Athletics own best ABS challenge rate in first 10 days of spring

NEW YORK (AP) — The Athletics had the highest success rate using the robot-umpire system to overturn ball/strike calls during the first 10 days of spring training, winning 69.2% of challenges as teams prepared for its regular-season debut March 25.

San Francisco was second at 66.7%, followed by Cincinnati, Miami and San Diego at 61.9% each, Major League Baseball said Monday.

The World Series champion Dodgers had the lowest rate, winning 21.4% of appeals to the Automated Ball-Strike System. Baltimore was at 25%, the New York Mets at 35.3% and Texas at 38.1%.

MLB's overall success rate was 51.3%, with an average of 2.3 challenges per game.

The New York Yankees averaged the most challenges at 3.8 per game, winning 52.6%. Minnesota was second at 3.6 (winning 58.3%), followed by Boston at 3.2 (55.2%) and Colorado (55.6%) and San Francisco at 3.0.

Baltimore averaged the fewest challenges at 1.2. The Dodgers were at 1.4 and Detroit was at 1.5 (46.7%).

MLB experimented with ABS during spring training last year and teams won 52.2% of their ball/strike challenges (617 of 1,182). MLB began testing in the minor leagues in 2019.

Each team has the ability to challenge two calls per game. A team retains its challenge if successful, similar to the regulations for big-league teams with video reviews, which were first used for home run calls in August 2008 and widely expanded to many calls for the 2014 season.

A team out of challenges for a game tied after nine innings would get one additional challenge in each extra inning.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB