Mets like MLB's experiment with ball/strike challenge system
Mets' Pete Alonso smiles after earning a walk during the first inning of a spring training baseball game against the Houston Astros Saturday, Feb. 22, 2025, in Port St. Lucie, Fla. Credit: AP/Jeff Roberson
JUPITER, Fla. — The future is coming to the major leagues, and the Mets are ready.
MLB’s spring training experiment — an automated ball/strike challenge system in the majors for the first time — has drawn positive reviews from Mets personnel, from manager Carlos Mendoza to Pete Alonso to minor-leaguers already familiar with the arrangement.
During some Grapefruit League games, including all contests at the Mets’ Clover Park, the batter, catcher or pitcher can challenge individual balls and strikes called by the plate umpire.
If a team keeps getting calls overturned, it can keep challenging. If a team is wrong twice in a game, it can’t challenge anymore.
MLB’s spring training experiment — an automated ball/strike challenge system in the majors for the first time — has drawn positive reviews from Mets personnel.
During some Grapefruit League games, the batter, catcher or pitcher can challenge individual balls and strikes called by the plate umpire.
MLB could implement this system or a version of it in regular-season games within the next year or two.
MLB could implement this system or a version of it in regular-season games within the next year or two.
Count the Mets in.
“It could be really exciting going into the future,” Alonso said.
Jeff McNeil added: “They get the calls right. That’s what matters.”
And Mendoza: “I like it, I’m not going to lie . . . You’ve still got umpires calling balls and strikes, but then there’s some situations — key situations — where you get the freedom to challenge a pitch. The strategy is what we are all learning. When do you want to take those chances?”
Because of that and related questions, the younger players are the ones with wisdom to dispense.
MLB has tested the challenge system — as well as a full automated ball/strike system, in which the plate umpire merely signals what the computer called — in the minors in recent years. So minor-leaguers know the ins and outs that their major-league peers are just starting to figure out.
Among their insights: The top of the strike zone is lower than one expects, below the belly button instead of above (a realization that leads to adept hitters not swinging at pitches at their chest). Zone-related whining gets minimized because, well, you should’ve challenged if you really believe you got a bad call. And pitchers (from 60 feet, 6 inches away) are much, much worse at gauging what is a strike compared to hitters and catchers (from inches away).
“As soon as you see a pitcher challenge it, you just hear the catcher go ughhh, no,” said Chris Williams, a catcher on the Twins’ Triple-A club in recent years who signed a minor-league deal with the Mets over the offseason.
Brett Baty said: “In all of our meetings, pitchers aren’t allowed to challenge. Catchers can, because they know the zone really well. The pitcher might think that’s a strike, but the catcher knows, no, it’s just off.”
Another key, according to Williams, is to be smart about when to challenge.
Take the Mets’ first challenge — in the first inning of their first game last month — as an example. Alonso got a called strike three he didn’t like. He immediately tapped his head, the signal to the ump that he wanted to challenge, and the call was overturned (by less than half an inch). Alonso wound up drawing a walk, obviously a positive outcome.
In spring training, playing around with a new thing, that was fine. In a real game, the first inning with the bases empty isn’t a great spot for it.
“You've got to take your emotions completely out of it,” Williams said. “There’s times when you really want to challenge a pitch, but it’s early in the game or it’s just not a good time. You've got to trust that there’s going to be an opportunity later in the game, that someone is really going to need it.”
There is an entertainment factor, too. When somebody calls for a challenge, the mic’d-up umpire announces as much to the crowd. The video board (and TV broadcast) shows a 3-D computerized replay of the pitch and the strike zone, indicating whether the baseball caught any of the plate, similar to tennis’ line-calling system. The crowd reacts appropriately. The whole sequence takes about 7 seconds.
“And people were into it after that pitch,” Alonso said. “Hey, it’s a spring training game, whatever. But they were like, oh, this is fun, this is new. Right off the rip, people got into it. People cheering. Then that totally changes the mindset from not just the people on defense, but the people on offense as well. It’s exciting.”
MLB’s goal with the challenge system, as opposed to the full-blown so-called robo-umps that rule on every pitch, is to maintain the human element while safeguarding against egregious misses in big spots.
“I also learned,” Mets Triple-A catcher Hayden Senger said, “that the umpires are pretty good.”
Notes & quotes: The Mets lost to the Cardinals, 6-1, Tuesday on an afternoon heavy on defensive versatility. Baty started at second base, Luisangel Acuna at third, McNeil in left . . . In the first appearance of the year for each, Tylor Megill allowed a run in 2 2/3 innings and Ryne Stanek tossed a scoreless frame . . . The Mets reassigned 13 players to minor-league camp, including prospects Brandon Sproat, Jett Williams, Blade Tidwell and Ryan Clifford. They have 57 players remaining in major-league camp.
Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.
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