Rizzo: ABS Is Fixing the Umps

Anthony Rizzo watched the automated balls and strikes challenge system roll into MLB, and his first take is not the one you might expect from a hitter who has seen every version of a bad strike call.

He loves it.

Rich asks the question directly. What does Rizzo think of ABS. Rizzo's answer locks in on one specific effect. The umpires are more locked in now. There are no more courteous calls. The get-right pitch on 2-0 to flip the count back toward the pitcher. The automatic strike on 3-0 to bring the at-bat back into shape. Those are gone.

As a hitter, Rizzo lived on the wrong side of those calls for years.

He walks through the math of what those calls actually cost a hitter. Hitters are used to getting the squeeze the other way. A ball called a strike, not a strike called a ball. That's the direction the courtesy tends to run, and that direction kills counts. Flip 1-1 to 2-1 or 3-1 instead of 1-2, and the at-bat becomes a hitter's count instead of a two-strike scramble.

Rich pulls out the thread Rizzo is starting to tug on. ABS is not just about the current pitch. It is about accountability. The get-right pitch, the courtesy strike on 2-0 or 3-0, those are gone because the system doesn't allow the drift.

Rizzo takes it one step further. Everyone likes to pinpoint the one pitch that decided the game. The 2-0 or 3-0 difference, in his read, is often bigger than the obvious missed call. Here is the scenario he has lived through. Two balls, no strikes. Umpire calls a strike. Next pitch is a great pitch. He misses. Now it's 3-2, and he is fighting for his life. Next pitch, he walks back to the dugout thinking, that was ball four. I should have been on base.

That cascade matters for the rest of the game. He could be two for two with a walk instead of one for three with a walk. The ripple effect into later at-bats, later innings, and into the team's scoreboard is what he says people are not calculating when they discuss ABS.

Rizzo is making a hitter's argument for a system most people frame as a pitch-by-pitch fairness tool. His version is about accumulated outcomes over the course of a game and a season. The umpire drift was costing hitters at-bats they should have won, and the numbers at the end of the year used to carry those lost at-bats silently.

ABS, in his read, doesn't just correct individual calls. It changes how the umpires approach every pitch, and that changes the season.

For a ten-time Gold Glover with a career built at the plate, that is the shift worth talking about.