Mets who will benefit most from the new ABS challenge system

"Challenge as much as possible. We want to see who's good and who's not before we start putting guidelines and come up with a game plan. But intention and reality are two different things, and though it's still early and the sample size is small, some trends are emerging."

"Though they'd done it only 17 times, the Mets aren't exactly bottom of the barrel when it comes to challenges - between batters and fielders, they've challenged 3.3% of challengeable events, which is close to league average. That's in line with what happened in Triple-A last year, where the range of batter challenges was between 3.2 and 6.9%."

"In Triple-A last year and this year's spring training, about 50% of challenges were successful. The Mets are not yet exactly thriving under the system, though: According to Baseball Savant's spring training ABS data, their -4.2 overturns versus expected overturns are the ninth worst in baseball."

Major League Baseball is implementing an automatic ball-strike challenge system this season. The Mets manager initially planned aggressive challenge strategies to evaluate the system before establishing guidelines. However, early spring training data reveals conservative challenge patterns across teams. The Mets have challenged 3.3% of challengeable events, near league average. Triple-A data from last year, which used the system for a full season, shows challenge rates between 3.2-6.9% for batters and 1.5-2.9% for fielders, with approximately 50% success rates. The Mets currently underperform expectations with -4.2 overturns versus expected, ranking ninth worst, though their batters exceed average while pitchers and catchers lag significantly.

Read at Newsday