The most interesting players on the new ABS challenge leaderboard

ABS (the Automated Ball-Strike Challenge System, powered by T-Mobile) is finally here, and in Spring Training, we're getting our first good look at which Major League batters and catchers are the best … and worst … at challenging balls and strikes.

To keep track of all your challenge needs, we just launched a full ABS dashboard and ABS challenge leaderboard over at Baseball Savant.

• There's loads of ABS data from last season. What does it all mean?

They have everything from your basic challenge stats -- challenges won and lost, challenge win percentage, highest rate of challenging and so on -- to more detailed Statcast stats that measure players' true challenging skill.

Luckily, we already have a full season's worth of ABS from the 2025 Triple-A season to study for insights before ABS hits the Major Leagues for real on Opening Day. Let's take a look at some of the players with the most interesting challenge stats.

Here are 12 of the biggest standouts from the 2025 Triple-A ABS leaderboard.

1) Davis Schneider -- the best batter at winning challenges

By the end of the 2025 season, Schneider was a key player for the Blue Jays on their run to the American League pennant. But early in the year, he was down in Triple-A -- where he showed he had a big league eye at the plate. Schneider challenged 12 calls, and won 10 of those challenges. His 83% challenge win rate was the highest of 169 batters with at least 10 challenges at the Triple-A level in 2025. Schneider was particularly good at challenging strike calls off the outside edge of the plate, which included reversing five would-be strikeouts.

Schneider stands out for his plate discipline even among big league hitters. His 20.9% chase rate ranked inside the top 10% of hitters who saw as many out-of-zone pitches as he did, and his 15.9% walk rate was tied for fifth-best out of 348 hitters with at least 200 plate appearances. That plate discipline skill and sense of the strike zone appears to have translated over to challenging.

2) Jamie Westbrook -- the most valuable batter

When it came to generating value by challenging at the right times -- and costing your opponent their challenges -- no Triple-A hitter was better than Westbrook in 2025.

Statcast has a new stat for challenges called "Overturns vs. Expected," which estimates how many more overturned calls a player creates, compared to what you would expect for an average player who saw the exact same pitches.

There are two versions of this stat: Net Overturns For, which shows how many challenges a player wins over expectations when he is the one challenging; and Net Overturns Against, which shows how many calls go the player's way above expectations when the opponent is the one challenging (that is, the other team loses their challenges against the player).

When you combine the two, Westbrook was king. The Rays Minor Leaguer generated +19.9 Overturns vs. Expected last season, by far the best of any Triple-A hitter. He was great at challenging aggressively and successfully himself at the plate, and opposing pitchers and catchers also had a very difficult time challenging against him.

If you're curious as to why, here's a clue: Westbrook is 5-foot-7. As a shorter player, he knew just where the top of his own strike zone was -- and the other team didn't. Westbrook won the vast majority of his challenges on pitches just above the top edge of the strike zone, and opposing catchers lost tons of challenges against him on those same pitches.

Westbrook wasn't the only short batter to be a great challenger, either -- fellow 5-foot-7 hitters Bryan Torres and Rafael Lantigua were also near the top of the Statcast Triple-A challenge leaderboard. Maybe that'll bode well for shorter MLB stars like Jose Altuve and José Ramírez.

3) P.J. Higgins -- the best catcher by far

Now let's flip around and look at the fielding side. Catchers can have the biggest impact as challengers, since they're behind the plate for far more pitches than any individual hitter and have the best view of the strike zone of any player on the field.

And there was one catcher who stood head and shoulders above the rest at Triple-A in 2025: Higgins, who's in the Reds organization. When he challenged calls behind the plate, Higgins generated a massive +27.5 Overturns vs. Expected.

He challenged frequently -- including a lot of calls most other catchers wouldn't -- and he was almost always right. Higgins won 87% of his challenges last season -- 48 of 62 -- which was the best win rate of any catcher to challenge 20 or more pitches.

Higgins won 21 challenges on pitches that were inside the strike zone by less than one inch -- he was able to flip ball calls even when there was just a fraction of the baseball clipping the edge of the zone. Higgins simply knew a strike when he caught one.

And here's a fun fact: Higgins is already back at the top of the catcher challenge leaderboard again for Spring Training 2026. He just has that challenging skill.

4) Travis Bazzana -- the best challenger among top hitting prospects

Let's take a look at some top prospects who were also top challengers. Bazzana, MLB's No. 20 prospect overall, is one such player.

Bazzana, the No. 1 overall Draft pick in 2024, reached Triple-A last season. And even though the 23-year-old lefty slugger only spent 26 games there, he quickly established himself as an effective challenger.

Once he got to Triple-A, Bazzana wasted no time challenging, and winning. His 15% challenge rate was one of the highest among Triple-A hitters, but he won the majority of those challenges, making him a net positive for the Guardians' Triple-A affiliate. He was aggressive, but not over-aggressive.

For an example of a prospect who was a more passive challenger, but also a good one, look at Owen Caissie. MLB's No. 42 overall prospect, who was recently traded to the Marlins, challenged only six times in 99 Triple-A games with the Cubs last year. But Caissie won four of those challenges, including erasing two would-be strikeouts, which made the 23-year-old's few challenges high-impact challenges in terms of value.

5) Jeferson Quero -- the best challenger among top catching prospects

The 23-year-old Quero was one of the top catching prospects in baseball before a shoulder injury cost him a whole season, but he returned in 2025 and proved he's still an elite defender -- and that extends to his challenge ability.

