Robot umpires to make All-Star Game
debut, another step toward possible regular-season use in 2026
[July 15, 2025]
By RONALD BLUM
ATLANTA (AP) — Tarik Skubal views the strike zone differently than
robot umpires.
“I have this thing where I think everything is a strike until the
umpire calls it a ball,” Detroit's AL Cy Young Award winner said
ahead of his start for the American League in Tuesday night's
All-Star Game.
MLB has been experimenting with the automated ball-strike system in
the minor leagues since 2019 and will use it in an All-Star Game for
the first time this summer. Each team gets two challenges and
retains the challenge if it is successful.
“Pitchers think everything is a strike. Then you go back and look at
it, and it’s two, three balls off,” Pittsburgh's Paul Skenes,
starting his second straight All-Star Game for the National League,
said Monday. “We should not be the ones that are challenging it.”
MLB sets the top of the automated strike zone at 53.5% of a batter's
height and the bottom at 27%, basing the decision on the midpoint of
the plate, 8 1/2 inches from the front and 8 1/2 inches from the
back. That contrasts with the rule book zone called by umpires,
which says the zone is a cube.
“I did a few rehabs starts with it. I’m OK with it. I think it
works,” said three-time Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw of the
Dodgers. “Aaron Judge and Jose Altuve should have different sized
boxes. They've obviously thought about that. As long as that gets
figured out, I think it’ll be fine.”

Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred anticipates the system will be
considered by the sport's 11-man competition committee, which
includes six management representatives.
Many pitchers have gravitated to letting their catchers and managers
trigger ball/strike appeals. Teams won 52.2% of their challenges
during the spring training test. Batters won exactly 50% of their
596 challenges and the defense 54%, with catchers successful 56% of
the time and pitchers 41%.
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The Automated Ball-Strike System plays on the scoreboard after a
pitch call was challenged during the first inning of a spring
training baseball game between the Chicago White Sox and the San
Diego Padres, Feb. 26, 2025, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster,
File)

Hall of Famer Joe Torre, an honorary AL coach,
favors the system. After his managing career, he worked for MLB and
helped supervised expanded video review in 2014.
“You couldn’t ignore it with all the technology out there,” he said.
"You couldn't sit and make an excuse for, 'Look at what really
happened' the next day.”
Now 84, Torre recalled how his Yankees teams benefitted at least
twice from blown calls in the postseason, including one involving
the strike zone.
With the 1998 World Series opener tied and the bases loaded with two
outs in the seventh inning, Tino Martinez took a 2-2 pitch from San
Diego's Mark Langston that appeared to be a strike but was called a
ball by Richie Garcia. Martinez hit a grand slam on the next pitch
for a 9-5 lead, and the Yankees went on to a four-game sweep.
Asked whether he was happy there was no robot umpire then, Torre
grinned and said: “Possibly.”
Then he added without a prompt: “Well, not to mention the home run
that Jeter hit."
His reference was to Derek Jeter's home run in the 1996 AL
Championship Series opener, when 12-year-old fan Jeffrey Maier
reached over the wall to snatch the ball above the glove over
Baltimore right fielder Tony Tarasco.
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