Robot umpires have been given a promotion and will be just one step from the major leagues this season. Major League Baseball is expanding its automated strike zone experiment to Triple-A, the highest level of the minor leagues. MLB's website posted a hiring notice seeking seasonal employees to operate the Automated Ball and Strike system. MLB said it is recruiting employees to operate the system for the Albuquerque Isotopes, Charlotte Knights, El Paso Chihuahuas, Las Vegas Aviators, Oklahoma City Dodgers, Reno Aces, Round Rock Express, Sacramento River Cats, Salt Lake Bees, Sugar Land Skeeters and Tacoma Rainiers. The independent Atlantic League became the first American professional league to let a computer call balls and strikes at its All-Star Game in July 2019 and experimented with ABS during the second half of that season. It also was used in the Arizona Fall League for top prospects in 2019, drawing complaints of its calls on breaking balls.

In 2002, when the Oakland A's replaced their MVP first baseman Jason Giambi with 32-year-old Scott Hatteberg, a washed-up catcher with a bum arm, longtime baseball scouts figured the unpredictable A's had finally gone completely around the bend. As journalist Michael Lewis recounted in his book, Moneyball, even "Hatteberg hadn't the slightest idea why the Oakland A's were so interested in him." As everybody who read Lewis' celebrated 2003 book knows, the A's signed Hatteberg with the encouragement of the team's bright young assistant general manager, Paul DePodesta. Schooled in economics at Harvard, DePodesta was developing a new way to interpret player statistics, finding value where nobody else was looking. With players like Hatteberg, the A's, led by general manager Billy Beane, took an operating budget that was a fraction of that of the Yankees or Red Sox, and assembled teams that didn't cost a fortune but won games like baseball royalty. We interviewed DePodesta for our 2013 issue "The Unlikely" because we were anxious to learn his methods for uncovering unlikely skills in baseball players through statistics and probability theory. He was forthcoming with his insights, if not all his secrets. At the time, DePodesta was vice president of scouting and player development for the New York Mets. Although he built his reputation in baseball, he told us he really wanted to be a football coach. Earlier this year he got his wish to be in football when he joined the Cleveland Browns as "Chief Strategy Officer," where he has put his skills to work to help the losing Browns reverse their fortunes.