From Bryan Hoch:
Aaron Judge may be among the most prominent beneficiaries of the new Automatic Ball-Strike (ABS) system, given the frequency with which the Yankees’ captain has been rung up on called strikes over the past several years.
Judge tapped his helmet for the first time in a Major League game on Friday, overturning a call to extend a sixth-inning at-bat against Robbie Ray. He made the most of it, blasting a two-run homer in a 3-0 victory over the Giants at Oracle Park.
“It’s weird. It’s a new part of the game,” Judge said. “You’ve just got to get used to it. I’m a hitter. I’ve got to focus on hitting. I’m not going to try to challenge every single one I think is close, but if there’s a big spot where I think I’ve got a chance to flip the count, I’m going to do it.”
Giancarlo Stanton also homered for the Yankees, who tossed a one-hit shutout behind Cam Schlittler and four relievers. It marked the first time in franchise history they’ve opened a season with back-to-back shutouts.
The ABS system is already having a major impact on the game. Cam Schlittler was dominant in this one, but even with that dominance, what if he hadn’t gotten the ABS-reversal in the first on a strike three that was called a ball (notable enough that I included it as the header image)? Who knows what happens? At the very least, he would have had to throw an extra pitch. It totally changes the game.
No more notable, of course, then when Aaron Judge had a call overturned in the top of the 6th that turned the count from 1-1 to 2-0. He then hit a go-ahead home run on a 3-2 pitch that, of course, likely wouldn’t have happened had it been 1-1 and not 2-0 early in the count.
I’m very much in favor of this shit, and there’s still major gamesmanship involved, as when do you challenge? The Giants went 1-2 in their challenges, while the Yankees went 2-2. And Patrick Bailey obviously knows the strike zone better than most people, so when even HE is only .500, I imagine we’ll see SUPER obvious calls overturned, but mostly a lot of close calls confirmed.
Schlittler was amazing, and the bullpen was quite good, as well. If the Yankees have actually fixed Camilo Doval, it changes the back end of this bullpen in a BIG way, ESPECIALLY since Doval is under team control through NEXT season. Let’s say that you had faith in Devin Williams last year as Bednar’s setup man. Having Doval excel in the role would mean that the team really only lost Luke Weaver in terms of a bullpen role, and Weaver was UNPITCHABLE in the 2025 playoffs, so was he really that much of a loss?
Doval being good would mean that Cruz can remain a seventh inning guy with Tim Hill, and then we can just hope that someone else improves to the point where THEY could be the guy that gets the ball in the 8th when Doval has pitched too frequently. Someone like Jake Bird or Brent Headrick. We shall see how Paul Blackburn is going to be used going forward. Is he a short man or a long man? If he is a long man, then why the fuck is he on this team with Ryan Yarbrough already being the long man?
Anyhow, great win.
Let’s see if Will Warren can even come CLOSE to these games.
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If Cam Schlittler is long-term for real, that’s a massive improvement for this team.
That must have been fun to watch!
My own complaint about the ABS system is that umpires fucking things up is still part of it. Gamesmanship is one thing – but retaining just getting the calls wrong, so that they guy who performed better is actually punished, is just beyond stupid.
Get all the calls right is you have the ability to do that.
Weaver was unpitchable. Undeniably true.
The thing is that it’s SO recent – the beginning of the very same season – the he was UNHITTABLE. Literally (using that word correctly) as good as, really better than, any other reliever in baseball. In the previous postseason there were articles on what made his pitches so crazy special. It’s not like he had some kind of major operation. That’s still in there, you have to think.
You can say that they lost that guy already, after the 1st quarter of last season… but you have to wonder whether that guy is really irretrievably gone.
The lack of a game on Sunday was not a big deal if St. John’s beat Duke last night, but now not having a Sunday game is a raincloud over the day.
What I really like is that Schlittler represents possibility. The Yankees system has churned out some back end guys – good not great, and a few better one we have missed on trading them away. Schlittler seems like a legit mid to top end rotation guy we have developed. Has it been since Andy Petite that we brought up a guy like that? Plus, this kid is one of 2-4 (depending on what hype you buy into) that we have in our system right now. I’m feeling kind of bullish on our rotation for the next 3-5 yrs.
I think we’re seeing the payoff on the work Blake has been doing since he got here six years ago.
It’s hard to believe he’s only been here that long, and because of COVID, he obviously couldn’t implement all of his policies right away, as they didn’t even have CONTACT with their minor league guys that first year (which is why they didn’t know that Whitlock had healed REALLY well from his injury).
So starting circa 2022 is when he really got to work on these young guys, and we are seeing it pay off now with multiple guys who all have the same basic profile.
They almost literally CREATED Schlittler out of whole cloth with their weird bio shit that almost sounds like science fiction.
AL West is kinda nifty so far, partly in the sense of karmic justice, and partly just fun with small sample size. The Astros have lost their first two to the projected-last-place Angels, and Mike Trout has 2 HR’s already. Meanwhile Cal Raleigh has no hits, and the M’s as a whole have just 9 hits but they’re all XBH’s.
Wacky.
Anyone want to take the over on Cal Raleigh matching last year’s line?
The Athletics bullpen just pisses me off so much. Why did they decide to just not have a bullpen this season?
Same reason they decided not to have a real stadium. John Fisher.
But he’s spending in OTHER areas! He just then decided to simply punt on the bullpen. It’s crazy how bad their bullpen is.
So the Blue Jays are now 2-0, both in walkoff wins against that shitty bullpen.
This will surely shock fans of the Yankees, but nepo-baby billionaire sports team owners aren’t necessarily smart.