MLB’s potential strike zone challenge system adds new layer of strategy — with team’s fears revealed

It’s not just the challenges that will be changing baseball forever.

Next season, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred is hoping to roll out the automated ball-strike challenge system league-wide — a rule change that, on paper, aims to create a more accurate strike zone and gives teams a chance to correct egregiously bad calls. 

But behind the scenes, big league clubs are expecting the change to be something much bigger: the birth of an entirely new layer of in-game strategy.

“It would add a whole new element to the game between the pitcher, hitter and umpire,” Former MLB catcher and current bench coach for the Triple-A Syracuse Mets J.P. Arencibia told The Post.

If implemented in the same way as spring training and next Tuesday’s MLB All-Star Game, teams will be allowed two ball-strike challenges apiece per game, with correct challenges being retained. 

Pitchers, batters and catchers will be the only people on the field with the ability to challenge.

Arencibia said players’ emotions often take over as well, setting up some potentially embarrassing moments for eager challengers. 

“I’ve seen multiple times where it’s the first inning and a guy challenges the first pitch of an at-bat and he loses [the challenge],” Arencibia said. “Everybody looks around, like, ‘That was dumb.’

“Instead of the not Top-10 plays, they can do the not Top-10 challenges,” Arencibia said. “You’re gonna be like, ‘Was this guy’s eyes closed? What was he thinking?’”

The ABS system has been a part of professional baseball for over a half-decade, first being rolled out in the Atlantic League in 2019.

By 2023, robo umps were installed in all 30 Triple-A ballparks.

With the tap of their hat or helmet, the player will let the umpire know that they want to challenge the ball or strike call, after which all eyes will turn to the video board where the robo umpire will deliver the call.

The system is touted as a way to keep the human element of the home plate umpire while still enjoying the riches of modern technology that can measure the strike zone down to the millimeter, although some players aren’t quite sold on it.

With years of minor league data and experience with the automatic strike zone, and a league office ready for robo umpires, big league teams are already prepping ways to find an edge. 

“There’s a real discussion to be had about when and how to utilize those challenges relative to high leverage situations or low leverage situations,” Mets director of defense, base running and gameplay Tucker Frawley said to The Post. “Depending on when you use them, you really do risk a lot in terms of either having them or not having them at the end of the game.”

Ideally, teams would prefer to hold onto at least one of their challenges for late in the game or big moments, such as a bases-loaded situation or a 3-2 count.

But like with the current challenge system, which applies to nearly everything besides ball-strike calls, there’s no way of knowing if those pivotal moments will come. 

“You’re going to still have them acknowledge that every part of the game still matters,” Frawley said. 

For Tanner Swanson, the Yankees’ major league field coordinator and catching coach, the strategy behind the ABS challenge system goes beyond just having a chance to reverse a call, but also influencing umpires’ behavior behind the plate. 

“If you deploy them early and you’re wrong, that could have a much greater impact over the course of the game in terms of what the strike zone may look like, both for your hitters and for your pitchers,” Swanson explained to The Post.

Arencibia stressed that umpires are better than ever at calling balls and strikes, while also acknowledging that human nature can take over at times.

“Umpires have emotions as well and they’ll call strike three in a big moment,” Arencibia said. “If you burn them early, the umpire can do whatever he wants. Not that they’re going to miss calls on purpose, but they’re human.”

There’s also the question of who should be allowed to utilize the challenges. 

Catchers proved to be the most skilled at getting calls overturned.

During spring training, backstops had 56 percent of their reviews changed versus just 41 percent for pitchers and 50 percent for batters, according to data collected by the league, which are similar numbers to what has been observed in the minors.

This sets up a world where teams only allow catchers to challenge, which was a policy former Yankees minor league manager Rachel Balkovec reportedly told Manfred two years ago her team had implemented. 

“… The pitcher and the batter, they run too hot,” Manfred recalled of his conversation with Balkovec, via The Athletic.

Without managers or coaches involved in the process, there will be no stopping players from burning those challenges in less-than-ideal situations.

Yankees manager Aaron Boone said Thursday night he was in favor of continued experimentation, but was not a fan of the version they tested out in Spring Training.

“There probably is an iteration of it I would love, but I don’t know exactly what that is…,” Boone said. “I don’t like the endless challenges, that’s a slippery slope of unintended consequences that happen not only within the game but the dynamic of the clubhouse. Coupled with that I think our umpires continue to get better and better.”