Baseball's ABS System Is Working!
Rates & Barrels: A show about Baseball
The Athletic
4.7 • 875 Ratings
🗓️ 30 March 2026
⏱️ 63 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Eno and DVR look back at the first weekend of the 2026 MLB season, which featured immediate ABS drama in several games and plenty of excitement at the ballpark, Plus, they discuss an extension for Nico Hoerner, as the Cubs secure another long-term part of their core, before answering mailbag questions about limiting challenges to critical counts, and what 'A' and 'B' bullpens are. Finally, they explain their process for making some of their toughest decisions for the week, and takeaways from a messy weekend in several bullpens.
Rundown
0:21 The Crowd Goes Wild, For ABS!: Loud Roars & the First Ejection!
7:41 Righting the Wrongs: Can Aaron Judge Become Even Better with ABS?
8:57 Coming Soon: Challenge Timers & Lights?
12:42 The Cubs Extend Nico Hoerner: Six-Year, $141 Million Deal Adds to Core
20:03 Jacob deGrom Scratched From Weekend Start (Neck Stiffness): Could Return This Week
21:02 Will Teams Limit Challenges Based on Count?
25:30 How Do Stuff+ Updates Drop on FanGraphs?
27:51 Jake Irvin, Emerson Hancock & Randy Vásquez Surprise
36:05 What Are ‘A’ and ‘B’ Bullpens?
40:40 How We Make Our Most Difficult Lineup Decisions
50:14 Pickups & Panics: Messy Bullpens & Eno’s FOMO Drop
Related Reading ($)
"Inside MLB’s new ABS challenge system: Which umpires, teams and players thrived and struggled" by Johnny Flores Jr.:
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7156691
"Payback time for Yankees’ Aaron Judge? ABS could mean revenge after years of bad calls" by Brendan Kuty:
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7153125
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Hosts: Derek VanRiper & Eno Sarris
Editor: Jason Potere
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Today on Rates and Barrels, we discuss a wild opening weekend around baseball and another extension for the Cubs. |
| 0:06.5 | Let's go. |
| 0:17.1 | Welcome to Rates and Barrels to Monday, March 30th. |
| 0:19.8 | Derek Van Riper here at Enoseres. |
| 0:22.2 | The ABS system is here, Eno, and it worked great in the opening weekend. |
| 0:27.8 | It might have even been the star of the show in a few instances around the league. |
| 0:32.1 | The crowd went wild. |
| 0:33.3 | I think the crowd really loved it. |
| 0:34.9 | In Toronto, Alejandro Kirk, got a strike three to finish off the side for Dylan |
| 0:41.8 | Sees and the crowd went wild. |
| 0:44.0 | There's an audience participation aspect to it, not only in the waiting for the strike |
| 0:50.0 | call to come through on the screen, but also in the showing up the ump. C.B. Buckner had a bad day in |
| 0:57.5 | Cincinnati where he was out there. Uh, he got six calls overturned by the Reds who remember, |
| 1:03.7 | we, we pointed out, the Reds were the best team at ABS in the, in the spring, in the spring, spring, you know, run up to this. |
| 1:13.5 | And so the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, team Buccane, Bukner, including two consecutive strike threes against Johan Suarez, the crowd |
| 1:24.4 | really love those moments. |
| 1:26.8 | I think we love it when the umpires |
| 1:29.0 | being wrong |
| 1:30.5 | gets fixed. |
| 1:31.3 | I think that's something that we all underestimated when ABS was implemented going into this season. |
| 1:37.3 | Mike Petriello had some data on Monday morning. |
| 1:40.3 | Overall, 54% of challenges have resulted in calls being overturned. From the hitters |
... |
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