Aug 31, 2025; Chicago, Illinois, USA; New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone speaks before a baseball game against the Chicago White Sox at Rate Field. Mandatory Credit: Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images

Yankees Manager Gets Real About ABS News

Originally posted on New York Yankees on SI
By Erin Shapland | Last updated Sep 24, 2025 10:00 AM ET

Major League Baseball officially announced that they will transition to an automated ball-strike challenge system (ABS) for the 2026 season, a meaningful shift away from a game decided exclusively by human umpires. New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone weighed in on the decision ahead of the team's first game in a new series with the Chicago White Sox.

Per Gary Phillips of the New York Daily News, Boone shared that he is hopeful for the future of baseball with ABS, despite some initial skepticism.

"'Hopefully it's something that is a good thing for Major League Baseball,' Aaron Boone said of ABS," Phillips wrote. "He reiterated that he’s 'not totally on board with it,' but he said the league has implemented a lot 'really successful' changes in recent years. Boone doesn’t think it will have a huge impact on catcher framing, and he hopes it something that gets Aaron Judge a few pitches a year."

Human umps are still central to the game, as the new system only allows teams to challenge the home plate umpire's strike zone twice in a given game. If the team's challenge is accurate, they do not lose that opportunity to challenge. This system was tested in MLB spring training for the 2025 season, but was tested in Triple A beginning in 2022. In another interview on the day of the announcement, Boone was asked whether there were any players in particular who Boone would tell to "never ever challenge, ever."

Jesse Johnson-Imagn Images

"There'll be some guys that I will be strategic in pre-shaming, having some conversations in front of people," Boone said, laughing. "Look, [...] we laugh, but it is an important part of this, is how to do it. What are the rules in a particular inning, in a particular at bat, in particular counts and things like that. Making sure you are as buttoned up as you can be so you're making good choices along the way. Hopefully you're in a good position to overturn the most impactful calls of the game in a given night."

Aaron Judge weighed in on the ABS system back in July, sharing that he "love[s] the human element and the umpires" but that he knows "it's coming no matter what I say."

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