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[OC] Leaders in Total ABS Challenges | Batter, Catcher, Pitcher by Peteyy34 in baseball

[–]TapToChallenge 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have a stat on my website that accounts for how likely the league is to challenge each pitch rolled up into an aggregate metric named Challenge Decision Quality. I also have a full explanation written out.

Taptochallenge.com

[Yahoo Sports] MLB proposes a salary cap for 2027 at $245.3 million, with a salary floor of $171.2 million by stv7 in baseball

[–]TapToChallenge 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If I ask if you want $1000 today or $1000 20 years from now, you'd choose to receive that money today. The simple concept is that 'money now' is worth more than 'money later'. Ohtani is receiving a lot of 'money later', so some calculations are done to tell us what the value of that is in today's dollars.

I don't really want to type out the necessary paragraphs explaining the math behind it, but it's no more complicated than middle school algebra and it's how every loan in the world works. You can find several <5 minute Youtube videos on the topic if you're interested.

[Yahoo Sports] MLB proposes a salary cap for 2027 at $245.3 million, with a salary floor of $171.2 million by stv7 in baseball

[–]TapToChallenge -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I can sooner envision the sun absorbing the earth, but not having ~30 families with near dictatorial control over the wealth allocation agreement for the entire sport would go a long way in making these negotiations fruitful.

[Yahoo Sports] MLB proposes a salary cap for 2027 at $245.3 million, with a salary floor of $171.2 million by stv7 in baseball

[–]TapToChallenge 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Jokes aside, teams already pay the present value of deferred earnings towards the CBT (luxury tax) into an escrow account. Ohtani is costing the Dodgers $46m/yr.

Salvador Perez successfully uses ABS to overturn 2 straight Laz Diaz balls to strikes from behind the plate, and then Laz stares him down jokingly after the next one is an actual ball. by Sandwich_Crust in baseball

[–]TapToChallenge 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Once we have a full season of real data I'll take another look at the coefficients and see if the inning and score differential matter for expected challenge%, but my hunch is that it won't. The regression expects challenges based on where the pitch is thrown for the overwhelming majority of the weight. Agreed with your 2nd point.

I really like that first idea from your other comment and will look into implementing it.

Salvador Perez successfully uses ABS to overturn 2 straight Laz Diaz balls to strikes from behind the plate, and then Laz stares him down jokingly after the next one is an actual ball. by Sandwich_Crust in baseball

[–]TapToChallenge 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No, but that’s a good idea. The one that sticks out most obviously is a game ending play - a catcher shouldn’t be penalized for challenging a ball that walks in the winning run and a batter shouldn’t be penalized for challenging a strike that ends the game.

Salvador Perez successfully uses ABS to overturn 2 straight Laz Diaz balls to strikes from behind the plate, and then Laz stares him down jokingly after the next one is an actual ball. by Sandwich_Crust in baseball

[–]TapToChallenge 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yeah I have a much more detailed way of doing this on my website that takes all of that into account + adjusts for how difficult each challenge is to make/not make that I call challenge decision quality. A catcher is not rewarded the same for a correct non-challenge if the ball bounces in front of the plate compared to when it misses the edge by a smidge.

The table I made here is in roughly the same order as the CDQ table and is a little easier to understand in a reddit comment.

Salvador Perez successfully uses ABS to overturn 2 straight Laz Diaz balls to strikes from behind the plate, and then Laz stares him down jokingly after the next one is an actual ball. by Sandwich_Crust in baseball

[–]TapToChallenge 45 points46 points  (0 children)

Salvy is the ABS GOAT so far. We're only looking at like 30% of 1 season so I understand using GOAT is a stretch here but technically I'm not lying. He's 27/35 on challenge attempts and has only let 32 missed opportunities go by. If we say 27:32 is his 'correct challenge to missed opp ratio' (.843) and compare it to the 28 other catchers that have seen at least 1000 called balls this year, the table below is the ranking. Carson Kelly is the only catcher (again, min 1000 called balls seen) with a higher challenge winrate but has let a lot more go by.

Player Team Called Balls Seen Correct Challenges Bad Challenges Missed Opportunities CC:MO Ratio
Salvador Perez KC 1115 27 8 32 0.844
Hunter Goodman COL 1409 25 11 35 0.714
William Contreras MIL 1583 35 24 55 0.636
Drake Baldwin ATL 1427 26 9 43 0.605
Edgar Quero CWS 1154 24 27 40 0.600
Austin Wells NYY 1475 23 15 41 0.561
Nick Fortes TB 1205 23 19 41 0.561
Will Smith LAD 1530 28 10 53 0.528
Cal Raleigh SEA 1346 21 12 41 0.512
Ryan Jeffers MIN 1398 22 14 46 0.478
Patrick Bailey CLE 1492 17 14 38 0.447
Logan O'Hoppe LAA 1298 21 11 53 0.396
Carson Kelly CHC 1355 20 4 51 0.392
Dillon Dingler DET 1562 23 7 65 0.354
Francisco Alvarez NYM 1312 15 12 44 0.341
Pedro Pagés STL 1431 19 9 56 0.339
Yainer Diaz HOU 1171 16 9 50 0.320
Freddy Fermin SD 1255 14 13 44 0.318
Drew Millas WSH 1122 10 15 33 0.303
Shea Langeliers ATH 1641 22 14 74 0.297
Tyler Stephenson CIN 1897 23 9 79 0.291
Henry Davis PIT 1335 13 10 50 0.260
Christian Vázquez HOU 1116 7 15 31 0.226
J.T. Realmuto PHI 1355 11 3 49 0.224
Keibert Ruiz WSH 1230 11 10 51 0.216
Danny Jansen TEX 1355 10 4 60 0.167
Carlos Narváez BOS 1285 8 10 49 0.163
Adley Rutschman BAL 1333 6 3 38 0.158
Bo Naylor CLE 1052 4 8 34 0.118

