Aaron Judge, Yankees put new automated ball-strike system to the test in spring training
An ABS challenge is made during a spring training game between the Yankees and Astros at George M. Steinbrenner Field on March 1, 2025, in Tampa, Fla. Credit: Newsday/Thomas A. Ferrara
TAMPA, Fla. – Aaron Judge stood in against righthander Paul Blackburn on Wednesday afternoon at Steinbrenner Field during a live batting practice session.
With the count 2-and-2, the umpire punched out Judge on a borderline pitch. Judge immediately tapped his helmet.
A graphic, courtesy of the ABS (automated ball-strike) system, appeared on the digital scoreboard in left-center. The ball was slightly outside.
Judge stayed in the box and, on Blackburn’s next pitch, hit a ground smash to the left side of the diamond, a ball that in game action likely would have resulted in a single.
It was, from the Yankees’ perspective, the ideal scenario when it comes to the utilization of a system that has been used in the minor leagues since 2022 and will be part of Major League Baseball’s regular season in 2026.
There is a corresponding nightmare scenario: it's the late innings of a tight game, the bases are loaded, and Aaron Judge is at the plate — only to be punched out on one of those low, shoe-top strikes. It’s a pitch he’s been victimized by more than anyone in baseball over the last decade, with teammate Giancarlo Stanton following closely behind. But the Yankees are out of challenges – each team gets two that you get to keep as long as you’re right – because two players, or one player, misfired on challenges earlier in the game.
“It’s going to happen,” Aaron Boone said with a shrug after Wednesday’s workout. “But the thing we’ve found with this, where it’s been used, is people don’t challenge enough. I think the tendency is, ‘I’ve got to save them.’ Well, then you end up taking them home. Games are won or lost in the second, third, fourth inning all the time. Look, we want our guys to be good at it, we want them to be disciplined but we also want them to be aggressive with it.”
Boone added: “But that scenario you’re talking about is going to happen. It doesn’t mean it wasn’t right to not challenge [earlier in the game] because you may never get to that spot either.”
Boone multiple times said he wants his players to be “aggressive” in challenging, and that was the case Wednesday during a little over two hours of live batting practice, which included an actual umpire (rather than Boone) calling balls and strikes.
The Yankees were overwhelmingly successful Wednesday – at one point seeing 14 of 15 calls overturned via challenge. But zero stock should be put into that because it was a local umpire used to calling pitches for area high school and college games. He clearly was overwhelmed.
Boone has said he’s placing no restrictions on which players can challenge, including pitchers. The latter is noteworthy as multiple managers this offseason indicated they would not want their pitchers challenging.
"Pitchers at times can get a little emotional. I know hitters sometimes are also going to be that way,” Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo told reporters last week in Arizona. “From what I remember last year, and I can speak from that experience, the catchers were right the majority of the time. The hitters were about half the time. The pitchers about 10% of the time."
It is a learning curve for all 30 teams, each of them trying to figure out a way to gain an advantage along the margins.
That learning curve began last spring when it was a part of most games – those played at minor league ballparks with the system already in place in Florida and Arizona. But it was treated mostly like a gimmick by players and/or managers as they knew it wouldn’t be a part of the regular season.
Reds manager Terry Francona, for instance, all but forbid his team from challenging last spring because he didn’t want them practicing something they wouldn’t experience in real games.
More than a few veterans in the Yankees clubhouse in recent years, during casual conversations about ABS, expressed a desire to keep it out of the majors. Among the concerns: hitting is hard enough without adding yet one more thing to think about.
“I’ve had that thought, too,” Paul Goldschmidt, entering his 16th season, said. “But I think in due time we’ll kind of adjust and figure it out… I think it’s going to be good for the game, I will say that.”
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
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