This story was excerpted from Mark Bowman’s Braves Beat newsletter. MLB.com’s Jason Foster pinch-hit for this edition. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
For everything that has gone right for the Braves this season, one thing has gone very wrong: ABS challenges. In one sense, no team in baseball has struggled more with the new pitch-challenging system than Atlanta.
How bad has it been? Braves hitters entered Wednesday with MLB’s lowest overturn rate, at just 40 percent. That won’t come as a surprise to fans who’ve watched Braves hitters lose questionable challenges with a high frequency all season.
Among the team’s hitters who’ve initiated at least five challenges, only one has a success rate of even 50 percent. That’s Dominic Smith, who has challenged 10 times and won five. The next-highest success rate in that group belongs to Ronald Acuña Jr., at 45 percent, followed by Ozzie Albies (44 percent), Mauricio Dubón (40 percent), Michael Harris II (36 percent), Matt Olson (32 percent) and Austin Riley (20 percent). The league-average success rate for hitters is 49 percent.
But challenging the wrong pitch is just one way the Braves have struggled with ABS. They’ve also missed opportunities on offense by not challenging pitches that were incorrectly called strikes. While there’s no stat that perfectly measures pitches that should’ve been challenged but weren’t, there is a category for “reasonable” challenges, which can help illustrate missed opportunities. It even has an official definition:
A “reasonable” challenge opportunity occurs when at least one of the following is true: The original call was incorrect; the pitch is within 3 inches of the strike zone edge and an overturn would gain at least 0.3 runs; the pitch carries an expected challenge rate of at least 20%.
From a hitter’s perspective, that essentially means pitches that have a decent chance of being overturned if challenged. Braves hitters had challenged just 18 percent of “reasonable” opportunities, which ranked 25th in baseball.
Here’s an example from Atlanta’s Aug. 19 game against the Twins. Riley, in a tie game with a runner at second and one out, declined to challenge this strike three call, even though it was clearly off the plate and the team still had both challenges available.
On the flip side, just 64 percent of their hitters’ challenges had met the “reasonable” definition, which ranked 23rd in MLB. That means, essentially, that Braves hitters have initiated a lot of questionable challenges — an idea verified by their MLB-worst overturn percentage.
Here’s one from Matt Olson against the Orioles on July 25, also in a tie game.
In all, Braves hitters had initiated just 72 “reasonable” challenges this season, which ranked 28th in baseball. That would include pitches they probably should’ve challenged as well as those they probably shouldn’t have challenged.
So, why is this important?
Well, ABS will undoubtedly be an X-factor for every team in the postseason, a new wrinkle to consider and something else that requires a strategy. And the potential for momentum swings is huge. Teams that use ABS well can potentially change an at-bat, which can change a game, which can change a series.
Notably, Braves catchers have done well with ABS challenges on defense. Atlanta backstops had a 62 percent overturn rate entering Wednesday’s game, the eighth-best mark in MLB and far better than the success rate of the team’s hitters. Sean Murphy continued the success when he challenged a ball call against reliever Elieser Hernández that was overturned to Strike 2 on Abimelec Ortiz, who then popped out to end the sixth inning of the Braves’ 9-0 win over the Nationals.
Obviously, challenging Major League pitches is not easy. There’s triple-digit velocity, nasty breaking balls, situational pressure and more. But all teams face those. Yet, some are good at using ABS. Braves players know it’s something they need to improve.
“Looking back … just got to trust your gut there,” Riley said after his non-challenge against the Twins. “I kind of went like I was going for it and ended up not … I think the big deal there is … runner on second, ended up being a strikeout. I think that’s a situation where I need to pull the trigger there.”
The Braves continue to talk as a team about the best times to challenge based on count, circumstance and point in the game. But all the discussion in the world only helps so much in the heat of the moment.
“This has been a running debate,” manager Walt Weiss said after the Aug. 19 game in Minnesota. “It’s tougher than it looks. It’s in the heat of the moment and it has to be a split-second decision. You’re trying to weigh the risk and the reward in the moment. It’s just a lot to think about. After the fact, you’d like to have some of those calls overturned. But I don’t think it’s quite as easy as it looks.”
And, no, the Braves’ lack of success with ABS has not made their hitters hesitant to use it. But Harris echoed Weiss’ thoughts about the, well, challenges of challenging.
“The toughest part about it is, all [the ball] has to do is scrape the zone. And kind of knowing that in the box — how far off or how much in the zone it is — is kinda tough,” Harris said. “They’re throwing 100 [mph] and you’re trying to be on time for the pitch and make sure it’s good enough or off the plate. It’s one of those things that kind of gets better over time and just something you’ve gotta fix, I guess.”
Still, Harris also acknowledged the role ABS could play in the postseason, illustrating the need for good strategy — and good execution. Missed opportunities, or unfortunate challenges, can lead to unfortunate results. But wise challenges can lead to good things.
Either way, as Harris put it, “It can change a playoff game real quick.”