SEC baseball: Balls and strikes can be challenged at upcoming conference tournament

On Monday, the Southeastern Conference announced that it will experiment with a system that allows teams to challenge ball and strike calls at its upcoming conference tournament.

According to the SEC, this will be similar to the challenge system that Major League Baseball implemented this season. According to Baseball Savant, 53% of the 2,160 Automated Ball-Strike challenges through Monday's MLB games had been successful.

Texas Longhorns head coach Jim Schlossnagle meets Texas A&M head coach Michael Earley ahead of the Lone Star Showdown at Blue Bell Park on Friday, April 10, 2026 in College Station, Texas. (Aaron E. Martinez/Austin American-Statesman)

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Teams will start off each game in the SEC Tournament with three challenges, and D1Baseball reported on Monday that only pitchers, catchers and hitters can request a challenge. If a player wants to challenge an umpire's ball or strike call, he can immediately appeal to an automated tracking system that monitors pitch locations and strike zones (each player's height will be gathered before the tournament). If a challenge is successful, the team will retain it.

If a game goes into extra innings, a team gets one challenge per inning. That challenge can be retained throughout the inning, but it doesn't carry over to an additional extra inning.

Texas Longhorns head coach Jim Schlossnagle speaks with an umpire in the sixth inning as the Texas Longhorns play their first game of a three-game series against the Alabama Crimson Tide, April 17, 2026. (Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman)

In a press release, the SEC shared that "After the umpire signals that a challenge has been initiated, an animated pitch result graphic will be displayed on the stadium videoboard and on the television broadcast, showing the location of the pitch, whether the call was confirmed or overturned, and the updated ball-strike count."

"The introduction of this challenge system at the SEC Tournament reflects our continued commitment to innovation,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said in a statement. “This addition represents a continued step forward for our game, aligns more closely with the professional level and supports the development of our student-athletes as they prepare for success at the next level."

The SEC Tournament will be held at Hoover Met Stadium in Hoover, Ala. The tournament begins on May 19, and the SEC will crown a champion on May 24.

"One of the beautiful things about the SEC is they're always on the forefront of change and trying things and trying to push the envelope to make the game better," Texas coach Jim Schlossnagle said after the Longhorns' 11-8 win over UTSA on Tuesday. "We made this decision in the offseason to give this a look, see what it's like, and we'll see how it goes. ... It's not meant to show up any umpires or anything, it's meant to make the game better, and we'll see if it does."