“Did I miss that pitch?”
That’s a question Major League Baseball umpires will soon be able to ask a league official — even when a pitch hasn’t been challenged.
The automated ball-strike (ABS) challenge system arrives in MLB this season, a major development that gives each team the ability to overturn an umpire’s ball and strike calls. When a challenge is issued, an ABS operator at the ballpark will review an electronic system that tracks the ball with high-tech cameras and pass along the verdict via the scoreboard.
But in an additional wrinkle, umpires will also be able to privately ask the ABS operator whether they got a call right without a challenge during regular-season and postseason games.
For years now, MLB players and coaches have had access to in-game video where they can look back at action from that same game: whether they swung at a bad pitch, or how their mechanics look. MLB and the union alike believed it made sense to deliver a similar opportunity to umpires as well.
“When you think about it, you know, hitters are coming in, looking at the iPad,” said Toronto Blue Jays manager John Schneider. “They’re looking at their swing or the zone, whatever it is, and kind of getting immediate feedback. I think it’s a good tool. How quickly it kind of adapts or evolves, we’ll see. But that’s what we were told, that they’re going to be getting some pretty consistent feedback.”
MLB said that the umpire has to initiate the feedback — the ABS operator is not supposed to offer any proactively. The feedback is also to be delivered to the umpire only during half-inning breaks. In real time, however, including right after a given pitch, an umpire can flag to the ABS operator that they will want to know about the call in the upcoming inning break.
Umpires don’t have to flag a pitch to receive the feedback once the half inning arrives, but flagging could hasten the process.
“Our umpires are the best in the world at what they do and were more accurate than ever before last season,” Michael Hill, MLB’s senior vice president of on-field operations, said in a statement. “The umpires on the field want to get every call right, and we think this tool will be a positive for the game as they get adjusted to ABS.”
MLB said the feedback is supposed to be pitch-specific. Rather, it should answer a question such as: Where was the 2-2 to Shohei Ohtani? Umpires are not supposed to ask, or be informed, about their overall zone that day.
Umpires typically know how they’re faring generally, anyway. With the introduction of the challenge system, they’ll learn even more quickly than in the past whether they’re missing calls.
They were able to receive this same in-game feedback outside of challenges during spring training last year, and will be able to during camp this year as well. But 2026 marks the first time the feedback will be available in the regular season and playoffs.
“They’re going to do a way better job of being kind of interactive with the booth upstairs and giving umpires feedback in real time,” Schneider said. “It may take a little bit of time, especially spring training will be good, but I don’t think it’s going to be as, like, outrageous as we think. I think that they’re going to be listening to feedback as the game goes.”
Umpires have an earpiece for a variety of functions that will now include conversing with the ABS operator when they want to know how they did on a pitch. (If the result of a challenge can’t be displayed on the scoreboard because of a technical issue, the operator will deliver the verdict to the umpire via the earpiece.)
Umps are supposed to put in their earpiece only when they need it, rather than wear it all the time, because their hearing is important to various calls.
How comfortable umpires will be audibly flagging a pitch in real-time — what if the batter or catcher hears uncertainty right after the call? — is to be seen. Umpire access to in-game feedback could also prompt accusations from fans about the league attempting to shape outcomes by directly controlling the strike zone.
“I know the goal isn’t to try to bully an umpire into saying one way or another, and these guys have been doing it for a long time,” Schneider said generally. “I’m interested to see kind of how the back and forth goes kind of in real time.”