Aaron Boone not restricting Yankees’ ability to challenge in new ABS era — yet

TAMPA — Yankees of any position are free to challenge pitches under the new Automated Ball-Strike System (ABS) — for now.

Access the Yankees beat like never before

Join Post Sports+ for exciting subscriber-only features, including real-time texting with Greg Joyce about the inside buzz on the Yankees.

Try it free

For the second straight spring, the Yankees will have Grapefruit League games to try out ABS, except this time it is going to be for real and in play once the regular season begins.

That has forced the Yankees to develop a strategy for how to best use the challenge system and take advantage of the two they get each game (they are retained if the challenge is successful).

“We’ll set that more in place when we get ready to break camp and then probably continue to evolve with it throughout the year,” manager Aaron Boone said Thursday afternoon after the club held a morning meeting for ABS education and strategy. “We’ve done a lot of work on it behind the scenes, a lot of meetings this winter going through it. I feel like, right now, we’re in a pretty good place with it as far as trying to continue to educate our players and understanding leverage and things like that. 

“Everyone’s free to challenge right now. We’ll see how it continues to unfold.”

Over the winter, Boone had indicated he was leaning toward not allowing his pitchers to challenge calls — a strategy that seemed to be popular among managers at the winter meetings — because they tend to think anything borderline is a strike.

But as of Thursday, he had softened somewhat on that stance, at least at this point in the spring.

“I’m not at the point of not allowing pitchers [to challenge] — I am less comfortable,” Boone said. “Catcher probably No. 1 with who I’m the most comfortable with challenging. Then hitter, then pitcher, probably in that order.”

Max Fried is hoping to possibly gain some leeway this spring.

“I guess I’m going to have to really pay attention here in spring training, see if my eyes are as good as I think they are,” Fried said. “If I’m really good in spring, I might have a little more liberty of doing it in-game.”

Another rule change came down the chute Thursday when MLB owners voted to enforce the rule that first and third base coaches must remain in their boxes until a pitch is thrown.

That became an issue during a Yankees-Blue Jays series at Rogers Centre in 2023, when the Blue Jays got upset with Yankees coaches straying outside of their boxes, which could help them get a better angle to pick up tipped pitches and relay that to runners or hitters.

“It’s probably a good thing to regulate that,” Boone said Thursday. “We talked about that at the winter meetings in our managers meeting. … Overall, I think it’s probably a good thing, just for the competitiveness of the game.”

Luis Gil threw the equivalent of two innings in live batting practice Thursday, hitting 95 mph and striking out Aaron Judge while building up to about 35 pitches.

“I think he’s had a really good winter as far as strength and conditioning-wise and getting himself in a good place, ready to come in,” Boone said. “That talent hasn’t gone away. He’s a young man that you can tell is very hungry right now and he wants to go out and prove that he’s that guy that he was in ’24.”