Twins approach balls-and-strikes challenge system of spring training enthusiastically

FORT MYERS, FLA. – Jhoan Duran can throw 102-mph fastballs, reflex-shattering curveballs and disappearing splitters. So you might be surprised at what he can’t do.

“I can’t tell what’s a strike,” the Twins righthander said with a shrug. “The catchers are too good at making everything look like one.”

For that reason, Duran intends and expects to be a spectator, not a protagonist, when Major League Baseball institutes a ball-and-strike challenge system for spring-training games.

“I like it,” Duran said of the temporary new rule. “But I’ll let the catchers call it.”

That begins in a week, when the Twins take on Atlanta in their Grapefruit League opener next Saturday at Hammond Stadium, one of eight Florida camps outfitted with the technology to confirm or overturn umpires’ calls. MLB is using spring games to expose teams to the challenge system, which enables pitchers or catchers to demand reconsideration of a pitch called a ball, or batters to seek a correction of a strike.

“There are many people eager to see how this functions. You want to feel it, experience it. You want to see the emotional swing on the field and how players react to it,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “But it’s not going to be enacted this year, or maybe for a while, so it’s really more of a curiosity this year for us to get used to for when it is.”

It’s not just a curiosity in the minor leagues, which have used the rule — or the fully automated version, in which technology completely takes over from umpires the job of calling balls and strikes — on a regular basis for three years. For this spring, each team will be allowed to challenge ball-and-strike calls, whether at the plate or behind it, until two of their team’s challenges are unsuccessful.

A pitcher, catcher or batter — and nobody else, including coaches or managers — simply taps the top of his head to institute a challenge, and a radar-generated visual of the pitch is broadcast on video screens in the park. The process is simple, fast and, MLB hopes, increasingly accurate.

Sort of fun, too.

“When I watch it and I’m not pitching, it’s entertaining to watch. The strategy aspect of it, when to use one and how certain you have to be, is really interesting,” said David Festa, who has pitched with the rule during much of his four-year professional career. “It’s great because you can get the call right in a big situation. If you were the victim of a bad call, you can put your money where your mouth is and get it changed. That’s kind of cool.”

Cool, but also a little bit pressure-packed, Festa said.

“I’m afraid to challenge,” he said, agreeing with Duran. “I’m spinning off the mound, my head’s at an angle, I don’t have the best view. I tell the catcher, it’s all you.”

Plus, Festa added with a laugh, “if you challenge a lot, it looks like you’re begging out there, right?”

Maybe so, but one pitch incorrectly called can change a game. The call on a 3-2 pitch is the most obvious example, particularly with runners on base. But Festa’s own experience in 2024 illustrates how much the count matters.

When Festa got ahead of a batter 1-2, which happened 96 times, he gave up only 10 hits and four walks, a .167 on-base percentage. When he fell behind 2-1, which happened 48 times, he gave up 10 hits and eight walks, a .375 OBP.

Toby Gardenhire, who has managed the St. Paul Saints since 2021, likes the system because “it really holds umpires accountable. They don’t like getting challenges wrong, so it helps standardize the zone, makes them more consistent.”

He wishes teams could have more than two unsuccessful challenges, because just one miss makes players suddenly reluctant to risk losing the second one. And it’s pretty easy to miss one.

“Guys get emotional, they’re sure they’re right, and they challenge a pitch out of anger,” Gardenhire said. “I’ve joked with a lot of our hitters — ‘hey, you’re banned from challenging.’ But you’ve got to trust your people.”

It was a revelation to Twins prospect Andrew Morris, a fourth-rounder who pitched his way to St. Paul last year.

“I discovered that batters’ eyes were significantly better than I thought. Triple-A hitters are really good about knowing when a pitch was off, even like a fraction of an inch,” Morris said. “It was really impressive. I thought it brought consistency to the game, without taking away the catcher’s job.”

Yes, that’s one other important aspect. By limiting their use, challenges allows catchers skilled at pitch-framing — essentially, fooling umpires into turning near-miss pitches into strikes — to remain part of the game. Just not in the game’s biggest moments.

“If you eliminate the big miss, the game-changer, that’s what it’s for, and we’re all [in favor of] that. Let the players decide when it matters,” said Ryan Jeffers, who hasn’t played using the new rule but is eager to try it. “I’ve seen some big calls that just leave you shaking your head. Catchers know the strike zone, we can sometimes almost tell by how much we move to catch a pitch. Put that on us — I like that it gives us the means to fix things.”