Who challenges umps best? MLB rule change makes playoff debut

It has spawned accountability meetings. Forced managers to take certain players “offline.” And others to figuratively kick their players in the butt and tell them to tap their helmets a little more.

The first season of Major League Baseball’s automated ball-strike challenge system has created a certain build-the-plane-as-you-fly-it ethos around the game. That’s not unexpected as teams figure out the highest-leverage chances to potentially burn one of their two challenges per game while figuring out who’s good at it and who’s not.

Now, the grand one-year lab experiment has ended and the true test begins: The playoffs.

Ball-strike challenges that can flip an at-bat and, potentially, a game take on far greater magnitude when a postseason game is at stake. The push-and-pull between disputing a call in a potentially game-turning spot and worrying you’ll be out of challenges by the later innings only grows stronger.

And an exhaustive trove of data coldly exposes who excels at ABS, and who’s flailing.

Teams in the latter category are trying to make it right before the games really count.

“We reevaluated our thought process at the All-Star break and it’s been much better,” says Cleveland Guardians manager Stephen Vogt, whose club ranks 25th…

Original source: https://www.usatoday.com/sports/