How MLB's New Robot Umpires Impact Aaron Judge, Jose Altuve's Strike Zones

MLB's Automated Ball-Strike challenge system (ABS) is being implemented this spring and will stick around during the 2026 season, and some of the league's biggest stars are being affected in different ways.

The Athletic's Jayson Stark provided a detailed breakdown on the ABS, which will give teams two challenges on balls and strikes per game. If a team gets the challenge correct, it will keep the challenge, but it will be lost if the challenge is wrong.

Stark explained that as part of the ABS, the "strike/ball line at the upper limits of the strike zone is now based on a player's height, period." New York Yankees star slugger Aaron Judge is one of the tallest players in the majors at 6'7", while Houston Astros veteran Jose Altuve is on the opposite end of the spectrum at 5'6". Both of them will see significant changes to their strike zones this season.

"It's now significantly lower, for someone like Judge, than what used to be called a strike … but in other news, the top of Judge's zone is now more than 6 inches higher than the top of Jose Altuve's zone," Stark revealed.

While Judge is over a foot taller than Altuve, the total height of his zone will only be four inches taller than his rival's. Since Altuve typically crouches in his batting stance, a source who has been briefed on the new strike-zone calculations told Stark that the second baseman "is one of the rare players whose zone actually will grow larger at the top than it was called in the past."

It will be fun to see how the league's best hitters adjust to their new strike zones, as the ABS could play a crucial role in determining the outcome of games.

"So how's that for a fun fact: Aaron Judge's zone got smaller and Jose Altuve's zone got bigger? What a fun time to be alive," Stark stated.