We’re only a few days into the 2026 Major League Baseball season, and the new robo-judges, which players can use to overturn calls, have already led to some incredible moments, an ejection, and a lot of crowd cheering as umpires get called out for being wrong.
As reported by 404 Media, the MLB has a player-controlled Automated Ball-Strike system (ABS) this season that lets a player tap on their hat shortly after a call to challenge the umpire. How it works is that a batter gets ready, the pitcher throws a pitch, and the umpire calls a strike or ball like usual. But it’s here that things differ from a century of play, as the batter, catcher, or hitter can point to their head to signal to the umpire that they want the call reviewed. At this point, an AI-powered robot judge kicks in and quickly displays an easy-to-understand screen showing the strike zone and the pitch location on TV for the audience at home, as well as on the in-stadium jumbotron for everyone at the ballgame.
Randy Arozarena was so confident in his ABS challenge that he started running to first base knowing it was ball 4 😭pic.twitter.com/OWJuxgCeOD
— js9innings (@js9inningsmedia) March 29, 2026
This all takes seconds, and the result it shows is final. If the call is overturned, the team that asked for the challenge can challenge again. If they ask for a robo-review and fail, and then fail again, that team can’t challenge for the rest of the game.
In practice, this means that batters who don’t swing can now immediately turn around after an ump calls a strike and demand a robo-review, and seconds later get the call overturned as a ball while the audience cheers on the umpire being proven wrong in real-time. It’s amazing to watch. In this clip below, we get to watch notoriously inaccurate umpire C.B. Bucknor get challenged twice in a row. In both cases, he is proven wrong by the robo-judge in front of thousands.
C.B. Bucknor tried to ring up Eugenio Suárez on back-to-back pitches.
Suárez challenged both and won both challenges.
(H/T: @tylermilliken_) pic.twitter.com/erzchAXPw0
— Foul Territory (@FoulTerritoryTV) March 28, 2026
After years of getting away with bad calls, umpires in the MLB like Bucknor are finally being humiliated, and I love it. I’m just really sad that legendarily horrible umpire Angel Hernandez retired before the ABS was added to the MLB. Can you imagine his horrid calls getting overturned night after night? Would have been amazing. At least I can enjoy watching Bucknor get six of his bad calls overturned in one game. Wonderful stuff.
Of course, adding something like the ABS into a sport as old as baseball is going to lead to some problems. Minnesota Twins manager Derek Shelton made history during a game on Sunday after the Orioles’ pitcher challenged an ump’s call and got a ball overturned as a strike. Shelton was furious, not at the call but at the fact that he believed the pitcher waited too long to tap his hat to signal for the review. He got so angry that he was ejected, marking the first time someone has been tossed over an ABS-challenged play.
Twins manager Derek Shelton was LIVID as he argued that Ryan Helsley didn’t challenge this call fast enough pic.twitter.com/NnsgUb3iap
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) March 29, 2026
While it might not be a perfect system and will likely be tweaked over the next few months and years, the fans are very excited to watch umps get embarrassed in real time over and over.
“It happened in Cincinnati, they said it was the biggest cheers of the game. Not the homers, but the overturned calls,” said retired baseball player Trevor Plouffe on a podcast.
Some might argue that this is removing a human element from baseball, but I disagree. As 404 Media suggests, this system doesn’t remove humans from the equation, but instead adds a new bit of human-powered, but robo-judged drama to the sport. Umps can be proven wrong and overturned in seconds. At the same time, players can trigger reviews over good calls and screw their team for the rest of the game. That’s exciting, and it might help bring more viewers to baseball this year.
