On March 20, 2025, during a Spring Training game between my San Francisco Giants and the Chicago Cubs, something unusual happened. A batter challenged a called strike, the system reviewed the pitch using automated ball-strike (ABS) technology, and within seconds, the call was overturned on the stadium display.
No argument. No screaming manager and kicking dirt. No dramatic ejection. Just data.
And if I’m being honest, I’m conflicted about it.
There’s something deeply human about baseball and all sports. The reliance on judgment, the gray areas, the understanding that not every call will be perfect. It’s imperfect, sometimes frustrating, but that uncertainty is part of what makes competition compelling.
At the same time, anyone who has watched enough baseball knows how inconsistent the strike zone can be. And when the stakes are high, that inconsistency feels less like charm and more like a flaw.
That tension, between tradition and precision, is exactly why AI is entering the game, and why it’s not just an experiment anymore.
AI Is Moving From Experiment to Standard
Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming a standard, in-game feature across professional baseball, with the most significant implementation being the Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) Challenge System in Major League Baseball starting in the 2026 season.
This system doesn’t replace umpires outright. Instead, it acts as a “second opinion” for players.
Here’s how it works:
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Full rollout in MLB (2026): All MLB ballparks will use AI-powered Hawk-Eye camera systems to track every pitch in real time
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Challenge-based system: Pitchers, catchers, and batters can challenge a ball or strike call immediately after it’s made
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Fast decisions: Reviews typically take about 13 to 15 seconds and are displayed in-stadium
In other words, MLB isn’t handing the game over to AI. It’s introducing a structured way to correct human inconsistency.
CompScience works the same way.
It doesn’t replace safety professionals. It acts as a second opinion and a backstop for the things that go unseen.
Because in the real world, you can’t have an expert everywhere, on every shift, watching every moment. But risk doesn’t wait for supervision.
CompScience fills that gap, providing continuous visibility into environments where a human expert can’t always be present, identifying risks, patterns, and signals that would otherwise be missed. It becomes the expert when one can’t be there.
And that gets to the core issue, in baseball and in the workplace.
The Problem: Human Judgment Under Pressure
Umpires operate under intense pressure. Split-second decisions. High stakes. Constant scrutiny.
Even the best are inconsistent, not because they lack skill, but because humans are inherently variable. Fatigue, positioning, and perception all introduce noise.
In baseball, that inconsistency shows up as a “moving strike zone.” In the workplace, it shows up as something more costly: unpredictable outcomes, missed hazards, and avoidable incidents.
The Shift: From Judgment to Intelligence
The ABS system uses high-speed cameras and tracking technology like Hawk-Eye to measure exactly where a pitch crosses the plate. Each player’s strike zone is calibrated to their stance, creating a consistent, data-driven standard.
The result is not perfection, but something close to it: a repeatable, transparent decision framework.
This is not about removing humans. It’s about augmenting them with better information.
The Opportunity: A Smarter, Consistent Framework
CompScience brings the equivalent of an AI-powered strike zone to workplace safety.
Instead of relying solely on manual observation, it uses data, machine learning, and real-world signals to:
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Standardize how risk is identified and evaluated
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Surface hazards and patterns that humans might miss
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Reduce variability in safety decisions across sites and shifts
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Improve outcomes over time
Most importantly, it drives a reduction in total cost of risk, not just through better response, but through earlier detection and prevention.
Human + AI Beats Either Alone
Baseball isn’t eliminating umpires. It’s giving them a better tool.
And that’s the part I keep coming back to. Because while I want the right call every time, I’m still not sure I want a version of sports where nothing is left to human interpretation. The same question applies to workplace safety. The goal isn’t to replace safety professionals. It’s to give them a clearer, more consistent view of reality so they can make better decisions. Because whether it’s calling a strike or preventing an incident, consistency isn’t just fairness. It’s performance.
