World Baseball Classic: Pitch Clock Introduced, No ABS Challenge

The Automated Ball-Strike System (ABS) challenge system may be coming to Major League Baseball for the first time in 2026, but it won’t be used in this spring’s World Baseball Classic.

Although ABS technology is already installed in major-league parks in Houston and Miami, which will host WBC games next month, it hasn’t been used in most countries that will be competing in the WBC. That includes Japan, where the Tokyo Dome will be hosting pool-play games in three weeks.

Only players in Korea, where KBO uses robot umps to call every pitch, have extensive real-game experience with ABS. So WBC officials never considered using any form of ABS in this year’s tournament because players haven’t had sufficient time to get comfortable with it, according to MLB officials.

None of this comes as a surprise to teams across the game, but it’s still at least a mild concern. Some players in the WBC will be away from their clubs for about three weeks. So they will lose potentially valuable time they could have spent acclimating to the challenge system.

That absence could most affect catchers, whose ability to challenge ball-strike calls successfully will be an integral component in most teams’ challenge strategy. Among the most notable catchers on the just-announced WBC rosters: Cleveland’s Bo Naylor (Canada), the Yankees’ Austin Wells (Dominican Republic), Toronto’s Alejandro Kirk (Mexico), Kansas City’s Salvador Perez (Venezuela), Milwaukee’s William Contreras (Venezuela) and the two All-Star catchers on Team USA — the Mariners’ Cal Raleigh and the Dodgers’ Will Smith.

But there were similar concerns during the last WBC, which was played without a pitch clock, even though the clock was about to debut in MLB later that year. Now that players around the world have had vastly more experience with the pitch clock, that’s about to change.

The pitch clock will be part of the WBC for the first time this year, according to MLB. The tournament will use the same pitch-timer rules in place in MLB. Pitchers will have 15 seconds to deliver each pitch with the bases empty, and 18 seconds with runners on base.

While there is no pitch clock in NPB in Japan, it has been part of international baseball for several years. So nearly all players in this year’s tournament are familiar with it. The technology has been in place for some time in the Tokyo Dome, where Japanese officials have experimented with it but haven’t yet used it in league games.

Pitch clocks have been installed in Hiram Bithorn Stadium, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, which also will host pool-play games next month. MLB officials will oversee clock use in those games.

The WBC begins March 5, with games in Tokyo. Play begins the next day in Houston, Miami and San Juan. The semifinals and finals will again be played in Miami, on March 15-17.