The Atlanta Braves have struggled with ABS challenges all season long, especially from the offensive side. The Braves are one of the worst teams in baseball in both net calls overturned, and in terms of leverage.
Of course, a lot of this damage was done in the first two months of the season. Through the end of April, Atlanta was seventh in MLB in challenges issued by hitters, but were only successful in 38.8% of their challenges.
This likely caused the organization as a whole to rethink their ABS challenge strategy, as the club now ranks as the fourth-least aggressive team in baseball when it comes to their hitters challenging. However, the Braves have become so gun-shy when it comes to challenging pitches at the plate, it's actually hurting them.
Braves hitters need to start challenging pitches again and now
One issue the Braves hitters had early in the season was wasting challenges on low-leverage calls. At the end of April, 14 of their 36 challenges issued by hitters in the fifth inning or earlier and in counts where the the result of a pitch wouldn't change the outcome of the at bat. Essentially the result of a challenge wouldn't overturn a strikeout or turn a strike into a walk.
It's understandable the Braves as a whole would rethink their strategy and tone down their early game challenges. After challenging 36 calls in the first month of the season, they reduced their challenges significantly in the months since. However, instead of refining when and where they challenge, their solution has seemingly been to not challenge pitches at all.
Since the beginning of July, the Braves have seen 42 pitches that were called strikes in the seven inning or later that their hitters opted not to challenge. This ranks fourth in MLB. Seven of these 42 pitches would have either turned the plate appearance into a walk, or overturned a strikeout.
This grown increasingly frustrating to watch for Braves fans, as they are continuing to watch their favorite team accept poor calls by the home plate umpire in big situations simply because they're too afraid to be wrong.
Although MLB has outlawed a system that could tell batters when they can and cannot challenge, the Braves need to figure out a way to alert batters when the most optimal times to challenge are. The solution to rectify the bad challenges that were happening early in the season isn't to simply not challenge altogether.
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