New Cincinnati Reds manager Terry Francona plans to opt out of elective participation in the automated ball-strike challenge trial during spring training, but he is still willing to let the organization’s minor league players get accustomed to the system ABS is a system that is being tried out at 13 ballparks in spring training,

Cincinnati Reds manager Terry Francona says he's told players not to use the experimental Automated Ball-Strike System in spring training.

Several of the Reds minor leaguers have prior experience with the ABS challenge system, which, along with full ABS (all balls and strikes automated) was tested at the Double and Triple-A levels in '23 and '24. By the end of '24, full ABS was dropped in favor of the happy middle ground, the ABS challenge system.