Blue Jays' Max Scherzer Calls Out MLB's ABS Experiment: 'Can We Just Play Baseball?'

Veteran pitcher Max Scherzer isn't exactly embracing the potential future of Major League Baseball when it comes to the automatic ball-strike system the league is testing during spring training.

Jayson Stark of The Athletic noted there were two challenges involving the Toronto Blue Jays pitcher during Tuesday's game against the St. Louis Cardinals, and both went against Scherzer.

A challenge from Cardinals center fielder Lars Nootbaar turned a called strike into a ball, while Scherzer unsuccessfully challenged a called ball later in the game. 

"We're going so far down the wormhole," the right-hander said after the game, per Stark. "Can we just play baseball? We're humans. Can we just be judged by humans? Do we really need to disrupt the game? I think humans are defined by humans."

He also explained that umpires have traditionally let whether a pitcher hit or missed his spot impact a call on a pitch that is near the strike zone, which he prefers.

"That's kind of how we've always played baseball," Scherzer said. "That's kind of what looks normal. You know, when you get to this (robot) world, if we're going to sit there and say it's a laser zone, then we don't care about if a pitcher hits his spot or not."

Scherzer also expressed multiple times that he believes the human umpires in MLB are "really good," which could be a veteran pitcher doing what he can to stay on the good side of umpires heading into a new season.

The ABS system will not be in place in the regular season and is instead just being tested in spring training much like it has been tested in the minor leagues. And the human umpires still make the vast majority of the calls, as this system doesn't have the electronic strike zone calling every pitch.

Rather, either the pitcher, hitter or catcher can challenge a ball/strike call by tapping their head in the immediate aftermath of a pitch. They cannot receive any help from the dugout, and teams are each given just two challenges per game.

Even though they get to retain the challenges if they are successful, the limited number of challenges and the immediate nature of only three players being able to decide whether there will be one means there is a very limited impact on the flow of the game over nine innings despite Scherzer's comments.

He also won't have to worry about it during the regular season, although it wouldn't be a surprise if the league eventually implements such a system in future campaigns after testing it out.