Dodgers proving to be among the worst at ABS challenges

MESA, Ariz. — MLB’s latest in-game addition appears to be a Dodgers weakness.

The Dodgers are one of the worst teams in baseball this spring when it comes to the use of the Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) Challenge System that will be used in regular season games for the first time.

Heading into Sunday’s Cactus League action, the Dodgers were correct on just 2 of 10 ball/strike challenges that came from their own hitters. On challenges from their own pitchers or catchers, when the team was in the field, they were only slightly better at 3 of 11.

Both categories were the worst in baseball by success percentage.

“We’re clearly not very good now but it’s part of the learning process for all of us,” manager Dave Roberts said. “We have to get more educated and get better at it.”

While the roster is loaded with veterans — including MVP winners like Freddie Freeman, Mookie Betts and Shohei Ohtani — their learning curve on the ABS system will include input from some of the newer additions to the roster with less major league experience.

The ABS system was first introduced in the independent Atlantic League in 2019. There was no minor league season in 2020, with the Single-A Florida State League using it in 2021 and five Triple-A teams going to it the following year. All Triple-A teams have been using it since 2023.

The timeline means Dodgers players like catcher Dalton Rushing and pitchers Landon Knack, Gavin Stone, Jack Dreyer and Ben Casparius have been in the minor leagues the entire time the system has been in use, although maybe not in their particular league every season.

This season, all MLB teams will get two ABS challenges per game, while retaining any challenge that is successful. Teams will get additional challenges in extra innings. The system uses Hawk-Eye tracking technology that has been used in recent years to drive data for MLB’s Statcast.

Each player has been measured without cleats and the strike zone has been set to his individual frame. The 17 inches across the plate will be universal, with the top of the zone set at 53.5 percent of a player’s height and the bottom at 27% of their height. A reading is taken at the middle of the plate as the ball travels to the catcher.

Major league teams got a feel for the technology last spring and are getting one last trial run before it goes live on Opening Day. Challenged pitches immediately are shown on stadium scoreboards through electronic animation, with any ball that merely touches the outside borders of the zone considered a strike, even if most of the ball is outside of the box.

“It’s gonna be different,” said Dodgers veteran Miguel Rojas, who has already announced that this will be his final MLB season at age 37. “I don’t know. I’m old school.”

Rojas put ABS to the test in the second inning Saturday night’s game against the Colorado Rockies and had one of the Dodgers’ rare successful challenges. A pitch that was low and away from the Rockies’ TJ Shook was called a strike by home-plate umpire Willie Traynor. Rojas challenged immediately and was deemed correct.

A second-inning challenge with two outs and a runner on first base is not something Rojas plans to do during the regular season, but he admitted that curiosity got the best of him. He said it also gave him a chance to test his batting eye midway through the spring.

“I think this is going to be way more important for our pitching staff than for us as hitters, unless it’s something that is kind of obvious,” Rojas said.

But therein lies an issue. What is obvious for some is wishful thinking for others.

“With pitchers, we’re trying to challenge things, but we’d be challenging stuff 4 inches off the plate,” Knack said of using ABS in the minor leagues. “You just want it to be a strike so bad, and sometimes your catcher catches it so well that you just get fooled.”

A former longtime major league player and now scout for an American League team, who did not want to reveal his organization, said Sunday that his club’s Triple-A team had a rule where hitters could not challenge before the seventh inning. There also was a preference for catchers to make challenges over pitchers while in the field.

Rushing said that while coming up through the Dodgers system, there also was a preference for catchers making the challenges. “But I wouldn’t say it was a set rule,” he said.

Rushing compared the two ABS challenges per game to timeouts in basketball or football.

“It’s usually safe to have at least one in your back pocket for the last three innings,” Rushing said. “Same thing with football and timeouts. You don’t want to burn them. You want to save them for after the 2-minute warning.”

While the ability to challenge calls across professional sports has become commonplace, Rojas said there is still a level of respect that needs to be considered.

“There are guys that have already gone public and say that they’re not gonna use it because they respect the game the way that it is, they respect the umpires and they don’t want to show them up,” Rojas said.

Roberts said he plans to address an ABS gameplan with the team as the clubhouse shrinks in size closer to Opening Day roster numbers.

“We will have a better strategy behind it,” Rojas said. “We’ll be taking the leverage of the game into account.”

NOTES

Roki Sasaki threw a between-start bullpen Sunday morning, putting him in line to make his next appearance by Tuesday. Sasaki, who has an 18.90 ERA over 3 1/3 spring innings, will make his next appearance in a game on a back field, instead of in Cactus League action. … Away from the team for family considerations, Kyle Tucker was back in the lineup Sunday as the designated hitter.