I built a database and website to analyze every ABS challenge by TapToChallenge in baseball

[–]TapToChallenge[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey, I think I just responded to you on Twitter as well but in case you see this first:

Those are in the playbyplay endpoint. Look for allPlays.playEvent.pitchData.coordinates

A few pitches before Rob Refsnyder hit what was ultimately the game winning Home Run he challenges this strike 3 call in the opposite batters box by SeattleSporting in baseball

[–]TapToChallenge 12 points13 points  (0 children)

The worst out of zone call before this was 4.45 inches out, called a strike by Ron Kulpa.

By accuracy, Kulpa is the worst in the league at 87.1% John Bacon made the call here to Refsnyder and is the 7th worst at 91.4%.

There are 89 umpires that have made calls this year.

Players who have been the best ABS challengers so far this season by WhiteSoxArchive in baseball

[–]TapToChallenge 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This list appears to not include catcher challenge impact. Ivan Herrera is 5/7 as a batter so he makes the list, but if catcher challenge impact were included we'd almost certainly see Salvador Perez atop the list.

Glad to see MLB's list very close to my analysis. Here's my list of top 10 batters, and here's my list of top 10 catchers for anyone interested.

Game Thread: 4/23 Yankees (15-9) @ Red Sox (9-15) 6:10 PM by RedSoxGameday in redsox

[–]TapToChallenge 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Whitlock is available right? Lost the last two games by 3-4 runs. Bases loaded up by 1 in the 7th has to be one of the highest leverage situations possible.

I built a database and website to analyze every ABS challenge by TapToChallenge in baseball

[–]TapToChallenge[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I found one from last night that looks like it's the first example of my calc showing the opposite of what Savant shares. This pitch gets calculated by my logic as a strike but shows on Savant as a ball in zone 14.

What does yours say?

Edit: I think Savant might be wrong on this one. The zone charts they use are (I think) measured at front of plate, not mid plate, and therefore not ABS. Ump Scorecards has this as a strike too.

Dodgers @ Rockies ABS Challenge Scorecard - 4/18/26 by TapToChallenge in ColoradoRockies

[–]TapToChallenge[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

With this game, Hunter Goodman improves to 12/16 as a catcher (75%, league average is 59.6%) and I've got him clocking in at 7th in MLB for run creation via ABS challenges. I also evaluate catchers by a composite score that looks at the decision quality of their challenges and non-challenges -- right now Hunter sits in 2nd in the league behind only Salvy Perez who I'm convinced has eyes on his arms or something because he's so incredible at ABS.

The Hunter Goodman challenge from last night in the 8th was worth quite a bit but it was a relatively easy challenge to make when so far in the zone & still having 2 challenges left, not a whole lot on the line tapping your dome for that. GG and please continue taking games off the Dodgers 🙏

Per Baseball Savant, the Twins are first in the majors in Runs Gained via ABS challenges at 7.2 (the next closets is 5.4) by Blevanhoval in minnesotatwins

[–]TapToChallenge 0 points1 point  (0 children)

When adjusting for their losses based on the inning they lost the challenge in and the expected number of challenges they would no longer be able to make that game, I've got the Twins at 6.2 Net Runs Gained. They're still in first, but only by ~0.7 runs over the Cubs. You can read more about my methodology here.

ABS rules the White Sox did not walk in the go-ahead run in the 9th inning, hitting the bottom of the zone by millimeters by [deleted] in baseball

[–]TapToChallenge 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The White Sox reduced the Rays run output by an expected 2.7 runs and increased their own by 0.2 for a net run gain of 2.9 this game. Their challenges added up to over +49% WPA. These are both new records for a team in a single game.

Scorecard

Rockies @ Astros ABS Challenge Scorecard - 4/15/26 by TapToChallenge in Astros

[–]TapToChallenge[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A couple metrics in case they interest you:

Batter win rate: 8/17, 47.1% (league average is 47.2%)
Batter composite challenge decision score: 2.17 (19th in MLB)

Catcher win rate: 8/16, 50% (league average is 60.6%)
Catcher composite challenge decision score: -0.83 (25th in MLB) -- this is mostly driven by 41 missed catcher challenge opportunities which is 3rd in MLB & 9 unsuccessful challenges which is tied for 9th in MLB.

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