After several years of testing, the automated ball-strike calling system’s time is finally here. Major League Baseball’s Joint Competition Committee voted on Tuesday to begin using the ABS challenge system on Tuesday afternoon.

The league begin experimenting with automated ball-strike calling back in 2019 in Independent League ball. The Single-A Florida State League was the next step in 2022. From that point, the system went into use at the Triple-A level. Initially, each six game series was split between using the fully automated system and the challenge system. The challenge system was the more popular way to go, leaving umpires to call the games as normal, with each team getting challenges to use in which the ABS system would decide a contentious call. The 2024 and 2025 Triple-A season

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