A lot of other top catching prospects who played at Triple-A in 2025 didn't really stand out at challenging balls and strikes, but Quero was excellent. He ranked in the top 15 Triple-A catchers in Overturns vs. Expected at +10.2, and he generated all that value with barely half the challenges of many of the catchers around him on that leaderboard. The Brewers' Triple-A squad won nearly two thirds of the challenges with Quero behind the dish (23 of 36, 64%), a top-five mark for catchers who challenged at least 20 calls.

The Brewers are known for their catcher development, and Quero looked like a future defensive star even before he started winning challenges.

6) Spencer Jones -- a tall player who's good at challenging

Earlier, we saw with Westbrook how a shorter batter can use challenges to his advantage by flipping calls at the top of the zone. But tall batters can be good at challenging, too. At least Jones, the Yankees' 6-foot-7 slugging prospect, was.

Jones was aggressive given his challenge opportunities, and like Bazzana, the 24-year-old turned the majority of those challenges into wins.

Interestingly, the pitches he challenged were more along the inside and outside edges of the zone than the bottom -- where, as Yankees fans know, tall batters like Aaron Judge have historically been vulnerable to low strikes going against them.

7) Deyvison De Los Santos -- the most (over)aggressive batter

One of the main things the ABS leaderboard keeps track of is simply, "Who challenged the most often?"

On the batter side, the answer to that for 2025 was De Los Santos … who showed that there is indeed such a thing as being too aggressive with your challenges.

The Marlins infielder challenged 18.8% of all challengeable pitches he saw at Triple-A (meaning, his team still had challenges remaining, and the pitch was a called strike against him). He pulled the trigger on anything close. On borderline pitches (within a baseball's width of the edge of the strike zone), his challenge rate shot up to 34.3%. Those rates were the highest among Triple-A hitters.

And that was just too many challenges. De Los Santos won just 42% of his challenges overall (16 of 38), and 43% of his challenges on borderline pitches (15 of 35). That resulted in him having a negative value on challenges compared to what you'd expect from an average player. His 22 lost challenges were tied for the most by any Triple-A hitter.

8) Max Stassi -- the most (correctly) aggressive catcher

On the catcher side, the most frequent challenger was an MLB veteran, Stassi … who showed that it's possible to be an aggressive challenger and a good challenger.

The 34-year-old, who spent 2025 in the Giants organization, was still able to win 60% of those challenges (21 of 35) even while challenging at a much higher-than-expected rate. That's the savvy of spending a decade behind the plate in the big leagues, even if challenging was a new trick he had to learn.

Stassi challenged a lot, but he also basically only challenged on borderline pitches that were close to the zone. He wasn't challenging anything crazy, and more often than not, he was right.

Now he's the Angels' new catching coach -- so maybe he can help Logan O'Hoppe and Travis d'Arnaud with the art of the challenge, too.

9) Zac Veen -- the least successful challenging batter

Not every hitter can have Juan Soto's eye. In 2025, at the very bottom of the challenge leaderboard was Veen, who kept losing challenges -- but didn't let that stop him from trying.

The 24-year-old Rockies prospect challenged at one of the highest rates among Triple-A hitters (17% of challengeable pitches) … and lost nearly every time. Veen won just three challenges, and lost 22 -- as many as any hitter.

Veen, a left-handed hitter, just didn't have a good feel for the outside edge of the strike zone. That's essentially the only location where he liked to challenge, and it almost never paid off.

10) Yonathan Perlaza -- the best batter at flipping plate appearances

Players can challenge balls and strikes in any count, but the most visible impact happens when they take a strikeout off the board by reversing a called Strike 3, or create a walk by flipping a strike to a Ball 4.

Perlaza was the hitter who had the most plate appearance-changing challenges at Triple-A in 2025. He erased seven potential strikeouts by challenging successfully (a "K flip"), and created four additional walks (a "BB flip"). (Four of those K flips and BB flips overlapped, with the challenge coming on a full count with either a strikeout or a walk riding on the outcome).

The Padres Minor Leaguer wasn't the greatest challenger overall (he won just under 50% of his challenges), but by choosing to use a big chunk of his challenges in two-strike or three-ball counts, he was able to flip entire plate appearances, not just pitches.

11) Blake Hunt -- the best catcher at flipping plate appearances

For catchers, K flips and BB flips mean the opposite -- a K flip is stealing a strikeout for their pitcher, and a BB flip is taking a walk off the board.

Hunt, who was in the Mariners system last season, did that particularly often. He got his pitchers 17 strikeouts by challenging, and erased eight walks. He was especially skilled at challenging pitches near the corners of the strike zone.

Targeting plate appearance-changing challenges seemed to be a strategy of Seattle's Triple-A catchers. Harry Ford was also near the top of the list of catcher K/BB flips, with 14 strikeouts created and eight walks erased.

12) Cooper Ingle -- a prospect who's good as a catcher and a batter

Ingle is a Top 100 prospect entering 2026 who is also a challenge dual threat: He's a good challenger at the plate as a batter, and a good challenger behind the plate as a catcher.

Last season, the 24-year-old Guardians backstop won six of his seven challenges as a batter (86%), and eight of his 14 challenges as a catcher (57%). Overall, he was worth +9.2 Overturns vs. Expected (+4.0 as a batter, +5.2 as a catcher).

He didn't challenge much, but he was good at it, in both phases of the game where he was involved.