MLB Players Are Winning 67% Of Their ABS Challenges During The Playoffs

Fans at home and in the ballpark hold their collective breaths when a player taps his helmet and requests an ABS Challenge. It has changed the game, and the frequency of the challenges has increased during the playoffs. (Photo by Mike Carlson/MLB Photos via Getty Images)

MLB Photos via Getty Images

This season MLB introduced the ABS system, which allows three players – the batter, pitcher, or catcher – to challenge a ball/strike call. Each team is accorded three challenges at the beginning of the game, but do not get charged if they are proven correct. As such, a team that is good at knowing the strike zone could essentially have unlimited challenges. In a May 14^th game in Sacramento, the St. Louis Cardinals and the Athletics set the record with a combined 12 ABS challenges, seven from A’s and five from the Cards, with nine of them being successful.

For the season, according to Statcast, over 10,557 challenges, 54% of calls were overturned. Batters were only successful 49% of the time (4,765 attempts), and fielders (i.e., pitchers and catchers) were correct 58% of time (on 5,792 tries).

There were 2,429 MLB games this year, meaning that, on average, there were 4.3 challenges per game. In the Wild Card round, there were about 4.5 challenges per game. But with the start of the Division Series, that rate has gone way up, and so too has the success rate. Maybe the pitchers have better command; maybe the catchers are more in tune; maybe the batters are more confident; and/or maybe the umpires are just tired.

The first six games of the Division Series have seen the same number of challenges as the nine games of the Wild Card round (41 each). That means that there have been nearly seven challenges per game in this round, which is nearly 60% more than during the regular season. And the players are outpacing the umpires by a wide margin. During these playoffs, the players have been right two out of every three times, winning 55 of the 82 challenges.

For those watching at home, it may seem even more lopsided than that. In Game 1 of the Division Series at Tropicana Field in Tampa, the Yankees and Rays combined to win five of six challenges. In Cleveland, in the first game of that series, the White Sox and Guardians combined to be correct four out of five times. In the first game in Los Angeles, the Braves and Dodgers went six-for-nine.

In Game 2 of the Dodgers-Braves series, with the Braves clinging to a 3-1 lead in the eighth inning, Will Smith challenged a 2-2 pitch on the outside corner and lost. And then, with Freddie Freeman the very next batter, Atlanta catcher Drake Baldwin challenged a 2-2 pitch at the bottom of the zone and won.

In the pressure-packed Game 2 in Milwaukee on Sunday afternoon, the Brewers and Padres combined to win ten of twelve challenges. Interestingly, in the penultimate at-bat of that game, pinch hitter Gary Sánchez took an 88-mph slider on the inside corner for a strike. He challenged, and lost, moving the count to 2-1 (instead of 3-0). That burned Milwaukee’s final challenge. The very next pitch was an 89-mph slider on the inner half that was called a strike, and it appeared as if Sánchez would have liked to challenge that one as well. But (a) he was spooked by losing the prior pitch and (b) he and the team were fresh out of challenges. Good thing, as he would have been proven wrong. Had that pitch been called a ball, Padres catcher Freddy Fermin most certainly would have used one of San Diego’s two remaining challenges to square the count at 2-2. It wasn’t necessary, and Mason Miller missed badly with the next two pitches, walking Sánchez to load the bases.

There were no questionable pitches in Jackson Chourio’s at-bat, and he lined a center-cut four-seam fastball 109.5-mph to center field to win the game for the Brewers.

There is still a lot of baseball to be played in this post-season, and tons more pitches for players to contest. The law of large numbers ways in favor of things evening out, but maybe not. After the Braves beat the Dodgers on Sunday night, catcher Drake Baldwin said that we would remain aggressive and try to use his challenges in the late innings. Heck, in Game 2 of the Wild Card round, Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto effectuated our first post-season game-ending challenge. One this is for sure, the fans love it.