By the close of business Wednesday night, 2,004 games will be in the books for the 2026 MLB season. Once you crack 2K, you can no longer be worried about the whims of short-sample syndrome. Two thousand games give you an ample cross section of the season.
After 2,004 games with the automated ball-strike system — ABS — we have lived in these new times long enough to reach a multitude of educated opinions and draw a reasonable number of conclusions. Of all the tweaks that have visited baseball in recent years — pitch clocks, automatic runners, no-pitch intentional walks, overall replay reviews to mention a few — ABS is the addition I find most fascinating.
And consider me all in on the future add-ons that are coming: the Hawk-Eye system presently in use in the minor leagues to adjudicate checked swings (which too often feel like an ump flipping a coin) and GPS technology to get fair/foul home run calls right (which should heretofore be called the Alonso System after last week’s absurd miss in Baltimore).
Over the past few weeks I’ve assembled an unofficial blue-ribbon panel of baseball folk, most ex-catchers, others just high-IQ guys. I asked them — on background, to assure frankness — their thoughts on the whys and wherefores of ABS, and I’ve added a few thoughts of my own, to compile this 12-point list of Most Fascinating Truths About ABS.
