturning calls in 23 of 33 challenges (69.7%). It was followed by Philadelphia (68.1%), Cleveland (67.4%), Milwaukee (65.9%), Arizona (64.1%), the Mets (62.5%) and St. Louis (61.5%).

San Francisco was the least successful, winning only 14 of 45 for 31.1%. Texas was at 36.6% and Pittsburgh at 38.6%.

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After initially starting video review in August 2008 for home run calls, MLB vastly expanded replays for the 2014 season.

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AP Sports Writers Charles Odum and Kristie Rieken contributed to this report.

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See AP’s full MLB coverage here