Many major league hitters will experience the ABS strike zone challenge system for the first time in a regular season when Opening Day comes around.
But guys who have spent recent time in Triple-A have already worked with it, and for the Toronto Blue Jays, that’s good news as it pertains to Davis Schneider.
MLB.com shared in a new story that Schneider had the best challenge success rate of any player in Triple-A.
Schneider challenged 12 strike calls. He got 10 of them correct. That’s 83%.
“Schneider was particularly good at challenging strike calls off the outside edge of the plate, which included reversing five would-be strikeouts,” writes MLB.com.
Schneider didn’t get a chance to keep boosting his numbers, because he got called up to the Blue Jays and became a key contributor, particularly against left-handed pitching.
But if that sample size is large enough to believe, Schneider should be allowed to challenge calls this season, too.
“Schneider stands out for his plate discipline even among big league hitters,” MLB.com writes. “His 20.9% chase rate ranked inside the top 10% of hitters who saw as many out-of-zone pitches as he did, and his 15.9% walk rate was tied for fifth-best out of 348 hitters with at least 200 plate appearances. That plate discipline skill and sense of the strike zone appears to have translated over to challenging.”
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Teams will likely use challenge data to determine if certain players on their roster should be banned from making challenges.
Schneider doesn’t seem likely to have that problem, though. He’s got a sense for the zone, and he will surely continue to use it wisely.
