Analysis | MLB’s challenge strategies evolve and diverge

On April 17, when the Baltimore Orioles needed some late-inning fortune, Leody Taveras tapped his helmet.

For a few seconds, everyone at the stadium stared at the video board, awaiting the animation that would declare whether the Cleveland Guardians’ lead was in jeopardy. Erik Sabrowski’s fastball, the image revealed, had crossed the plate 1.2 inches beneath the strike zone. A rally-threatening strikeout was reversed into a rally-bolstering walk, which loaded the bases and spurred a six-run inning.

The challenge helped the Orioles steal a victory in Cleveland. It also provided a shining example of why MLB instituted the automated ball-strike challenge system. Taveras used a lifeline in a high-leverage spot, late in a game and with a full count.

“Even if he didn’t get it right,” Orioles manager Craig Albernaz said, “that’s a perfect time to use it.”

If only it were as simple as saving every challenge for a game-changing moment. One month into this new challenge system, teams are still feeling out the best ways to teach it, train it, use it, evaluate it and learn from it.

At the same time, defining which teams are good, which teams are bad and what approach is best is not easy. Does being successful mean you challenge the most often, win the highest percentage of challenges or save challenges for the most important moments? Some teams have been more effective when their catchers are challenging and they restrict their hitters. Others are the opposite.

From a certain point of view, the Minnesota Twins may be the gold standard, challenging anything and everything. They have been correct more than half the time, at 54%. Twins hitters have challenged calls more than twice as often as the Boston Red Sox.

“It’s a use-or-lose-it situation,” a Twins coach, Mike Rabelo, said this season, “and lucky for us, they have been nails.”

The Colorado Rockies and Miami Marlins have followed suit. Miami’s catchers have challenged calls more than three times as often as Boston’s catchers have; the Marlins’ Liam Hicks and Agustin Ramirez are among the leaders in catcher challenges.

Then there’s the school of thought that doing it right means having the highest percentage of successful challenges. Through Tuesday, the Arizona Diamondbacks ranked 22nd in overturned calls but, since they have been selective, were first in success rate, at 63%.

“One of the real keys with ABS is confidence,” Milwaukee Brewers manager Pat Murphy said.

Murphy pulled out a sheet of paper featuring a grid with boxes highlighted green, yellow or red. The matrix detailed instances when Milwaukee’s catcher should or should not have challenged. The club’s hitters receive a printout after each game that plots every pitch they saw.

“I think everybody will be pretty good at it by the end,” Murphy said. “But not so much yet.”

If the ball-strike challenge is viewed as a strategic weapon, then even a low challenge rate or low success rate is not necessarily an indictment. Through Tuesday, the Red Sox issued eight fewer challenges than any other team, but Alex Cora, who was fired as manager on Saturday, said this month that he was not bothered by the low rates. He preferred his players targeted high-pressure spots, even if it meant swallowing a potential challenge early in the game.

“There are teams that are challenging 0-0 counts in the first inning,” Cora said. “If they believe in that and if they feel like going from 1-0 to 0-1 in the first at-bat of the game makes sense for them, then they’re going to do it. It doesn’t make sense for me.

“It’s very important to have them in the last part of the game.”

Los Angeles Angels shortstop Zach Neto did precisely what Cora described. On the first pitch of a game April 11, he tapped his helmet. Thirty seconds into the game, the Angels were down to one challenge.

Through Tuesday, the Angels were tied for fifth in total challenges and sixth in calls reversed. Manager Kurt Suzuki said he has offered recommendations, not rules, to his players -- mostly to flex that muscle in a key moment. The first pitch of a game would not fall in that category, but Suzuki deferred to his hitter’s whims.

“If you feel 100% strongly that it’s a ball,” Suzuki said, “go ahead and challenge it.”

The Washington Nationals sit on the other end of the spectrum, producing an overturned call on a league-low 39% of their challenges. Their catcher, Keibert Ruiz, is 6 for 12, but he admitted he tricks himself sometimes with his framing.

“If I catch it good,” he said, “I think it’s a strike sometimes.”

