With spring 2026 officially here and Opening Day right around the corner, it’s hard to ignore one of the biggest shake-ups MLB has ever rolled out: the long-awaited ability to challenge ball and strike calls. After years of debate and a ton of testing in Triple-A and a handful of spring training games, the Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) system is finally ready for its regular-season debut.

However, as we’re officially entering an era where players can challenge the strike zone, not everyone is thrilled about it.

Some pitchers are already pushing back. Following earlier criticism from Walker Buehler and Tarik Skubal, the Braves’ left-hander Chris Sale has now made it clear he’s not on board with the new system either.

“I will never challenge a pitch. I’m not an umpire. That’s their job,” Talkin Baseball quoted Sale from his Spring training.

The nine-time All-Star has made it clear he’ll leave ball-and-strike decisions to the people actually paid to make them, the umpires. He knows his competitive instincts could push him to challenge pitches that feel like strikes, even when they’re not. Hence, it’s better to trust the process than his emotions in the heat of the moment.

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That’s what makes his stance a little surprising.

Back in April, during a game against the Phillies, he completely lost it after a borderline fastball on the edge was ruled a ball. Sale was convinced it should’ve rung up Alec Bohm, and he made sure everyone in the stadium knew how he felt, arms waving, frustration boiling over.

Still, despite moments like that, Sale seems more focused on protecting the human element of the game than fighting the ABS.

His comments also line up with similar sentiments from Tarik Skubal and Walker Buehler. Skubal was blunt about ABS last year: “If the rule is coming, it doesn’t matter what I feel like. We don’t have much say in our own game.” That sounds less like resistance and more like frustration over players not being fully brought along for the ride.

Buehler, meanwhile, took ABS outrageously.

He argued that veteran starters should be given more leeway on the strike zone than younger pitchers.

Sure, unwritten rules exist, and umpires have always tended to give established arms the benefit of the doubt. But a strike is a strike, no matter who’s throwing it.

And that’s the key point, getting lost in all this. The ABS isn’t here to erase umpires or drain the human soul from the sport, but to support them. If anything, ABS could help make the game fairer without taking away what makes it baseball.

ABS would take baseball umpiring to the next level

Rather than wiping out the home plate umpire’s role altogether, ABS is shaping up to be more of a safety net than a hard-and-fast law. The system offers a cleaner, more black-and-white view of the strike zone than any human ever could.

And honestly, the timing makes sense. Remember last June’s matchup between the Reds and the Cardinals, veteran umpire CB Bucknor missed a staggering 28 calls. That was the most by any umpire in a single game during the 2025 season.

So, that’s exactly where ABS can help.

It’s not about embarrassing umpires or stripping away the human element. It’s about cutting down on mistakes that everyone in the stadium can see in real time. And if the goal is a fairer, cleaner game, it’s hard to argue against a system designed to reduce errors rather than pretend they don’t exist.