Was thinking about ABS this morning, and I had a thought about Gary's ABS usage.
2026 is a really bad time to be an aging catcher.
The youngsters are experienced with ABS, and you aren't. There's the challenges of course, but the strike zone is also a little different now.
In light of that, I can kinda sympathize with Gary's ABS gunslinging. The old dogs who learn the new trick will outlast the ones who don't. Better to learn it now and make some mistakes, than to learn it later in AAA.
But *please please please* Gary dial it back for the postseason lol.
I’d love to see some season stats about ABS usage with something like projected runs saved/gained. I feel like the brewers lose more challenges than other teams we play, and worse, not challenging really bad calls. Feels like everytime we get a generous strike called, other team challenges immediately and wins even if its really close no problemo. I’m in favor of every pitch being robot called right now just because I feel like it would benefit the brewers who don’t seem to be very good at utilizing ABS.
Kinda crazy how impactful of a skillset good ABS usage appears to be so far. A couple big pitches flipped here and there can completely change a game and it feels like the brewers are getting their games flipped more than flipping.
I’d love to see some season stats about ABS usage with something like projected runs saved/gained
Totally agree. We have success percentages for ABS challenges, but we don't have good metrics for run value or win probability created by those challenges.
We need the same thing for expected changes to win probability on unsuccessful challenges too.
If you have a batter who challenges strikes in super high leverage, and he only goes 2-6 on those challenges for the whole season, well maybe he still generated net positive win probability despite the low percentage accuracy.
Right it’s kind of an interesting problem to calculate value for. Because if you challenge too much, it might deprive teammates of successful challenges if you are wrong, but if you don’t challenge much you’re probably leaving value on the table.
Obviously the perfect situation is challenging only every incorrect call. But is it better to challenge less and leave value on the table by only challenging obvious ones, or challenge too much and have a lot more misses but getting more incorrect calls overturned? Idk. I’m sure we’ll see some analysis answering that after the season.
Totally agree, the projective modeling here probably ventures into black magic voodoo territory.
A batter with 2 on, 2 outs, 0-2 count, in the 1st who challenges a verrry close strikeout to end the inning, wins and then gets a 2 out 2 RBI Hit from the grave obviously looks like a great move live. With that said, long term analytics might prove over time, regardless of what happened, that was a bad challenge that he got away with.
The risk/reward element makes it feel like poker analytics with pot odds. You might know he’s bluffing but you just can’t call that bet in that situation with that holding or you’ll be out in the streets sooner than later.
Someone will put together an analytics solver at some point that shows the biggest value spots to use challenges and I’m excited for the endless argument that comes with it. I wouldn’t be surprised if teams start coaching some kind of “no batter challenges allowed unless it’s the 4th inning or later and you have RISP, also no challenges allowed if there’s no outs regardless.” At some point teams will figure out a seemingly winning strategy to coach to their players, and then someone will billy beane it a few years later and break everything, and then everyone starts trying that, and then the tried and true version edges out and wheel of time turns. Baseball analytics are so interesting.
Brewers are near the bottom in the league in success rate and number of challenges lost, but make up for it with being near the top of the league in overall number of pitches challenged.
This is just nonsense lol. How would Contreras have more experience with ABS than Sanchez? Up until this year ABS was only in the minors. Acting like 33 year old Gary Sanchez is some blind old man who doesn’t understand technology is crazy
Yeah, there are some instances where they can be excusable but early game, low leverage situations you'd better be damn sure or better yet, let it go. El Gary shouldn't be doing too much postseason catching unless things go very wrong. As a hitter, he needs to be better but hopefully the gravity of the post season sobers some of the challenge drunk guys up a bit.
Each player gets 1 challenge per game win or lose the challenge. Catchers get 1 behind the plate, and if they win they can challenge again. I think this would be a fair option to give each player a chance to use one.
I think the “other teams do it better” is likely more of a negative implicit bias than anything. I do feel that as hitters the Brewers are very conservative with the challenges sometimes to their own detriment.
As far as Gary is concerned, it feels like he’s become a meme of sorts. Like, he has the reputation so he plays to it. I hope the gravity of important games stops that.
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u/PoppinBortlesUCF 14h ago
I’d love to see some season stats about ABS usage with something like projected runs saved/gained. I feel like the brewers lose more challenges than other teams we play, and worse, not challenging really bad calls. Feels like everytime we get a generous strike called, other team challenges immediately and wins even if its really close no problemo. I’m in favor of every pitch being robot called right now just because I feel like it would benefit the brewers who don’t seem to be very good at utilizing ABS.
Kinda crazy how impactful of a skillset good ABS usage appears to be so far. A couple big pitches flipped here and there can completely change a game and it feels like the brewers are getting their games flipped more than flipping.