ABS Challenges

[Jonah]

If the umpire calls a pitch a strike and the catcher accidentally challenges it for some reason whether it be he didn’t hear the call or something else, would the umpire grant the challenge? Same thing if a batter challenged a ball.

[umpintosh]

The umpire would most likely notify them that the call was strike/ball and not grant the challenge. 

[Coach Carl]

Albert Belle might have liked to challenge a ball four. 

[beerguy55]

14 hours ago, umpintosh said:

The umpire would most likely notify them that the call was strike/ball and not grant the challenge. 

Though you may be right, there is nothing documented to demonstrate what MLB would do with a challenge "against interest"...ie. there is no upside to the challenge - the challenger either gets the pitch changed to the worse outcome, or they lose a challenge by confirming the pitch that was already called in their favor.

The most common scenario I could see here is umpires who have a bit of a deliberate/delayed strike call...where F2 may challenge, wanting to ensure they don't wait too long, not realizing the ump is about to ring up the batter.

 

MLB has, however, demonstrated they will proceed with accidental challenges, and, in some cases, actions that remotely resemble a challenge, no matter how blatantly obvious it is that the challenger will lose. 

Now, there is good reason for this, because there's already some gamesmanship going on with teams trying to induce the other team to challenge, or pitchers trying to discreetly signal their catcher.  

It is possible that, under this principle, umps might be instructed to accept challenges against interest.