MLB Commissioner Reportedly Ready to Propose ABS Challenge System for 2026

According to Drellich's report, the MLB league office has enough votes on the 11-person committee to make the rule change. 

“As they have in the past, players will review any proposed rule changes and provide their feedback and on-field experiences through the competition committee,” Kevin Slowey, the Major League Baseball Players Association’s managing director of player services, reportedly said.

The ABS system has been experimented with in the minor leagues for parts of the last six seasons, going back to 2019. The full ABS system, where umpires are fully replaced by the technology, was abandoned by the end of 2024 in favor of the ABS challenge system. 

In the challenge system, games are played in the same way, with umpires calling balls and strikes. But each team is given two challenges that can be used to challenge any ball or strike calls by the home plate umpire. Just like other reviewable plays, if the challenge is successful, it is retained by the team that uses it. 

Spring Training in 2025 was the first time the system was tested at the major league level, where the general vibe seemed to be positive. There are some baseball purists who are undoubtedly going to hate it, just like they did with other rule changes in the past (the universal DH, runner on second base in extra innings, etc.)

But players seemed eager to use it, and I am personally a fan as long as the challenges don't add a significant amount of time to the game and umpires are not completely replaced. According to MLB.com, each challenge added 17 seconds to a game on average, which I can live with. And the challenges didn't seem to hinder games when they were used in Spring Training last February and March. 

The challenge system also preserves the skill of pitch framing for MLB catchers in addition to keeping human umpires around.