Red Sox's ABS Ineptitude Is Clearest Proof Yet of Organizational Failures

Organizational incompetence is not just evident with on-field performance. It leaks into every aspect of how the team shows up to the ballpark on a given day. Beyond the inability to drive in runners in scoring position or repeated miscues in the field, the Boston Red Sox have clearly come in with a lack of preparation regarding the new ABS system. The rules are a mere three months into adoption, but it's already become clear which teams understand the system and which ones came in unprepared. 

The Red Sox came out of the gates slow early in the season regarding ABS in their opening series. They put themselves in a position to let umpire C.B. Bucknor dictate the result of their at-bats because they had wasted their challenges so early on. The Reds, on the other hand, outclassed the Red Sox, and it resulted in a loss and Alex Cora getting ejected. 

Both squads, the Reds and the Red Sox, have remained at opposite ends of the ABS success spectrum this season. The Reds are second in getting a call flipped to a walk and seventh in getting a call flipped in their favor to a strikeout. More impressively, the Reds have a 56% success rate as the hitting team, third in MLB, and are first in success rate as the fielding team with a 71% success rate. The Red Sox, in contrast, sit in the bottom half of the league as the hitting team and middle-of-the-pack as the fielding team. 

Their success rate as the fielding team becomes less impressive when you look at their rate of challenges, on a mere 1.7% of all calls, 26th in MLB. They are also 22nd in challenge rate as hitters at 3.9% and have the second-fewest amount of ABS challenges in MLB at 128, ahead of only the Arizona Diamondbacks who have 127. The difference between the two clubs is that the Red Sox have -19.7 overturns over expected, whereas the Diamondbacks have +14.7. 

Expected challenges are based off a metric developed by Tom Tango and it takes into consideration count leverage, amount of runners on base and where, leverage with the game, location of the pitch, inning, and how many challenges remain. 

This Willson Contreras challenge for example, in the bottom of the fourth, down 6-2, with nobody on, one out, and one challenge remaining, would have an incredibly low expected challenge rate. The pitch was more than three inches inside the zone according to Baseball Savant as well. 

So the Red Sox, based on all of the above criteria, are not challenging when they're supposed to and challenging at bad times when they do. In contrast, the aforementioned Reds are fourth in the league in the metric, generating 24 more overturns over their expected rate.

FanGraphs' Matt Martell recently published an article on league-wide ABS decisions and how organizations are making more informed decisions regarding the new system. He was able to gather quotes from multiple sources and cited the above Contreras example, almost as a contrast the smart organizations with the ones who are lagging behind. 

Cardinals outfielder Lars Nootbaar said regarding leverage situations: “If you’re down by four runs and nobody’s on with two outs in the third inning, it might not be worth it in that situation if you’re not 100% sure. So, understanding the weight of the at-bat, understanding how it could swing the game one way or the other.”

Rays outfielder Taylor Walls also mentioned that the Rays are telling their guys to pull the trigger as much as possible, as an unused challenge is a wasted data point. As a result, the Rays have been among the league's worst in success rate with ABS challenges, but at least they have a plan.

Based on the data, the Red Sox are too picky to challenge and not prepared enough to do it when they're supposed to. For a team that needed to win within the margins as a pitching-and-defense-first squad, one would assume they would leave no stone unturned, especially with a system that's increasing the league-wide walk rate. Each 90-foot stretch is so valuable when the team is scraping and clawing for runs, and yet they weren't even prepared for that. Craig Breslow has always been a data-first baseball operations guy, which made the ineptitude at surprising at first, but less so as the season crawls along. 

The ABS system is microcosm of 2026 Red Sox as whole: lost in space as the rest of the league points and laughs. They are drowning on the field, and their approach to the ABS challenge system is no different.