That might also be the case for San Francisco Giants catcher Patrick Bailey, who annually rates as the best framer in the business. Expert framing can persuade a hitter not to challenge. Or it can fool a catcher into underestimating his own ability to make a borderline pitch resemble a strike.

“I think that makes sense,” said Bailey, who was 11 for 23 on challenges through Tuesday. “I definitely haven’t been as good as I wanted to be with the ABS.”

Conversely, through Tuesday, the Kansas City Royals’ Salvador Pérez, historically a below-average framer, was fourth in MLB with 19 overturned calls in 25 challenges.

Catchers have proven successful on 61% of challenges this season, compared with 46% for hitters.

“The catcher,” Detroit Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said, “we have the best seat in the house. It’s right there for you.”

Dillon Dingler owns an 87% success rate behind the plate (13 for 15), but Hinch is urging him to take more initiative. Detroit’s catchers have among the fewest challenges in the league, despite having the highest success rate. The team’s catching coach, Ryan Sienko, provides feedback each inning on pitches that could have been questioned.

“The ones that are toughest are the ones up and down,” Dingler said. “I’ve started to be a little bit more confident in it because we can check when we go back in the dugout. It’s mostly just trusting yourself in that situation to know the zone.”

For hitters, there is game theory behind the decision to challenge, based on the situation. Is it the right count and inning and score? Are there runners on base? How many challenges are left? Is the hitter sure the call will be overturned?

That’s a lot of information to cycle through in a split second. It’s why, with two runners aboard and two outs in the bottom of the ninth of a 2-0 game last week, Cleveland’s Steven Kwan left the on-deck circle as the Houston Astros held a mound meeting to remind Brayan Rocchio, who was about to bat, that the Guardians still had a challenge.

“Runners on, if it flips an at-bat, if it turns a walk into a strikeout -- any of those kinds of things, those are no-brainers,” Kwan said. “And the egregious ones, obviously.”

What’s considered egregious, of course, could vary from hitter to hitter or catcher to catcher.

There is plenty of nuance to this, which is where metrics can offer context. Statcast measures how many overturned calls a particular team achieves compared with how the average team would fare seeing the same pitches. The Royals, Chicago Cubs and New York Mets have thrived in that regard, while the Chicago White Sox, New York Yankees and Giants rank at the bottom.

Kwan said a 50-50 pitch could be worth a challenge, but added, “if it’s like a 30% chance that it could be right, in a big moment, you should still do it, because you can never trust your eyes completely.”

Many of the calls in question boil down to tenths of an inch.

“It’s the most beautiful thing ever when it’s a clipper,” said Cincinnati Reds pitcher Andrew Abbott, who has had two pitches converted into strikes that nicked the zone.

That’s why many teams don’t want their players resorting to a challenge any time they feel aggrieved. It should be strategic, not hubris-driven. “The emotion is what messes it up,” Murphy said.

Reds manager Terry Francona has appreciated his hitters’ early-game discipline. Through Tuesday, the Reds ranked 27th in total challenges, but they nailed 62% of them.

“You have to take your pride out of it,” Reds catcher Tyler Stephenson said. “Yeah, it might be a ball, but is it worth challenging and risking losing a challenge if it’s the third inning and you’re leading off the inning?”

In the first inning April 18, Orioles catcher Samuel Basallo challenged an 0-1 splitter that the umpire ruled a ball. The scoreboard visual revealed that the pitch sailed 1.9 inches below the zone. Basallo shook his head and returned to his crouch, but pitcher Dean Kremer was then called for a pitch clock violation. In a matter of seconds, Kremer went from a possible 0-2 count to 2-1.

“Where we get hurt on it,” Albernaz, the Orioles’ manager, said, “is when our guys become emotional and use challenges at the wrong time, where it’s not ending the at-bat. It’s mid-at-bat, and it’s not an egregious ball.” He added, “It’s tough to regulate that, but those are the constant conversations that we’re having with guys.”

One month in, ABS is still a learning process for everyone.

“In a vacuum, it should be simple,” Kwan said, “but I think we’re discovering now, it’s not so simple.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Copyright 2026 The New York Times Company

This story was originally published April 30, 2026 at 12:19 PM.