The Philadelphia Phillies will be showing up to spring training in a little over a month. There's still much of the offseason remaining, but there are other obstacles to work through outside the normal roster construction and game planning for a new season. A major change that will be implemented this coming season will be the automatic ball-strike (ABS) challenge system.
The challenge system has been looming for a few seasons over Major League Baseball, and the 2026 season will be the first of its use in regular season play. It will be an adjustment from what players have done in the past, with managers having to get themselves ready for the change.
Phillies manager Rob Thomson already on board with new ABS challenge system to be used in 2026
Phillies manager Rob Thomson will be like every other manager around the league, trying to sort through the nuances of having a challenge system in place on balls and strikes. It's something that has never been done in top level of the sport, and Thomson will now be responsible for his club's use of it.
He also shared his initial thoughts on the challenge system, per ESPN's Jesse Rogers.
“I really want to sit down with our minor league people, especially our Triple-A staff, because they know more about it than I do,” Thomson said, per Rogers. “I think I'm going to really like it. I liked it last year in spring training, and I think the players really liked it for the most part.”
“There's a couple of guys that weren't real keen on it, but I think for the most part, guys liked it.”
The new system allows teams to challenge a ball or strike twice throughout a game. If correct, teams can keep challenging. An incorrect challenge results is losing one challenge. Once both challenges are gone, a team loses the option for the remainder of the game. The challenge can only be made by the pitcher, catcher, or hitter and has to be instantaneous with no room for review or possible delay, different from the normal replay review.
It's smart for Thomson to consult the minor league teams with their use of the ABS system over the last few seasons. The Phillies got their taste of it during spring training last year, but it would be great to get some insight into how it will work over an entire season in much higher-leverage situations.
The reason for Thomson's optimism is also one that can be felt league-wide, and that's the frustration over missed calls by umpires with the game on the line. Phillies fans may have more than a few memories of games that would have gone much differently if a call (or two) had gone the other way. The challenge system is here to minimize that issue and will hopefully cut down on errors moving forward.
Fans, players, and managers are all going to go through this experience together, with growing pains expected. The spring training and minor league experiments have hopefully curbed some obvious issues and will, ideally, allow a smooth transition for Thomson and the Phillies.