Commissioner Rob Manfred shed some light on the future of robot umpires in Major League Baseball after an owners meeting in New York on Thursday.
Though an automated ball-strike system (ABS) is on the horizon, Manfred said a few kinks are preventing the technology from coming to big leagues diamond next season.
“We still have some technical issues,” Manfred said Thursday during a press conference. “We haven’t made as much progress in the minor leagues this year as we sort of hoped at this point. I think it’s becoming more and more likely that this will not be a go for ’25.”
The automated strike zone has been part of minor league baseball since 2019.
Since 2023, the Triple-A level has alternated between a full ABS, in which the home plate umpire relays the call through a headset, and a challenge system, which allows the player to appeal the home plate umpire’s call through the automated strike zone.
It’s the latter system, Manfred said, that’s likely coming to the big leagues at the outset.
“There’s a growing consensus, in large part based on what we’re hearing from players, that the challenge form should be the form of ABS, if and when we bring it to the big leagues, at least as a starting point,” Manfred said.
The commissioner said he originally thought everyone would be “wholeheartedly in favor of the idea” of getting the ball or strike call “right every single time.”
But taking away the “art” of catcher framing, he said, has the players hesitant toward a full-blown robotic ball-strike system.
“Players feel that a catcher that frames is part of the — if you’ll let me use the word — art of the game, and that if in fact framing is no longer important, the kind of players that would occupy that position might be different than they are today,” Manfred said.
“You could hypothesize a world where instead of a framing catcher who’s focused on defense, the catching position becomes a more offensive player. That alters people’s careers. Those are real, legitimate concerns that we need to think all the way through before we jump off that bridge.”