Brewers' Christian Yelich has strong stance on robot umps

Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Christian Yelich recently appeared on an episode of Pardon My Take, a podcast produced by Barstool Sports.  The full interview can be found here, but one of the topics discussed was MLB rule changes. The 2023 rule changes, as well as potential future rule changes, were talked about, and Yelich had some strong words regarding robot umps.

In 2023, all Minor League Triple-A teams will utilize an Automatic Balls and Strikes system (ABS) with half of the ballparks also having a challenge system. The ABS system is oftentimes referred to as “robot umps” for it would eliminate having an umpire call balls and strikes.  This system could be adopted at the Major League level in the future if all the kinks get worked out.

When asked about robot umps, Yelich said “I don’t want robot umps.  I think there’s going to be a lot of unintended consequences with that.”

He then explained his stance further by saying “If you just have a square that buzzes ball or strike, then you could have a guy that sets up on one side of the plate. Then this dude yanks a 100 mph fastball all the way across the other side of the plate with the catcher diving, and it nicks the box; that’ll be a strike. There’s a lot of curveballs or breaking balls that will be in the dirt that’ll clip the bottom of the strike zone, technically. They’d have to figure out a better way to create a more realistic strike zone.”