In the recent years of the MLB, umpires like Ángel Hernández and C.B. Bucknor have ruined baseball. Their missed calls, inconsistent strike zones, and an overly-confrontational attitude towards players have caused the game to be unfair at the pro level. That’s why the league introduced the ABS (Automatic Ball Strike) system for the ongoing 2026 season. It works by using 12 “Hawk-Eye” cameras to track where the ball crosses the plate and creates an image similar to pro tennis. It also shows the margin of error that the umpires made or did not make in inches. According to Baseball Savant, an MLB affiliated website, 53% of challenges have been successful with about 1,300 overturns and about 1,100 confirmed calls. (https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/abs) But with all this new tech and frequent overturns, is baseball actually improving? I think not.
Umpires out of a Job
The MLB is more than just a pro sports league, it’s a reason for a city to unite, people to get exercise and get out, and most importantly, provide jobs for the public. According to the MLB, thousands of jobs are available and provided for the American public every year, including executive roles, data collection and analyzation, finance, marketing and of course, the Umpire Operations. Simply put, with the development of technological umps, humans will be out of a job that provides stability for themselves and their family.
The Life Lesson
With the introduction of ABS, sooner or later, robot umpires will dominate the game. While this could remove the frequent human errors that happen, I believe that as we move into the future, all college divisions and high level high school divisions will also implement this technology. Cutting to the point, baseball is a random, unpredictable, unforgiving, and unfair game. As we move into the future and the youth become more accustomed to perfect and fair calls all of the time, it removes the small life lesson in baseball, which is that life isn’t always fair.
Umps taking back ABS authority
According to an article written by The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/mar/25/former-mlb-umpire-fears-officials-face-humiliation-by-computer-geeks-under-abs), there is significant concern for umpires being humiliated in front of massive crowds and live television. A quote from the article spoken by former umpire Richie Garcia says it best: “‘I think it’s embarrassing, embarrassing to the umpires that are calling the game. Nobody likes to be humiliated in front of 30,000, 40,000 people.'” To combat this loss of power, umpires have been speculated to be abusing the “2-second rule” during games. The rule states that the batter, pitcher, or catcher must challenge a call within 2 seconds. But, there is no official timer for this.
During a fairly recent game between the Baltimore Orioles and Athletics, the Orioles catcher thought a ball was a strike. Because of this, his immediate reaction was to raise the ball to throw it back to the pitcher, but he hesitated and tapped his helmet because he expected the call to be a ball. The Umpire denied the call because of that hesitation, and according to the MLB rule, it’s up to the umps to make the final call on whether or not they can allow the challenge.
