Could the Cubs use the new ABS challenge system to their advantage in 2026?
MESA, Ariz. – The Cubs haven’t yet nailed down their strategy for the automated ball/strike (ABS) challenge system, with its implementation coming this season. But right-hander Jameson Taillon has faith in manager Craig Counsell.
“I would think Craig would find a way to make us really good at it,” he said. “I just trust he's on it. Our [coaching] staff is so good, we don't have to worry about it. They'll figure out something, who gets to challenge, how it's going to work.”
Spring training, in part, will be a testing ground for the Cubs. The way Counsell explained it, the Cubs will have a presentation for their players before Cactus League games begin next week. They’ll be given the freedom to experiment with the system before the team implements more structure with another meeting before the season.
“Like most of these rule changes,” Counsell said this week, “as we get a couple weeks into the season, and we have the whole league's worth of games and things, we'll know exactly what we want to do and have it dialed in.”
As a refresher: teams get two challenges per game (with the potential for more in extra innings) and retain successful challenges. Only a pitcher, catcher or hitter can initiate an ABS challenge, by tapping his head, and has to do so without delay.
MLB first tested the system in the minors before bringing it to select spring training ballparks last year. And the Cubs, specifically pitcher Cody Poteet, were the first team to use a challenge in spring training.
“I hope the umpires get them all right,” Counsell said, pushing back on the notion that the Cubs could find a way to gain an edge with their ABS strategy. “That's what you hope every game. You hope every game they get every call right and there's none of this.”
Poor strategy, however, could set teams back. Burning challenges early on in a game, for example, could hamper a team if they didn’t have any left for the biggest moment in a close contest.
That’s not a concern in the spring. While the games still don’t count, the Cubs plan to instruct the players who had ABS experience in the minors to give the MLB veterans with little to no ABS experience a chance to use most of the team’s challenges.
"There's probably going to be a game where we burn it early because somebody's trying to test it, but that's what that's what it's for,” pitching coach Tommy Hottovy said. “But the good thing is, too, we're going to get more feedback after the game on what were strikes, what weren't and so we can kind of help coach some of that stuff up as well.”
For those veterans, the adjustment isn’t as simple as relying on a well-trained sense of the strike zone – something Cubs hitters like Seiya Suzuki, Ian Happ and Alex Bregman are well known for.
Umpires’ strike zones tend to be shaped more like an oval, whereas the ABS zone is a strict rectangle. Though the ABS zone is tighter on the vertical axis, it has more room on the corners.
“We definitely might have more of those corners that get clipped,” Hottovy said. “That's something we might try to play around with and see if we can take advantage of some more of those type of pitches.”
For instance, Hottovy has talked with left-hander Shota Imanaga about his experience throwing rehab games last year in the minors, where ABS had already been implemented.
“He got a strike-three called on a fastball up and in on a righty,” Hottovy said. “The righty bailed, and it just barely clipped the strike zone, and he got a strike three. And he remembers that.”
ABS will continue to be a topic of discussion this spring and early in the season as players, umpires and fans get used to the change. But ideally its implementation will follow the same pattern as other recent rule changes, like the pitch clock and shift limits, which quickly became not only normalized but widely seen as enhancements to the game.
Said Counsell: “We should give it some time to breathe.”