A week of ABS
By 
So far, the introduction of challenges to ball/strike calls in the major leagues has been a big hit:
ABS introduces new forms of scrutiny, new ways to talk baseball, new strategies to debate. Numerous players already have expressed remorse about using questionable judgment. Some reacted too passively, failing to seize an opportunity for a reversal. Others responded too aggressively, knowing each team in the first nine innings can miss on only two challenges.
Let ‘em fret. The rest of us can just enjoy the show.
Granted, this is the shiny new toy phase, the robots at their most romantic. Moments of exasperation are inevitable. Perhaps when a game ends on an overturned ball-strike call. Perhaps when an outcome turns over a difference of a tenth of an inch. But the ABS process is quick and definitive. And fans already are getting into it.
One of the most memorable sequences of the new season occurred Saturday in Cincinnati, when the crowd at Great American Ballpark roared successively louder when the Reds’ Eugenio Suárez had consecutive strike-three calls by CB Bucknor overturned.
John Sadak, the Reds’ television play-by-play man, called it as if Suárez had just smacked a walkoff homer in the ninth.
“The loudest cheers of the game — the Reds have hit two homers — come on back-to-back challenges!” Sadak cried.
Who doesn’t like to stick it to the Man?
I’ve watched this many times this morning. CB is so angry about the second challenge. https://t.co/0ihSRx78G6— Geoff Schwartz (@geoffschwartz) March 29, 2026
As Ben Lindbergh says, the current rules are probably an unstable equilibrium — it’s likely that we’re headed toward just automatic b/s calls on every pitch. But maybe not if fans like this enough, and the layers of strategy involved in selective challenges add intrigue to the game without wasting a lot of time like other replay reviews do is really fun.