Baseball is full of situations. What gets tricky is when those situations become incidents. This is the language of umpires.

Was the Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) system novel? Yes, though maybe not to Max Scherzer. Effective? According to the data, ...

Athletics outfielder Seth Brown made a strange bit of MLB history in Friday's win over the Seattle Mariners-- thanks to an odd blunder from the umpire. Brown had a patient at-bat in the top of the ...

What did we learn from watching the robot umps — and talking to people throughout the game about ABS — this spring? Let's discuss!

On a special episode (first released on March 21, 2025) of The Excerpt podcast: Technology and tradition are converging this spring training as AI-based umpires are tried out as part of MLB's ...

The recently retired umpire Jim Reynolds, now MLB’s umpire supervisor, tells a story that illustrates what a hall of mirrors ball-and-strike calling has become: “I had one conversation with a ...

Data and feedback from players, coaches, and umpires who experienced the ABS system during spring training will be reviewed by MLB's competition committee. The ABS system aims to improve accuracy ...

NEW YORK -- Major League Baseball teams won 52.2% of their ball/strike challenges during the spring training test of robot umpires, and catchers had a markedly better success rate than pitchers.

Imagine stepping up to the plate, locking in on a pitch, and watching it sail outside the zone—only for the ump to call it a ...

DUNEDIN, Fla. — After realizing he would never be a professional athlete, Vic Carapazza is in his 14th season as a Major League Baseball umpire. “The only other thing to be part of this game ...