It’s about time. Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred says he’d like to see the Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) system in MLB next season. We don’t know yet exactly how robot Umps will work. A home plate umpire will still be needed for fair or foul, and safe or out calls at the plate.
The ABS will be tested in spring training games this season. A challenge system like the NFL uses was tested in the minors last season. That idea is getting support in the commissioner’s office.
The commissioner wants the implementation of the ABS to work as well as the pitch clock. Manfred believes the pitch clock has been a big success.
“I think we continue to make progress on the automated ball-strike system. The technology is really outstanding. I mean, this technology is actually accurate to one-one hundredth of an inch.” Manfred told a podcast. “So we got that piece of it down. We’re now dealing with the more – I don’t want to say mundane – but less-technology-based pieces of the puzzle.”
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred
One of the issues still being worked on is how ABS will call pitches for different-sized players. “How do you set the strike zone batter to batter? The system will call any geometry of a strike zone; it will call a rectangle, a circle, an oval, whatever.” Manfred said. “What strike zone should we tell it to call? That’s challenging because the rule book definition of the strike zone is not what umpires actually call today.”
The league has made some minor changes to the schedule for the upcoming season. Inter-league series between rivals (Yankees-Mets, Cubs-White Sox) will increase from four to six games in 2025. May 16-18 is being called Rivalry Weekend by Major League Baseball.
The Los Angeles Dodgers and the Cubs will kick off the 2025 season. The teams will play a two-game series at the Tokyo Dome March 18-19. The MLB Opening Day in North America will be on March 27 with 14 games. The Colorado Rockies Tampa Bay Rays opener will be pushed back a day to March 28. Work is still being done at Steinbrenner Field in Florida where the team will play home games this season. Tropicana Field sustained severe damage after it was hit by Hurricane Milton.
The MLB All Star Game is July 15 at Truist Park in Atlanta, Georgia, and there are a couple of special games. The Reds and Braves will play a game at Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee on Aug. 2. The New York Mets will play the Seattle Mariners at the Little League Classic in Williamsport, Pennsylvania on Aug. 17.
For at least the next three seasons the A’s will play in West Sacramento, California. The Athletics will drop the word Oakland from its name because the A’s are. no longer playing there. The team will just be called ‘the Athletics’.
Plans have the team moving to Las Vegas for the 2028 season. That could be pushed back to 2029 depending on the construction schedule. The A’s new Las Vegas stadium renderings (shown above) show a retractable roof. It is scheduled to be built on the strip, costing $1.75 billion and seating for 33,000.
The players got their wish. MLB Uniforms will be made with material used before 2024. Players were not thrilled with the see-through, thin fabric. The lettering on the back of jerseys will be larger this upcoming season.
Also, players will use their team’s primary home and road uniforms this season in the All-Star Game. The league switched to team All-Star uniforms in 2019.
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