NEWYou can now listen to Pakinomist articles!
The 2026 MLB season is officially here, but not without one of the biggest changes in the history of the sport.
After a century and a half of the fully human element behind home plate, batters, catchers and pitchers will now have the ability to challenge balls and strikes. The challenge must be near-instant, and each team gets two and keeps the right challenges.
Baseball Hall of Famer CC Sabathia once predicted that someone would hit .400 if there was a fully automatic strike zone. Even though baseball isn’t there yet, the 250-game winner believes there will be a boost of offense.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON Pakinomist
The scoreboard shows an Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) Challenge sponsored by T-Mobile during the spring training game between the Detroit Tigers and the Philadelphia Phillies at Publix Field at Joker Marchant Stadium on March 16, 2026 in Lakeland, Florida. (Mark Cunningham/MLB Photos via Getty Images)
“If you just watch the games, you can see how much these guys know the strike zone and the pitchers have to actually throw the ball over the plate,” the New York Yankees legend said in a recent interview with Pakinomist Digital. “I think it’s going to increase the offense. Just watching these at-bats in spring training and seeing how closely these guys actually know the strike zone. I think that can only help the offense, and honestly, just getting all the calls right.”
With the system, however, the art of pitching is adjusted. For starters, pitchers must, well, be strikes, and breaking balls off the plate may not go the pitcher’s way.
But several pitchers have taken advantage of throwing some curveballs at the top of the zone, an unorthodox pitch that would normally be called a ball due to an odd angle combined with human error, but the ABS system could determine that they hit.
Sabathia, showing his bias, admitted he probably would have left the challenge to his catcher, but he added he would have had to adjust to the system.
New York Yankees starting pitcher CC Sabathia (pitches against the Toronto Blue Jays during the first inning at Yankee Stadium. (Andy Marlin/USA TODAY Sports)
YANKEES LEGEND THINKS ABOUT TEAM RUNNING BACKS LAST SEASON’S SQUAD, AARON JUDGE’S CLUTCH FACTOR
“I would have just wanted to make sure my backdoor slider was at the plate and a strike was called. It would have been a little bit of an adjustment for me, but I always wanted to make sure the calls came right,” he said. “Like, we got the right calls every time. So I wouldn’t have had a problem with ABS.”
It is the biggest change in baseball, which has undergone several reconstructions. Perhaps none before the ABS system, however, was bigger than the pitch clock. And while it’s a thorn in the side of baseball purists, Sabathia is a big fan.
“It’s been huge to get the guys out of the ballpark, to get fans back into the ballpark during the week, during the school year, because you know the game is over in two and a half hours. It’s made a huge difference, not only in gameplay and speeding up the game, but just the way fans are able to watch it and digest it. I wanted to see something, now I might miss something of some kind. actually love the way the game moves now, the way the guys keep up, no one complains about the clock, it’s a natural thing now.”
New York Yankees starting pitcher CC Sabathia waves to fans during his pregame ceremony between the New York Yankees and the Toronto Blue Jays at Yankee Stadium. (Vincent Carchietta/USA TODAY Sports)
The ABS system was implemented in last year’s spring training after years of experimentation in the minor leagues and the Arizona Fall League.
The rule changes, which began in 2023, have proven beneficial for MLB as attendance has increased in each of the past three years, the first time attendance has increased in back-to-back-to-back seasons since it occurred in four straight from 2004 to 2007. Also of note, there has been an increase in the number of single-entry, 2-team or final season teams. ball fields.
