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Alexander: ABS system is 1 week old and umpiring is already being upended

April 4, 2026

The world according to Jim:

• The ABS system is now part of Major League Baseball – and have some of us maybe been reminded of the old adage about being careful what you wish for? …

• We are still learning what the wrinkles of this challenge system will be, including players, coaches and managers. You have two challenges available, and you lose one for each wrong guess. (Let’s just assume that all the wrong ones are guesses and the right ones are “had ’em all the way.”) …

• So do you challenge an egregious call early? Why not, if you’re sure that the Hawkeye technology will agree that you’re right? Do you save a challenge for the ninth inning just in case you need it? You almost have to if the game is close.

Are certain players more trustworthy than others when it comes to tapping the hat or the helmet? Managers spent all spring learning whom to trust, encouraging some – hitters, particularly – to follow their instincts and suggesting to others that they act a little more judiciously. …

• But let’s save some consideration for the umpires, and I know how tough that is, especially as much as TV’s strike-zone box has seemed to magnify just how many bad ball-strike calls there have been over the years.

We’ve already seen the snarky suggestion that Ángel Hernández – judged in the court of public opinion (or at least social media) as baseball’s worst umpire – left the game just in time when he retired in May. And CB Bucknor, another arbiter who has been dragged by the public for his command of the strike zone, had a brutal first week. Last Saturday in Cincinnati he had eight calls challenged and six overturned – including two sets of back-to-back pitches.

Bucknor, a 30-year umpiring veteran, is one of those about whom we would complain under the old system, and I sometimes wonder if that strike-zone box made his (and others’) calls look worse than they really were.

But consider: A player showing up or embarrassing an umpire usually earned an early shower. Now the technology embarrasses an umpire even more than a player could, and what’s the recourse? Eject the tech guy? …

• To make Bucknor’s week worse, Tuesday in Milwaukee he badly missed a call at first base, saying the Brewers’ Jake Bauers never touched the bag on an overthrow (the video showed that he most certainly did). And the next day, umpiring behind the plate, Bucknor took a foul ball flush in the mask in the second inning and had to come out of the game. …

• For better or worse, we no longer have individual strike zones, with each umpire improvising the way a singer might. Nor do we have the plate ump maybe widening the zone a bit in the ninth inning of a blowout on getaway day. That sort of thing – “OK, you’d better be swinging, because we’ve all got planes to catch” – was actually part of the charm of the game.

But as radio host Dan Patrick said the other day, “They allowed umpires to have their own interpretation of a strike zone, which is crazy. It should be, ‘Here’s the uniformity of it. This is it. Now get used to it.’ ” …

• How would the Greg Madduxes and Jamie Moyers of the world have handled the ABS system? They were among the pitchers who would live on the edge of the strike zone and had good enough control to get the benefit of the doubt on close pitches. They’d be in enough trouble these days anyway, because if you can’t throw at least 95 mph the game has no place for you. And now the benefit of the doubt has been taken away. …

• I’ve become convinced in recent seasons that umpiring behind the plate seems worse because of (a) the emphasis on velocity and spin and the way pitches break so crazily, and (b) the emphasis on catchers’ framing ability. Umpires are overmatched. (But if the ABS system reduces catchers’ ability to steal strikes through framing, I don’t consider that a bad thing.) …

• Interestingly, in idle press-box conversation last season with an umpire evaluator who shall remain anonymous, discussing the imminent implementation of the ABS system, he suggested that umpires weren’t opposed to it if it meant getting the calls right. But maybe we all should have anticipated the humiliation factor. …

• So, among the notices tacked to bulletin boards in umpires’ dressing rooms, maybe this message should be added:

“Technology hates you.” …

• This week’s quiz: UCLA faces South Carolina on Sunday in Phoenix for women’s basketball’s national championship. The Bruins have been to this point before, winning a championship before the NCAA even paid attention to the sport. When the Bruins won it in 1978, who did they beat and which organization sponsored this championship?

Bonus question: Who was the leading scorer in that championship game? Answers below. …

• Some of the program’s elders who won that 1978 title, including Ann Meyers Drysdale and Denise Curry, are in Phoenix for this year’s championship weekend, Gabriela Jaquez told a questioner after Friday’s victory over Texas, “Give credit to the people that have walked before us, They have won championships.” …

• Also worth noting: When Cori Close and UCLA face Dawn Staley and South Carolina on Sunday, it will be the fifth time in seven seasons that two women will be coaching in the championship game and first since 2024. …

• Quiz answer: UCLA defeated Maryland, 90-74, for the championship of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women on March 25, 1978, before 9,351 at Pauley Pavilion and a national TV audience for the first time on NBC. Bonus answer: Meyers nearly had a quadruple-double (20 points, 10 rebounds, nine assists, eight steals), while Anita Ortega scored a game-high 23 points for UCLA. …

• And the meeting of big schools in the championship game, after years in which the women’s sport was dominated by schools like Immaculata and Delta State, was said to be the point where the NCAA began to suspect there might be something to this women’s basketball after all.

jalexander@scng.com

Orange County Register

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Alexander: ABS system is 1 week old and umpiring is already being upended

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