First game with ABS coming today; Nats to host O's in exhibition finale

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – The Nationals’ third game of the Grapefruit League season today will feature a new wrinkle that wasn’t a part of their first two games: The ABS challenge system.

ABS, which stands for “Automated Balls and Strikes,” is the so-called “robot ump” that calls pitches based on a group of camera angles and predetermined measurements for each batter. It’s been in use in the minor leagues for a few years now, and Major League Baseball is testing it out in some spring training games this year to see how it works at the highest level of the sport.

This isn’t the full-fledged robot ump, though. The plate umpire still makes every call on every pitch taken by the batter. But if a particular call looks to be wrong, either the batter, the catcher or the pitcher is allowed to challenge it by tapping his head.

The ABS system then kicks in, and on the stadium scoreboard for all to see, a digital strike zone is shown with the location of the pitch in question, followed by the correct call. It’s all done in a matter of seconds.

Here’s the catch: Each team is only allowed to get two challenges wrong per game. Nobody wants to run out of them, so the decision when and how often to use them becomes paramount.

“It’s hard. You want to be able to have them later in the game when it’s crunch time,” said Nats catcher Drew Millas, who has plenty of ABS experience the last two seasons at Triple-A. “So early on, say you’re in a 1-0 count, that might not be the best time in the second or third inning, even if you’re right. Taking a chance like that is a pretty big risk. It’s amazing how highlighted those calls get later in a game, and how much they can change the game if you look back on them. Being able to have the challenges later in the game is very important.”

There’s also ample evidence to suggest catchers are way more likely to correct a bad call than pitchers or hitters. So the Nationals have instructed their pitchers not to challenge, to instead defer to their catcher to make the decision.

“We want them to just focus on throwing strikes. Let the catchers worry about it,” manager Davey Martinez said. “Catchers have a better advantage, I think, when the ball’s coming in than the pitcher does. So we want them to worry about whether it’s a ball or strike or not.”

MLB will use the data collected this spring to determine if the system is accurate and efficient enough to consider for regular season games down the road, maybe as soon as 2026. Many purists worry it will slow games down even more, or that catchers will be stripped of one of their primary skills: pitch framing.

Millas, though, believes ABS causes minimal disruption, helps account for obvious mistakes an umpire is going to make during the course of a game and even gives catchers a new skill to learn.

“You can argue that the challenge system, even though it seems like it negates the need for the catcher to make an impact, it feels like the opposite,” he said. “The catcher can do even more now. Not only do they receive and can steal pitches, but they can also steal pitches with challenges. It almost feels like there’s even more of an impact now.”

Why didn’t the Nationals have ABS for their first two games this spring? Because the expensive system was installed only in spring training ballparks that also house minor league teams during the season. Neither the Nats nor Astros have a full-season affiliate playing in West Palm Beach, so CACTI Park of the Palm Beaches doesn’t have the system installed. They’ll only experience this spring for road games played in Jupiter (Cardinals, Marlins) and Port St. Lucie (Mets).

* The Nationals will close out their spring training schedule once again with one final exhibition game in D.C. after the team flies home from Florida. And this year’s opponent is a familiar one that hasn’t been involved in one of these games in a long time.

The Orioles will come to Nationals Park for a 1:05 p.m. game March 24, both teams’ final tune-ups before Opening Day on March 27. It’s the first time the Nats and O’s have faced each other in the exhibition finale since 2006-09, when they held an annual home-and-home series in both cities.

These interleague rivals have played each other in the regular season every year since 2006, but they haven’t met in any exhibition game since 2012, when the Nationals made the one and only trip in club history to Sarasota.