The Wednesday Wizengamot returns for its second installment: today we’re going to advocate for the ABS challenge system that will be used in 2025 MLB Spring Training only. For years now, we’ve been able to see accurate locations for pitches to the plate, and we’ve seen how badly many umpires call these balls and strikes. Throw in the blown calls in the field, and we wonder why there is a need on for on-field umps at all.

There isn’t.

We all know that video replay can heal all wounds caused by human error, as we’ve seen it in almost every sport under the sun by this time. So, why is MLB still tolerating huge mistakes in its core moments, batter versus pitcher? Good question. Umpires have been ruining baseball for decades with their bad calls: The 1985 World Series? The Maier kid? The 1997 National League Championship Series? Jeter and Giambi?

We do, not to mention Armando Galarraga. This is long overdue.

This is what CBS Sports had to say about it: “MLB will test the automated strike zone challenge system this spring. With the challenge system, a human umpire calls balls and strikes, and each team has two challenges they can use to appeal to ABS (short for automated ball-strike system). As with regular old replay challenges, you keep your ABS challenge if it’s successful.” Soon it’s going to be clear that two is not enough.

How many games have we all watched on TV with the balls and strikes clearly delineated on the screen via GPS, etc.? How many calls does any given umpire miss in an average game? There’s already a website tracking this stuff for the curious and the infuriated. When it can all be automated, what is the need for umpires behind the plate anymore? None, truly. They’re not there to break up rights, that’s for sure.

And the rest of the umpiring crew isn’t needed, either, with the replay system. Human error has long been a problem in most sports’ methods for officiating, and we’ve privately harped on this for years in many sports as those “errors” can sometimes be driven by agendas, whether for personal or profitability reasons. Many cities and their teams and their fans have been deprived of championship glory because of bad officiating.

The list is long, for sure. And it never had to be that way.

While we applaud MLB for taking a step in the right direction with appropriate use of AI to improve life, we also think it’s way past its time; yet it’s also not going to be enough. Umpires and their egos have been a problem in the sport, too, for decades: they are there to oversee and regulate, never to become part of the story itself as the game-flow narratives unfold. No one ever even need know their names now, in truth.

Because we don’t need them in MLB, period.