With challenge system, battle looms at the top of the zone.

José Altuve of the Houston Astros strikes out during Game 4 of the American League Championship Series against the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium in New York on Sunday, Oct. 23, 2022. Under the automated ball-strike system coming to MLB this year, players will be able to challenge ball-strike calls. (Johnny Milano/The New York Times)

By ENO SARRIS, DAN HAYES and C. TRENT ROSECRANS / THE ATHLETIC

The robot umpires are here — sort of.

Under the automated ball-strike system coming to MLB this year, players will be able to challenge ball-strike calls. Every team gets two challenges per game, and if they get their challenge right, they keep it. Only players on the field get the chance to ask for a review, within two seconds of the call.

MLB umpires were generally at their best last season, collectively hitting all-time lows in wrong-call percentage. That said, there were still more than 15,000 strikes that were called balls and more than 11,000 balls that were called strikes.

The ability to challenge those pitches will make a difference for hitters and pitchers alike, but let’s start by looking at which pitchers might benefit the most from this new system.

We will focus on those called balls that were actually in the strike zone. Where were they?

Low and away is a big hot spot when right-handers throw to right-handers, and that makes sense. A lot of breaking balls head in that direction. But more than two-thirds of the incorrectly called balls in the zone were fastballs. One analysis of the types of pitches that were hard on umpires found that pitches that start off outside the strike zone but move into the zone by the time they reach the plate were called strikes less often.

That makes sense to Cincinnati Reds starter Brady Singer, at least.

“Any two-seam, sinker, the ball coming back, the umpire might miss that comebacker,” Singer said. “Especially ones low in the zone, too. That super-sink that the catcher pushes down and it might clip that zone and the umpire might not see it.”

But low and away is a known commodity — usually a weakness for a hitter, usually a target for the pitcher. It is likely that the new strikes in the zone down there will affect all pitchers fairly equally.

It is also just one spot across the bottom of the zone where strikes have been called balls. When you look at the top of the zone, it immediately comes into focus that there is a battle forming up there, especially on fastballs.

The players who had the most called balls on pitches in the strike zone last year were Luis Severino (with 22), Quinn Priester (17), Zack Littell (16), Yoshinobu Yamamoto (15), Logan Webb (15), Bryan Woo (14), Dean Kremer (13), Chad Patrick (13), Joe Ryan (13) and Shane Baz (13).

Reds ace Hunter Greene has noticed some of those incorrect calls over the years.

“When I throw up and in to righties, I get more swing and miss than called strikes,” he said. “I’ve never gotten called strikes up and in.”

This might have to do with velocity. FanGraphs once found that higher-velocity fastballs were less likely to be called strikes.

The movement on the high fastballs might also have something to do with it. Many of the pitchers at the top of this list have two fastballs and pepper the top of the zone with different shapes. That is designed to be hard on the hitter, but it can also be challenging for the umpire.

“It’s hard for them to see it’s coming,” Minnesota Twins starter Joe Ryan said of those high fastballs. “It’s hard for them to see where it’s going to go. The hitter is trying to figure out where it’s going to go so he can make contact, and the umpire is trying to figure out where it’s going to go so he can call it a strike. That just makes it a challenge.”

There’s going to be a lot of action at the top of the zone this year with the automated ball-strike system.

“Maybe in general it’s just that umpires aren’t very good at calling the top,” Twins catcher Ryan Jeffers surmised. “They’re worse calling the top than the bottom.”

That certainly could be the case. But any pitcher — like Ryan — who is pitching up in the zone will lose those extra strikes even as they gain some strikes on the corners. That, plus the low number of calls that were actually missed for any one pitcher, should be a massive hint that this change will not affect any one player much more than another. Ryan may see 10 more strikes on the corners that were called balls before, and he might lose those 10 strikes on balls that were called strikes middle-up before.

That said, a pitcher who can throw at the top of the zone with command might be in a good position to take advantage of the new way the zone will play once challenges are instituted. The pitchers in the top quartile of the league in throwing high fastballs who also had good command were George Kirby, Tyler Mahle, Nick Pivetta, Shota Imanaga, Zack Wheeler, Webb, Matthew Boyd, Ryan, Luis Castillo and Jacob deGrom.

These pitchers may have the willingness to pitch upstairs and the command to take advantage of the new strikes that might be available at the top corners of the strike zone. For other pitchers, it looks like more of a wait-and-see type situation.

“I don’t want to reinvent myself as a pitcher,” Greene said. “I’ll make the adjustments as I go.”

“I hope it’s to my advantage,” Ryan said. “It’ll be fun to play with it. It’s another year to learn something.”

We will certainly see some challenges in all parts of the zone as players adjust to the new reality of how the zone is enforced with the automated ball-strike system. But it also seems like there is a battle looming for the top of the zone.

There once used to be a mantra for pitchers espoused by personnel like Atlanta’s legendary pitching coach Leo Mazzone: “Establish low and away.” This year, the pitchers who can hit the top corners of the zone look like they will see the most benefit from the new realities of the strike zone.