Oakland Athletics Lead MLB Teams in Automated Strike Zone Challenge Success

During spring training's first 10 days, the Oakland Athletics achieved the highest success rate at 69.2% when challenging umpire calls using baseball's new robot-umpire system. The automated ball-strike technology will make its regular season debut on March 25th.

NEW YORK — Oakland emerged as the most successful team at utilizing baseball’s new automated umpire technology during spring training’s opening stretch, successfully overturning ball and strike decisions in 69.2% of their appeals over the initial 10-day period.

The San Francisco Giants claimed second place with a 66.7% success rate, while Cincinnati, Miami, and San Diego each tied for third at 61.9%, according to Major League Baseball’s announcement on Monday.

In contrast, the reigning World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers struggled with the system, achieving only a 21.4% success rate on their appeals to the Automated Ball-Strike System. Baltimore managed just 25% successful challenges, while the New York Mets reached 35.3% and Texas hit 38.1%.

Across all MLB teams, the overall success rate stood at 51.3%, with clubs averaging 2.3 challenges per contest.

The New York Yankees led all teams in challenge frequency, averaging 3.8 appeals per game while winning 52.6% of them. Minnesota followed closely at 3.6 challenges per game with a 58.3% success rate, then Boston at 3.2 challenges (55.2% success), and Colorado and San Francisco both at 3.0 challenges per game.

Baltimore used the fewest challenges, averaging only 1.2 per game. The Dodgers averaged 1.4 challenges while Detroit sat at 1.5 per game with a 46.7% success rate.

Major League Baseball previously tested the ABS technology during last year’s spring training, when teams achieved a 52.2% success rate on ball and strike challenges, winning 617 out of 1,182 appeals. The league has been experimenting with the system in minor league play since 2019.

Under the current rules, each team may challenge up to two calls per game. Teams keep their challenge opportunity when successful, mirroring the existing video replay system that started with home run calls in August 2008 and expanded significantly for the 2014 season.

Teams that exhaust their challenges during regulation play would receive one additional challenge for each extra inning in tied games.