Trevor May: The ABS Era is HERE

00:00:11
Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about.

00:00:13
Speaker 2: ABS because it's common. There was an article that came out in the Atlantic Atlantic in the Athletic. I know them, I know them in the Athletic talking about how the ABS has been voted on by the Joint I believe the Joint Rules Committee and Joint Rules Committee.

00:00:39
Speaker 1: We've been over this.

00:00:40
Speaker 2: I'm gonna say this every single time this comes up.

00:00:42
Speaker 1: The Joint Rules.

00:00:43
Speaker 2: Committee is a farce and a joke. But they voted to implement the ABS system officially in twenty twenty six. So we are in the automatic, automatic balls and strike system era. It's official. We're doing it. But remember there's only four players out of eleven people on that Joint committee, so even if the players like don't like it, it's going to go through anyways. So basically the committee is just there for it's a complete facade. It doesn't matter at all. The leagues can do whatever they want. And by all accounts, the vote was not unanimous. At least one player appointed the committee opposed the rule change.

00:01:21
Speaker 1: Is to quote from the PA, the vote for.

00:01:23
Speaker 2: The Player's Committee was not unanimous, which was reflective of broad player sentiment. The Players Association said in the statement Tuesday, though for some reason, the actual number has not been reported.

00:01:36
Speaker 1: It's been reported for every other vote.

00:01:39
Speaker 2: I don't know, guys, I don't know why they wouldn't put it out there. I feel like it's pretty the thing's a joke anyway, so just put it out there. If there's a ten to one, nine to two, seven to four, you win. You're always gonna win. So it's in now. I am actually surprised that everyone was unanimous, because I think this is good. I think this is a good thing. So let's talk a little bit about how the ABS is going to work moving forward, because this is important.

00:02:03
Speaker 1: And the rules.

00:02:04
Speaker 2: Now, finally we've been speculating for months, the rules have officially come out. Okay, So in terms of how many challenges a team will receive, it's to a game. Okay, So you get two total challenges for your team.

00:02:23
Speaker 1: Okay.

00:02:23
Speaker 2: If you're correct in challenging and it's overturned, you keep your challenge.

00:02:27
Speaker 1: You keep two. Okay, if you are wrong, you lose it.

00:02:32
Speaker 2: This isn't per player, this is per entire team. Do teams get an extra one in extra innings? They do only if they have no challenges left. So Basically, if you end the game and nine innings and you have two challenges left, you go into the tenth inning with two. Okay, as soon as you use one, you have one. You just have your one. You use it again, you have zero. The next inning you have one again. So if you start the inning with zero, you get one again, and both teams get them every inning, so you get one an inning.

00:03:07
Speaker 1: For the rest of the game.

00:03:08
Speaker 2: That's how That's what my understanding is it.

00:03:10
Speaker 1: Now.

00:03:10
Speaker 2: I could have been wrong about the first part. I tried to find distinct information. Some people alluded to it. I believe that's how it works. So you have to go down to zero before you get your extra inning one, but you will have at least one. You will have maximum of one. You will have one no matter what, going every inning, if you even if you ended the game with none, okay. So that's how extra innings will work. The challenge system will be in every ballpark from the get go, so everyone's doing it. There's no more testing. It's everywhere, and it will be used in the playoffs. This system will be exactly the same in the playoffs.

00:03:44
Speaker 1: Moving forward.

00:03:44
Speaker 2: You will get two going into the until you go into extra innings get one per inning a maximum one per inning for the whole extra innings. So that's how it's going to work there. This one's interesting. I did not think that this was going to be so strict, but it is.

00:03:59
Speaker 1: I like it. I think this is great.

00:04:01
Speaker 2: So as for who can do the challenge, it is denoted by the old tap on the hat, so the pitcher can do it, the catcher can do it, and the.

00:04:11
Speaker 1: Batter can do it. Do you know who can't do it? The manager?

00:04:15
Speaker 2: Do you know who can't tell the catcher the pitcher do it, the manager or anyone for the dugout. You can't look and get a signal if you do that. If you look and look for a signal and they give you one, you don't get.

00:04:26
Speaker 1: To do it.

00:04:27
Speaker 2: Like they're like nope, nope, you don't get to do it. And I think that is awesome because players now have to make these decisions in real time and they have to be confident in it, and you only have two as a team. So it's gonna be fascinating, especially for hitters. It's gonna be so fascinating to see which hitters get the green light, Like how you give guys the green light. Like how teams try to like secretly tell guys to do it or not, because that's going to happen. Trust me that they're going to try to be like do it like and try not to get caught. That's gonna happen. And then how does like pitcher catcher, Because if your pitcher does it twice in a game is wrong both times the batters don't have any So like our team's going to say, okay, pitchers get one, batters get one until this ending, and then if there's two left, then you can use them wherever or whatever. Like what's the strategy going to be, How our team's going to put that, put that into effect?

00:05:23
Speaker 1: And then.

00:05:25
Speaker 2: Are catcher is going to call it more than pitchers. That's also valuable for me because I remember several times in twenty twenty two and twenty one and twenty two I had Thomas Needo behind the plate. Tomasio was one of the best framers, best receivers in the league. He got I got nidoed so many times to where I was like, oh my gosh, right there and I'm yelling at an umpire or whatever, and I go in and look at it and the next day I check and it's like four inches outside. I'm like, well, if I would have done that, I would look like an idiot, right, But Nedo knew that it was a ball, He knew, So I think it's going to be ninety ten. I think the the catchers are going to call it right away, and they're going to be They're going to be the ones that make the call, with the exception of the Justin Berlanders and extres of the world calling.

00:06:08
Speaker 1: Onund of their own.

00:06:09
Speaker 2: So it's fascinating to see who's going to be allowed to do it, who's not going to be allowed. I know Tito Francona was talking about it in spring this year. You know, hey, we're not doing this because we're not going to have.

00:06:20
Speaker 1: In the season. Now what are they going to do? Right? Are they going to like is Ellie going to get to do it? Like? How much of a veteran do you have to be? I love it.

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00:07:01
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00:07:36
Speaker 2: So challenges have to be immediate, like I mentioned before, so you can't ask anybody, right, you have to be like Boom. You get like a second probably by the time the ball's back to you. You have to do it and the hitter. But again, it's one of those things like, you're not gonna be like, well, like, what are you going to do?

00:07:51
Speaker 1: Replay it in your mind?

00:07:51
Speaker 2: You can't see it again, so you're just gonna be like, whatever your initial reaction.

00:07:54
Speaker 1: Is, you're going to go for that.

00:07:56
Speaker 2: It's going to be fascinating because then on top of all of that, we're going to see who's good at it who's not.

00:08:01
Speaker 1: And I'm I can't wait.

00:08:03
Speaker 2: I can't wait to rank people based on how good they are at using the challenge system. It's going to be the best. Okay, all right, So it's a tap. It's great. I love it. It'll be shown on the on TV and on the big board with the animation within ten seconds, right, so it's really quick. They're shooting for ten seconds.

00:08:24
Speaker 1: It was on average.

00:08:25
Speaker 2: Thirteen point eight seconds per and in spring it was four point one challenges thirteen to point eight seconds per which adds about a minute to the game. But fifty two percent of them were overturned, so the so whoever challenged it was right most of the time, which I also think is awesome. And there's a great example of like guys know many they some guys know, and some guys really don't know. But it'll show the graphic, it'll show in the box where it hit and whether the touch or not, and you'll know preferably within the amount of time it takes to throw.

00:08:55
Speaker 1: A pitch to nobody on base.

00:08:56
Speaker 2: Okay, so do people like it and why do they decide to go through it?

00:09:02
Speaker 4: Well?

00:09:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, they did like it.

00:09:07
Speaker 2: So people were asked seventy two percent of the challenge system had a positive impact on their watching experience moving forward. Sixty nine percent nice of those surveys said that it would like a sport to go ahead with the abs, versus thirty one percent in favor of continuing with human empires. So sixty nine thirty one, that's a that's a pretty strong polling. I think that I'm in that camp. I think this is a great way to go forward because, like I've said before, like I'm about to say again, getting every call exactly perfectly right is a sanitation of the game. There needs to be a little bit of tension, a little like things could go wrong no matter what you do, kind of like life right, just we need that, we need.

00:09:49
Speaker 1: That parody just a little bit.

00:09:51
Speaker 2: But what this does it adds a strategic element to the game. So something you've got to think about something, you've got to get good at something, you've got to be confident in as a player and as a team, and you have to have a cohesive plan and it can be huge getting just a slight advantage one way or the other to win ball games.

00:10:08
Speaker 1: And I love that. I think that's great.

00:10:09
Speaker 2: It's the same thing with if you're good at instant replay, if your guy is right all the time, that is extremely valuable for your team, right, So I like that part. Also, there will still be missed calls which need to like that just needs to be around, but a lot more calls will be called correctly, especially when when the guys are right a lot and a lot of those calls are getting overturned and turned the other way. And then umpires are also incentivized to continue to improve, which they've been as good as they've ever been this year.

00:10:40
Speaker 1: They really have, so like it's improving. The whole game is improving in.

00:10:44
Speaker 2: Terms of balls and strikes being called and getting them right, and that is all we're asking for here. So I think this is a generally good thing. And it's been tested for six years, so we are at the time where it's time to just go run for it. So the human elements still there. There's some mistakes, but we're getting more calls right, and players have to learn a new skill and then be confident in their ability to use it, and then teams have to develop how they're going to deploy this thing. I think it's just really hit checking a lot of boxes for me, and I think it's.

00:11:16
Speaker 1: Going to make the game.

00:11:20
Speaker 2: More fun to watch and a better product without adding any time or you know, making it so pitchers can't.

00:11:27
Speaker 1: Pick off and stuff.

00:11:28
Speaker 2: So I want to know what you guys think I don't like. Do you think that this is Do you think it's like accurate enough? Do you think it's fast enough? Do you think there's something else to can be about it? Do you think there's enough challenges? Maybe three is enough? How do we like the the extra inning thing? Do you should it be in the playoffs or to no? What do you guys think of all that stuff? Obviously in the comments when this is the video and in the chat right now, just like let me know, but it's coming whether you like it or not, it is coming. And that's a little bit like life, right. We have no control of them.

00:12:04
Speaker 1: Mm hmmm mm hmmmm mmm