We'll Get Whatever Robots We Deserve!
So shut up about it
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Word came down on Tuesday that Major League Baseball will institute the Automated Ball-Strike Challenge System next season. First, let’s shorten that to ABS, so we don’t go capitalized-word crazy. Second, we’ve already discussed this concept quite a bit, so I promise not to wear you down.
Just know that ABS is a good system. It’s fair. It is not perfect, but nobody really needs to care about that, because it is only going to be used to challenge a few pitch calls during games, not to dictate all the calls at all times.
If you think the ump just rang you up on a slider that actually landed outside the strike zone, you can challenge that. The review takes only seconds, and that ruling is final. If you’re the hitter, you are one of only three people on the planet who can initiate this process; the other two are the catcher and the pitcher. No quickie hand-signals from the dugout are permitted.
Players can thus use readily available technology to overturn an umpire’s calls if they believe that his/her strike zone is getting really out of whack. Of course, your entire team only gets two challenges for the whole game, so if you’re wrong about that strike zone, you just cost your guys one of their two chits. And if you challenge the same kind of edge-of-the-zone delivery at which your own pitcher excels, you risk an ABS overturn that realigns the umpire in such a way that it starts to cost your guy strikes.
That means we’ll have strategy employed as to when and why to challenge — not a terrible development in a game filled with tiny strategic decisions.
What else? Well, because I know you’re concerned that MLB will be able to pay its bills, understand that T-Mobile long ago became the corporate $ponsor. It runs a private 5G network to facilitate the almost instantaneous turnaround on the challenges.
Based upon having watched too many minor league games, where this has been field-tested for years, this is how it’s going to go: In the beginning, players will be wrong a lot about what a strike actually is, and they’ll bitch about the ABS challenge for proving that they don’t really know balls and strikes. Rather, what they know is individual umpires’ tendencies on how they call balls and strikes. Those are both valuable data sets, but they’re not the same thing, as ABS will prove. The players, though, will quickly adjust to that, because they are smart pros who are working desperately hard to succeed at the highest level. It’ll be fine.
You’ll adjust, too. ABS will be distracting for a few weeks, and then you’ll stop noticing. It takes nowhere near the amount of time that a replay review in the field takes, which you’ll appreciate, and it’s always gratifying to see Jose Hammer earn himself an extra pitch by protesting a key strike call in a big moment.
Anyway — enough. No issues here. What’s maybe more interesting is the composition of MLB’s Joint Competition Committee, which approved this ABS change. The committee has 11 members: six owners, four player reps and one umpire rep.
In other words, it’s 6-to-5 for the owners on all competition questions, forever. They can do what they want. Don’t complain to me — I didn’t make the rules. But anytime you find yourself saying something like, “Man, baseball is so stupid for banning the shift,” or whatnot, understand who “baseball” really means.
Bad football day in Oklahoma, which is something we don’t say very often — at least not so generally. But on the same day that Sooners football fans learned they’ll be without their star quarterback for at least a month, Oklahoma State fans learned they’ll be without the winningest coach in their history for the rest of their lives.
Mike Gundy’s firing by the Cowboys essentially ends an era of excellence, and I’m not being sarcastic. Under Gundy, Oklahoma State experienced exactly two losing seasons in 20 years: his first one in 2005, and his last full one in 2024. The Cowboys won at a 65 percent clip during Gundy’s tenure and were in the Big 12 title game as recently as 2023.
But OSU cannot compete in the NIL era. It just doesn’t have the horses. If you really want to trace the decline of the program, as my brother (an OSU alum) correctly pointed out, you have to go back five years or so, when the Cowboys were still winning but their benefactor died.
With T. Boone Pickens’ passing in 2019, Oklahoma State lost its pipeline to a better tomorrow. An oilman and corporate raider of astounding personal wealth, Pickens’ foundation has lavished nearly $650 million upon OSU over the years, and a massive amount of that money was directed to the football program in particular and the athletic department in general.
Without Pickens, upon whom the Cowboys relied so heavily, they don’t have the sort of NIL money they’ll need to outbid other schools for top talent. It’s easy to character-assassinate Mike Gundy for his cartoonishly silly behaviors and arrogances, but Oklahoma State had it really good for a long time — an eon, by the paltry historic standards of that football program. I don’t think Gundy suddenly forgot how to head-coach.
The Sooners announced that their QB, John Mateer, will undergo surgery in Los Angeles on Wednesday to repair an injury in his throwing hand. ESPN reported the injury to be a broken bone suffered during the Auburn game last weekend. The timeline for recovery is about a month, but, you know, these are athletes, and the difference between “recovered” and “ready to compete in the SEC” may prove sticky. We’ll see.
Next man up for OU is Michael Hawkins Jr., a true sophomore who passed to a 123.1 rating last season. He’s very highly thought of, but John Mateer is next level. Mateer suffered that hand injury in the first quarter against Auburn, played the whole game, passed for 271 yards and a touchdown, hit on his last 11 passes, and led the game-winning drive. Tough customer.