St. Paul Saints slugger Matt Wallner welcomes his robo-ump overlords

John Shipley, Pioneer Press
·4 min read
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During clubhouse access before a random game last season, Twins right fielder Max Kepler was asked if he’s in favor of having ball and strikes determined by the Automatic Balls/Strikes System baseball has been tweaking the past few years.

He thought about it briefly before answering, “No.”

Why?

“Because then I won’t have anyone else to blame.”

That day is closing fast for major league players because ABS is one step from the bigs, getting one last, season-long test run at Triple-A before MLB decides whether to bring it to the majors.

Keep in mind that all the new MLB rules this season — bigger bases, timers for pitchers and batters, and a limit on how many times a pitcher can throw to a base — all had one last, season-long test run at Triple-A last season.

Twins prospect Matt Wallner, a slugger from Forest Lake who will start the season in St. Paul, is eager to get another look. He liked ABS when it was used in some parks during the 2021 Arizona Fall League.

“That’s my only experience with that, and that one I liked,” he said from CHS Field, where the Twins’ top minor-league affiliate began assembling for this weekend’s opening series at Toledo. “If it’s that same one, I’ll love it.”

It should be better because MLB has had two years to tweak the system, which is installed at CHS Field but won’t be fully calibrated until about April 24, a little more than two weeks after the Saints’ April 4 home opener against the Iowa Cubs.

Each ABS system is calibrated specifically for its park.

And yes, Kepler is right. If a batter gets punched out looking when the robo ump is on the job, “there’s really not much you can say,” Saints manager Toby Gardenhire said. “You can complain about the system and say, ‘this system sucks,’ or something like that, but you really can’t complain to the umpire.”

The umpire will still announce the call for the camera and fans in attendance. The correct call will be replayed by an official scorer in the press box through an earpiece.

As scheduled, the first three games of each six-game series — the Saints’ opening series is an anomalous two-gamer — will use only the ABS systems to call balls and strikes. Where it will get interesting is in the last three games, when umpires will be calling balls and strikes but can be challenged, with the ABS system being the final arbiter.

Making it more interesting is the fact that after a challenge — the pitcher, batter or catcher makes it by tapping his head — the ABS reading will be shown on the stadium’s big screen for all in attendance to see. Still another wrinkle is the fact that teams get only three challenges a game. If the ump was wrong, they keep the challenge; if not, they’re down to two. And so on.

Baseball used the ABS system at some Class A parks last season, including the Twins’ Low-A Hammond Stadium, and the Mussels learned quickly that it’s an adjustment.

“Our Low-A manager (Florida State League manager of the year Brian Meyer) told us that one of the guys goes up there and in the first at-bat he lost two challenges — the leadoff hitter in the game,” Gardenhire said. “He said (the batter) challenged, like, the second pitch and the fourth pitch of the game, and they were both wrong. Then they were down to one” challenge for the rest of the game.

The benefit of the ABS system, of course, is that the strike zone is literally the same for every game in every park. Anyone who has ever paid attention to a major-league game, ever, knows that isn’t currently the case.

“You know your zone,” Wallner said. “It’s the same with every umpire, obviously. So, I don’t have to expand off because the guy might be calling outside that day, or down and away. You never want to do that ideally, but sometimes you’ve got to force your hand a little bit. But I think the consistency is awesome.”

As part of its quest to shorten games and increase action, MLB is most interested in using the ABS system as the standard, but it’s interesting that Triple-A will play three games a series with the challenge system.

While shown to be quick — it was used during a game between Syracuse and Charlotte last August — the challenge system could open another can of worms in a full, rowdy ballpark. It’s likely just another way to test the system’s accuracy and iron out any unforeseen issues.

“That’s what we’re here to find out,” Gardenhire said. “That’s why they do it in the minor leagues before they do it in the big leagues, because they’re looking for those types of problems that pop up.”

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