Robot Umpires Have Come to MLB—and They’re Making Players Look Completely Clueless

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Major League Baseball players often think they could make better calls than the umpire who's standing behind home plate.

They're finally getting the opportunity to prove themselves.

For the first time ever, Major League Baseball is letting players in spring training express their concerns about pitches that are called balls and strikes to a completely impartial judge: a computer. After using the technology in minor leagues for a few years, MLB is testing it in the exhibition games to see if it's ready for the big leagues. If the test is successful, it could be used in regular season games as early as 2026.

People who have already seen the robo-umps in action are saying that players are about to discover they don't have as good an understanding of the strike zone as they thought they did.

There are people who will be humbled, probably," New York Mets Triple-A manager Dick Scott said. "As they should be.

Unlike the replay rules that are already in place, which allow managers to initiate appeals from the dugout after taking time to deliberate, ball-strike challenges have two main differences: They can only be initiated by the pitcher, catcher, or batter—and they must be done immediately.

The result is a format that combines elements of strategy and personality with automation. This is because highly competitive and emotional professional athletes often struggle with knowing when to request a challenge.

Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Landon Knack learned that the hard way during his time in Triple-A. He remembers one or two instances when he questioned a pitch out of frustration, only to immediately regret it. All Knack could do was stand on the mound and watch the scoreboard display showing the location of the ball, as everyone in the stadium saw that he was embarrassingly wrong.

"You'll notice players arguing and then walking back to the dugout," said Minnesota Twins Triple-A manager Toby Gardenhire. "You think to yourself, 'If you argued with the call, why are you walking back if you really believe it should be a ball?'

Almost anyone who played in the minor leagues last season can relate to this situation. Scott remembers a game where a struggling hitter argued a strike call in one at-bat, trying to avoid a strikeout. When the batter returned to the dugout, he said his teammates were giving him a hard time. All he could say was, “I don't know what I was thinking.”

That kind of impulsiveness comes with a big cost, since ball-strike challenges aren't limitless. After two misses, teams can't dispute the location of a pitch for the rest of the game, potentially leaving themselves with no way to challenge a questionable call at a crucial moment later on.

To address that problem, minor league teams recognized they needed to establish specific internal policies regarding when players could use challenges. Rule number one: Reserve them for critical situations, such as when there are runners on base in the late innings.

There were guys taking them early," Kansas City Royals first baseman Nick Pratto said, "and suddenly we wouldn't have any challenges.

It appears that legislating when players challenge isn't the only issue. The main concern is actually who gets to challenge. Players and managers from across Triple-A agree that one group of players should never be allowed to challenge calls.

Pitchers," Knack said, "are really bad at it.

"We likely had a 90% failure rate with all the pitchers last season," said Dodgers catcher Hunter Feduccia.

Chandler Champlain, a pitching prospect for the Royals, explained why some umpires call pitches close to being strikes. "Being biased as a pitcher," he said, "I think anything close is a strike."

Champlain claims he only disputed two pitches last season and was correct both times, but that doesn't stop him from criticizing teammates who weren't as accurate. He said Will Klein, a reliever now with the Seattle Mariners, "thinks the strike zone is 10 feet high and 10 feet wide" and would dispute pitches that were "off by, like, five balls."

Klein mentioned that most of his problems occurred in the ninth inning, so it seemed reasonable to be more aggressive from that point forward. He also stated that he would need to contact Champlain to clarify the situation.

Several minor league teams have explicitly prohibited their pitchers from making plays at the plate, directing them to leave the responsibility to catchers, who have a significantly higher success rate in such situations.

“They still manage to do it,” Gardenhire said.

Major League Baseball previously considered adopting a fully automated strike zone, but ultimately decided against it after receiving negative feedback from fans. Many players felt that it was "an overreach of technology" and "too big a change for baseball," according to MLB executive vice president of baseball operations Morgan Sword.

Throughout the spring, Major League Baseball will be collecting feedback about the automated umpires. Players will have access to iPads in the dugout, allowing them to view how the computer would have called every pitch.

According to Feduccia's experience, he suggests players pay attention to those readings. He mentioned that the Dodgers told their minor leaguers to wait one turn through the batting order before challenging any pitches, allowing the catcher to observe the slight differences in how the system was calibrated from ballpark to ballpark.

It appears that even robots may benefit from an eye checkup on occasion.

jared.diamond@wsj.com