For the 2026 season, Major League Baseball introduced its challenge system to great fanfare, with the Automated Balls/Strikes (ABS) system serving as a backstop to overturn (or validate) calls made by the umpires.
In doing so, MLB finally formalized the definition of the strike zone - no longer would it be “knees to letters” at the discretion of umpires - now it ranges from 27% to 53.5% of the batter’s measured height.
Measuring the Players
To guarantee the fairness and accuracy of the system, Major League Baseball conducted a formal re-measurement of players before the season.
The results are entertaining - they show that MLB players are no different than your typical dating app user! Many had padded their listed height by an inch or two, with 5'11" and 5'9" hitters being the most likely to have rounded up in the past.
Visualizing the Changes in Height
Kudos to The Athletic for their great info gathering on this topic - they’ve published a few handy tables illustrating the year-over-year differences in player heights.
My motivation for this quick piece was to highlight their work and add a little more visual pizzazz… so take a peek below, I hope these charts (cooked up in ggplot as usual) help communicate the findings a bit more intuitively!
