In the White Sox’ dugout Saturday, there was a small chart posted on the side of their helmet rack. The display read ‘‘Good Day For Catcher Challenges,’’ with ‘‘Catcher’’ highlighted in yellow. The printout also showed the best catcher-challenge zones, indicating calls on the outer third of the plate.
For the Sox and the 29 other major-league teams, the strategy around the Automated Ball-Strike Challenge System is something else they need to study. During the first nine innings, teams get only two unsuccessful challenges, and wasting them might cause issues later in games.
‘‘We give them a heads-up on areas that might be good to challenge or not,’’ manager Will Venable said. ‘‘Or is it better on this day for a pitcher to challenge or . . . a hitter to challenge or a catcher? At the end of the day, these guys are going out there and making decisions independently of all that, based on whether they think it’s a strike or not.”
Entering their game Saturday against the Mariners, the Sox had won 45% of their challenges (15-for-33) as the batting team, 17th in the majors. They hadn’t been as good as the fielding team, winning only 41% of their challenges (24-for-58), the worst in the majors. Their 33 challenges as the hitting team were 21st in MLB; their 58 challenges on defense were third.
Venable said ABS is ‘‘an added component as far as how you’re going to strategize.’’
‘‘That’s something we’re working through still, just like everybody else,’’ he said. ‘‘Outside of that, I’m not sure how much it’s changed, other than there’s less to complain about with the umpires. Otherwise, [it’s] when you’re going to use them, how you’re going to use them and how well you use them.’’
The best practices of when to challenge are still a work in progress, but some ideas are percolating. It might not a good idea to challenge in low-leverage situations, and it’s definitely not recommended to challenge emotionally.
‘‘You’ve got to be mature about it, and you’ve got to think team-first,’’ shortstop Colson Montgomery said.
Through Friday, Munetaka Murakami led the Sox with nine challenges. His 56% success rate (5-for-9) was third among the Sox’ four players with at least three challenges, trailing Derek Hill (2-for-3, 67%) and Miguel Vargas (3-for-5, 60%).
Montgomery was the fifth of five Sox hitters with two challenges, going 1-for-2. Both came in the same game, a victory April 24 against the Nationals.
The first challenge, with two outs and two runners on in the sixth, was unsuccessful when Montgomery thought a 1-1 pitch from Richard Lovelady was out of the zone. The at-bat still ended well for Montgomery, who singled in Andrew Benintendi.
The second challenge was in the eighth on a 2-0 fastball from Riley Cornelio that was shown to be high. Montgomery walked, and the Sox eventually scored the go-ahead run in their 5-4 victory.
‘‘I don’t really try to challenge that much because I like playing the game how it is and letting the umpire call the game,’’ Montgomery said. ‘‘I’ll do it in big situations, and I feel like that’s the only time I’ll do it.’’
Though he’s a purist (and true to his words about when to challenge), Montgomery said he is fully on board with the new system.
‘‘It’s just making the game a lot better, the quality of the at-bats,’’ Montgomery said. ‘‘It’s just showing how close everything is. It makes the umpires better, too. They can see [where pitches were] and make in-game adjustments. I think that’s good.’’