The Red Sox Have Been MLB's Least Successful ABS Team

[Ryan Painter]

Since the Alex Cora ejection and Trevor Story blowup in Cincinnati, the Boston Red Sox have failed to make the necessary adjustments to turn the ABS challenge system into an edge. The numbers aren’t terrible, but they don’t exactly inspire confidence in the team’s approach, either. Boston sits at a 45 percent overall success rate on challenges through more than three weeks, putting the club squarely in the lower half of the league. More telling is just how uneven that approach still feels. Cincinnati was only the beginning. What matters now is what the Red Sox have done since.

Roman Anthony was blunt after the game: his third-inning challenge was poorly timed and put the team in a bind. Wilyer Abreu agreed. The message? Save them. Treat challenges like the finite, high-stakes resource that they are. Tools with the potential to tilt the odds when the game is actually on the line. Don’t burn one just because a pitch looks wrong in the moment.

That messaging would have carried more weight if the games had looked cleaner since.

They haven’t.

The Red Sox have had some successful challenges alongside some continued misses. That’s to be expected. The bigger problem is that the overall pattern still feels unsettled, undecided even. If there’s a clear ABS plan in place in the clubhouse, it hasn’t shown up on the field.

ABS does more than clean up a missed call. It changes how a team has to manage a game. It can change who trusts what, who speaks up and when a team decides a challenge is worth spending in that moment. Now that the system exists, everyone knows that a bad call may be fixable. But once those challenges are gone, the safety net they provide is gone as well, and the cost suddenly feels very real. Boston felt that sting in Cincinnati. The Red Sox burned challenges early and had nothing left for the bigger pitches later in the game. Story’s reaction and Cora’s ejection may have been what grabbed the headlines, but the real damage was the lost flexibility late in the game. The Red Sox didn’t just get frustrated; they ran out of chances when it counted most.

By comparison, Cincinnati looked more comfortable with the system. The Reds weren’t just better at winning challenges; they seemed to understand the rhythm of the new rules. Meanwhile, Boston looked like a team challenging on feel, not one managing the system with much discipline.

That part hasn’t been cleaned up.

A system like ABS only becomes a real advantage when everyone shares the same idea of how to use it. Managers can’t call for challenges from the dugout. Coaches can’t wave one in. The decision belongs to the batter, pitcher, or catcher, and it has to happen immediately. So, any team strategy shows up in player habits: restraint, trust and some kind of internal hierarchy. Boston has not made that hierarchy obvious yet.

Maybe there is a solid plan behind the scenes. Maybe the Red Sox are sharper internally than outside results suggest. From the outside, however, it still looks more reactive than deliberate. A challenge wasted in a low-leverage spot stings a lot more when a crucial pitch comes up later and the team has nothing left.

The catcher piece stands out, too. If anyone should have an edge in this system, it's the guys with the best view of the zone.  Boston hasn’t looked especially sharp there so far, with its catchers succeeding on just 43 percent of all challenges (28th in MLB). That doesn’t prove they’re doing it wrong, but it does make it fair to wonder whether they’re getting full value from the players best positioned to give them an accurate read.

And that’s the real question.

Not whether ABS is bad. Not whether one umpire can cost a team a game. Those takes are too easy. The useful question is whether the Red Sox have used the system deliberately enough to turn it into something more than an in-the-moment reaction.

Cincinnati still matters for that very reason. Not just because Cora got tossed or Story lost his cool. It exposed a problem the Red Sox said they needed to learn from, and the games since haven’t shown the lesson has stuck.

Over 162 games, this won’t decide everything. It doesn’t have to. Small edges are the point. One saved challenge in the seventh inning matters more than an emotional one in the third. One catcher-led overturn in a high-leverage spot matters more than proving a hitter was technically right two innings earlier. Teams that figure that out earlier are going to reap the benefits of the system. Teams that don’t are going to keep giving it away.

The Red Sox don’t look like a team that has figured out its strategy with the new system. They still look like one working through it. Maybe that changes soon. Maybe a month from now Boston looks sharper, more selective and more comfortable with who should be driving these decisions.  For right now, the clearest read is also the simplest one: what looked like one sloppy afternoon in Cincinnati is starting to feel more like an unresolved habit.

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[moonslav59]

Just go 100% robo calls.

This guessing game should not be part of the game. It's silly at best and stupid at worst.