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Baseball can be a game of physics and statistics, so I was surprised during a recent big game in Seattle when a technical measurement left the crowd dumbfounded.
In a May 1 game, Kansas City Royals outfielder Cole Ragans threw a fastball to Seattle Mariners slugger Leo Rivas toward the bottom left corner of the strike zone. The referee called a strike, resulting in Rivas being sent off – even Rivas He tapped his helmet twice.
This gesture activated the automatic ball strike challenge, or ABS, to review the pitch, which must be triggered within seconds of the ball being snapped.
All eyes turned to the big screen to watch the stadium animation. He showed, experimentally, that the ball hit the corner of the shooting area, confirming that the referee had made the correct decision, much to the fans’ disappointment.
ABS is the product of a joint collaboration between Major League Baseball and… T-Mobile. Tech was called up to the majors this season after more than 7,000 games of probation in the minor leagues. The system is now used in all 29 MLB stadiums in the United States (the Toronto Blue Jays stadium did not use ABS because T-Mobile is not licensed to operate in Canada).
When the ABS Challenge is conducted, baseball fans see the results on the big screen within seconds.
Speaking at T-Mobile Park in Seattle before an early May game, John Stanton, owner and chairman of the Seattle Mariners (and founder of VoiceStream Wireless, which became T-Mobile), explained that the challenge system was developed after new television technology changed how people experienced the game.
Unlike fans at the ballpark who rely on the umpire’s calls behind the plate, viewers at home can tell whether pitches are balls or strikes, thanks to a visual box of the strike zone on the television screen.
“It became clear when there was a bad call. The umpires were embarrassed by it, and we were in a situation that undermined some of the credibility of baseball,” Stanton said. “It was important to find a way to fix this.”
How ABS calls for hits and balls
Behind the scenes – or rather surrounding the park – there are 12 people Hawk eye Cameras were directed at the pitching mound and home plate to track the pitcher’s deliveries and ball movement.
Cameras at T-Mobile Field in Seattle capture data about every pitch as part of an automatic hitting challenge system.
They communicate over a private T-Mobile 5G network inside the park using Ericsson Dot radios, easily overlooked finned disks the size of dinner plates mounted in various locations, including each team’s dugout and the press box above home plate. The network uses N41 (2.5 GHz) spectrum licensed from T-Mobile to reduce interference.
The circular Ericsson Dot radio located in the corner of the Mariners’ dugout is part of the automatic ball strike system.
Also key to the network is low latency, which averages about 2.3 milliseconds, according to a Share LinkedIn Written by T-Mobile’s John Cao, CTO and CTO.
The ABS system analyzes the pitch, creates an animation of where the ball landed in the strike zone and displays it on the big screen for stadium fans to see. T-Mobile’s internal goal is a 17-second shift when a player taps their head. In practice, this happens in 15.4 seconds on average, Stanton said.
Although one could argue that an animation of a pitch crossing the plate and shown in a zoomed-in representation of the strike zone is not technically necessary, it is certainly more compelling to the audience than making a simple binary decision about whether it is a hit or not. The lead-up to the call can seem as dramatic to the crowd as waiting to see if an outfielder will catch a high-flying ball.
The ABS system picks up pitches right at the edge of the strike zone.
“When a call is made, the fans, referees and players find out about it at exactly the same time,” Stanton said, creating “a particularly special take-your-breath-away dynamic.”
MLB maintains a video record of all… ABS challenges in the MLB Film Room, but fans can head to the league The official website of ABS To dive deeper into how technology will impact teams and players this year. Front and center stats show that currently, 53% of calls are overturned due to an ABS challenge at this point in the season.
While this ostensibly indicates that umpires are missing calls, players are only asking for reviews for the more ambiguous situations — and anyone who has watched an ABS score knows how these pitches often barely touch the edge of the strike zone.
MLB’s Baseball Savant website tracks every ABS challenge made.
Does instant data destroy the spirit of the game?
What about baseball purists who see this as an infringement of technology in a game that relies on the eyes and judgments of skilled players and umpires? I’d expect fans who think ABS dampens the heart of the game to push back more forcefully against Moneyball’s take on data over tradition.
Emotions were their biggest point of stress, said Amy Azzi, T-Mobile’s vice president of sports, entertainment and hospitality sponsorship. But MLB shared statistics with T-Mobile showing that 91% of respondents said the ABS system improved the overall game, and 76% said it improved the game experience.
“This stadium lights up when the call is over, or it becomes a rallying moment for the fans,” Qazi said.
Each team gets two ABS Challenges during the match. If a challenge is cancelled, the team that made it loses one of its challenges. If upheld, the team keeps the challenge and can use it again later. So, if a team challenges two calls that it believes were strikes, and the ABS system confirms that they were strikes, the team can still make more challenges until it loses.
ABS also adds another strategic element to the game. Jerry DiPito, the Mariners’ president of baseball operations, said the team is learning the importance of patience.
“We always value patience and thoughtfulness among our players,” DiPito said, noting that this is even more important today with this technology option. “We just need to flip the switch at the right time in the ABS Challenge to influence the outcome of the match.”
Even with precision ABS technology, it still doesn’t eliminate the human factor. Dipito gave the example of a game against the Minnesota Twins, who he said was aggressive in using ABS challenges. They exhausted their challenges in the sixth inning, and when they reached the ninth inning, Seattle threw two pitches that would have been identified as balls if the challenge had been available.
However, DiPito pointed out that Cal Raleigh, the Mariners’ catcher, framed the pitch as a strike, something he has historically been very good at.
“(Rally) turned the game in our favor because he made it look like a hit,” he said.
Although the Mariners ultimately lost the early May game 7 to 6, it was still exciting to watch in person, with five home runs, four ABS calls and a near-victory comeback for the home team. At the end of the night, despite all the data and statistics, experience is still what matters most.