St. Louis Cardinals fail to take advantage of new rules with ABS challenges

Major League Baseball's Automated Ball-Strike System has been received positively throughout baseball. From players to coaches to fans, ABS has been a blessing for the sport. It has allowed pitchers, hitters, and catchers to keep umpires honest, and it's renewed the integrity of the game. Finally, calls are able to be right at a greater rate.

For 28 teams throughout MLB, ABS has been a blessing. For only two teams, ABS has been avoided almost entirely.

The St. Louis Cardinals are failing to take advantage of MLB's ABS challenge system early in the year.

Only two teams throughout Major League Baseball haven't had their batters challenge a single call using ABS: the Colorado Rockies and St. Louis Cardinals.

It's not often that you want your team to be included with the Rockies in any stat, let alone this one.

Cardinals hitters have seen eight pitches out of the zone called strikes so far. That ranks 21st in the league. Conversely, Cardinals pitchers have seen 10 pitches in the zone called as balls, which is the fourth-highest number in the league.

Most of these pitches have been very close calls, but the point of this system is to get those calls right. Cardinals hitters, catchers, and pitchers have not shown an ability to recognize the zone so far this year, and the team is hurting as a result.

It's not like the pitchers are filling up the zone with strikes, either. As a team, Cardinal pitchers rank 24th in baseball in zone rate at just 44.9%. Cardinal hitters are seeing the most pitches in the zone as well with 50.7% of the pitches thrown being in the zone.

Not only have Cardinals hitters failed to challenge a call thus far, but the Cardinals catchers have not been successful with their challenges only four games into the year. Ivan Herrera has caught only one game this year, and he did not challenge a call while behind the dish. Meanwhile, Pedro Pages has challenged four calls this year, and each of his challenges failed.

When Major League Baseball instituted rules to benefit base runners three years ago, the Cardinals didn't take advantage of those rules. Bigger bases and pitcher step-off limitations were supposed to help baserunners, but the Cardinals didn't steal bases at higher rates or take extra bases either. Once again, the Cardinals are proving to be behind the times with the new ABS challenge system.

If the Cardinals want to modernize the organization, something president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom is intent on doing, they need to actually use the systems that MLB is putting in place.

The Cardinals have the youngest Opening Day lineup in baseball. Several of their players, particularly JJ Wetherholt, Nathan Church, Jose Fermin, and Michael McGreevy, are familiar with this system after using it in the minors last year. One would think a young lineup like this with plenty of ABS experience should have the green light when it comes to making challenges.

Hopefully, the Cardinals can become more aggressive down the road with ABS challenges. This is a system in place to help the players. The Cardinals need to be better when it comes to taking advantage of it.