Article: The Young Red Sox Core Can Become Leaders Thanks to the ABS Challenge System

[Alex Mayes]

The Boston Red Sox are in the playoffs! Stay tuned for extensive, around-the-clock coverage from Talk Sox starting later today!

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The ABS Challenge system is coming to Major League Baseball in 2026. We’ve already seen it implemented during a few spring training games, then again in the All-Star Game this summer, and all prospects who have been called up over the last two years have extensive experience with it. When the idea of the system was first discussed, fans were split on it. Bringing in even more technology into the game could help drive it more toward the analytics that a portion of the fanbase can’t stand. The flip side of that is that is now there are players who are putting an even larger focus on learning and understanding the strike zone. With this, the Boston Red Sox are likely to be one of the best teams in the league when challenging pitches next season. It should also come as a surprise to no one that the young core of this team is going to be the team leaders when challenging balls and strikes.

As a whole, the Red Sox aren’t a team known for walking a lot, but they do have a bit of a reputation as a strikeout-prone team. Where they hold an edge though, is in their young core. Just watch Roman Anthony, Kristian Campbell, and even Triston Casas at the plate, and you can see that their knowledge of the strike zone is advanced for hitters their age. They just don’t chase pitches. Going into 2026 though, the young guns are going benefit more than ever from spitting on those pitches; even close one called strikes can now be overturned by challenges.

How Alex Cora and his staff manage the ABS Challenge System is going to be up for some debate until we see it in action. What makes the most sense, though, is to have a select few names in each line up that the coaching staff trusts to call their own challenges without question. The names that jump out to have the always green light on the current team are Roman Anthony, Alex Bregman, and, when healthy, Triston Casas. All of them have a walk rate of at least 9.8%, with Anthony leading the team at an astonishing 13.2% for a rookie. If they are at the plate and question a call, they should have the greenest of lights at all times. Even with Anthony’s elevated strikeout rate, 27.4%, his eye for the zone isn't in question.

If there are guys with the automatic green light, there have to be some with an automatic red light as well. Marcelo Mayer, Trevor Story, and Romy Gonzalez are names that should be told to accept their fate as victims of umpire bad calls from time to time. Story goes fishing for sliders low and away far too often to be trusted to call for a challenge with any regularity. Mayer could end up in the same rank as the rest of his rookie classmates, but so far at the major league level, he hasn’t proven that he has a firm command of the strike zone. A 30.1% strikeout rate against a 5.9% walk rate doesn’t inspire much confidence. Gonzalez is great when he can put bat to ball, but his strikeouts are often ugly, and he watches too many pitches he should be swinging at. While they shouldn’t be given no freedom with the ABS system, they almost have to be instructed to use the utmost caution when challenging pitches, or they’ll end up wasting challenges more often than getting them right.

The young core of the Boston Red Sox has the most experience with the ABS Challenge System of anyone else on the roster. They’ve used it at multiple levels of the organization and spent parts of the last two seasons at Worcester, where the system is utilized on a daily basis. Many of the young core have already begun to carve a leadership role out for themselves, but adding this new technology to the MLB game is going to make sure that the veteran players have to lean on the up and comers to fully grasp and understand how to properly take advantage of the ABS Challenge System.

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[Malcolm White]

The much-maligned Triston Casas has a higher walk rate and lower strikeout rate than the sainted Roman Anthony. Nothing against Roman, but Casas had a 20% walk rate as a rookie, and was about 10% even with this (annual) horrid start this year. Career walk rate 13.6%.

Assuming Bregman stays, an Anthony-Bregman-Casas top three would be a great tone-setter for the 2026 Sox, leaving K kings Story (career BB rate 7%, but barely 5% this year) and Duran (7.3%) further down the lineup, with runners on base.  Both were in the top 10 in Ks this year.

This lineup needs more contact, more walks and less whiffs to be elite, especially since they don't have a HR masher. Abreu also had an excellent walk rate (14.6%) in his minor league career; still good at 9.3% in 2025 but I wonder if Driveline is affecting his approach. Same with Mayer, who had a 12% walk rate in the minors; half of that in Boston.

[moonslav59]

Top BB% since 2023 by Sox players still on the team:

13.2 Anthony

13.0 Casas

11.2 Refsnyder (Retire?)

11.0 Campbell

10.3 Bregman

9.4 Abreu

8.5 Narvaez (not too shabby for a rookie catcher)

7.7 Duran