As the Major League Baseball offseason gets underway and the free agent class takes over most of the attention, other big headlines should be noted.
There have been rumors of robot umpires circling the league for a while now, but 2025 will actually see robot umpires used during spring training games.
The addition of robot umpires would ensure that the calls on the field are correct and avoid the multiple missed or wrong calls that happen on a daily basis with human umpires.
MLB Analyst Erik Kratz gave his thoughts on the MLB testing robot umpires in 2025 spring training and possibly implementing it league-wide as early as 2026.
MLB will test robot umpires in Spring Training and could implement it league-wide as early as 2026.@ErikKratz31 offers his thoughts… ? pic.twitter.com/b7GTcbisy2
— Foul Territory (@FoulTerritoryTV) November 22, 2024
Kratz mentions that some umpires are all for the robot umpires, and some don’t really care either way.
The MLB has made several changes to the game in recent years including the addition of the pitch clock, making the bases larger, and limiting the number of mound visits a team may use.
With the addition of robot umpires, the game would likely move along quicker as there would be no reason to argue any of the calls on the field.
It will be interesting to see how the test run goes during spring training and to see if we could see robot umpires in the 2026 regular season.
The free agent class is getting most of the attention this offseason, but the robot umpires will be another topic that will be talked about more as time goes on.
Robot umpires could be another tactic used by the MLB to speed up the game times in a season that includes 162 regular season games.
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