Stats Are In on ABS Challenges

Robot umpires overturned 54% of challenged calls in the first season of the Automated Ball-Strike System, and catchers were far more successful than batters. Learning when to challenge is key, the AP reports. There were 10,557 challenges, an average of 4.35 per game, and 5,686 led to overturned decisions. The breakdown:

• Net gain: The Cincinnati Reds led with 16.8 runs, according to Baseball Savant calculations of total run value of overturns on challenges. The Los Angeles Angels were next at 14, followed by the Athletics (12.3), and Minnesota (10.1). Cleveland was 30th at minus-13.4 and several other playoff teams rated poorly by that metric: the Los Angeles Dodgers (26th, -8.5), Tampa Bay (25th, -7.8), the Chicago Cubs (21st, -4.6), Milwaukee (20th, -2.4), Atlanta (18th, -2.1), San Diego (17th, -1.9), the New York Yankees (16th, -2.1), and Houston (15th, -0.8).

• Batters' gains: Houston's Jose Altuve was tops with 5.6 projected runs, followed by Seattle's Cal Raleigh (4.6), Colorado's Kyle Karros (4.5), and Cincinnati's Sal Stewart (4.4), and JJ Bleday (4.1).
• Runs lost on defense: The Cubs' Seiya Suzuki led with 5.7 runs projected lost in defensive challenges, just ahead of the Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani (5.5), the Cubs' Ian Happ (5.2) and Michael Busch (5.1), and the New York Mets' Brett Baty (3.5).
• Projected runs prevented: Milwaukee's William Contreras led catchers with 5.2 runs, just in front of Cleveland's Patrick Bailey (5.1), the Mets' Francisco Alvarez (4.5) and San Diego's Freddy Fermin, Kansas City's Carter Jensen, and Drew Romo of the Chicago White Sox (all 4.3).
• Catchers' eye: Catchers succeeded on 59% of their challenges, while batters had a 49% success rate and pitchers—who seldom challenged compared to catchers and batters— were at 40%.

• The managers say: "It's like a new muscle for players to learn," Aaron Boone of the Yankees said. "You have instincts over what to do in certain situations. This is a new instinct of knowing when to challenge and instinctively within a second, oh, that's a ball. What's the situation?" Houston's Joe Espada said: "ABS has really impacted the game. It has really changed how more selective some of these lineups are, how more disciplined they are, how we force pitchers to be more aggressive in the zone more than in the past."

The AP has more data here.