Robo-umps at spring training helped the Phillies finally stop chasing pitches. Can they keep it up?

Over the weekend, Trea Turner stranded four runners in scoring position in two wins, each decided by one run. Afterward, he and Phillies hitting coach Kevin Long were happy with his failures.

If that sounds crazy, understand that, for a team best known for chasing really bad pitches, this is progress. Turner didn’t make bad swings either time.

For the last two seasons the Phillies have been the worst chase-rate team among National League clubs that made the playoffs; that is, they swung at a higher percentage of pitches out of the strike zone than any other good NL team.

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However, after nine games in 2025, their chase rate is just 25%, best in baseball going into Monday’s games. As they enter Atlanta on Tuesday for the first three games of a six-game road trip, they’re 7-2, and they looked good doing it with solid defense, good pitching, and, more than anything else, disciplined hitting.

Last season their chase rate was 30.3%, sixth-worst in baseball. In 2023 it was even worse, at 31.3%.

On Sunday, Turner also walked twice, which brought his season total to five. That’s a pace for 90 walks this season, which not only would be a career high but would be 12 more than his two-year total with the Phillies.

Turner was part of the Phillies’ 11-walk day against the visiting Dodgers, whom they beat, 8-7. Five of those walks scored. They won the series, two games to one.

Those were the most walks by a Phillies team since July 21, 2021. Long was hired in 2022, when Kyle Schwarber and Nick Castellanos arrived. Turner signed in 2023. All three years, the team’s luxury-tax payroll exceeded $250 million, and it’s more than $300 million this year. So, against the reigning World Series champions, the most expensive lineup in Phillies history had the best plate discipline in its brief history.

The club sure rose to the moment, eh, Kev?

“Well … actually, I think spring training helped us a great deal,” Long said “That ABS system basically said to our guys, ‘Hey, the strike zone is not as big as we all tend to believe it is.’ ”

ABS stands for the Automated Ball-Strike System, which uses cameras to track each pitch. After four years of testing in the minor leagues, MLB used it at 13 spring-training facilities this spring. Hitters, catchers, and pitchers could challenge up to two umpires’ calls per game, retaining their challenge if they were right. Major League Baseball says that 52.2% of challenges were overturned. Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred loves the system, which could be implemented as soon as next season.

All of that is coincidental to the Phillies’ current phenomenon. For now, said Long, the Phillies are experiencing an unintended consequence:

Plate discipline.

This is not a leaguewide trend. The average chase rates in the major leagues have barely moved; 28.6% in 2023, 28.5% in 2024, 28.8% so far in 2025.

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Furthermore, the Phillies led all of baseball with 153 walks in spring training, 11 more than the next-best team. The Phils walked just 94 times in spring training in 2024.

The Phillies have a bunch of hitters, particularly Turner and Nick Castellanos, who hated to depend on the judgment of umps. If a pitch was close, they were going to swing.

“I don’t want to leave it up to the umpire,” Turner said. “And I think Nick feels this way a little bit, yeah.”

This spring, though, they didn’t feel the need to hack away. They could appeal the call, and about half the time they were right.

The robo-umps brought clarity to a cloudy issue.

“Our guys, to a man, basically said, ‘It’s kind of nice to know what the strike zone is,‘” Long said. “There was no gray area. It was either a ball or a strike. We showed better discipline. I felt like that was going to trickle into the season.”

It has.

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Turner was at 33.9% last season. He’s at 26.4% now. The results for Castellanos have been even better. He’s reduced his chase rate from 37.8% to 26.3%, with four walks and two home runs, including a grand slam Sunday.

“I think Nick’s bought in. I think he wants to make a conscious effort to be better at it,” Long said. “He knows it’s in his blood to go up there and swing. And I think he’s found a balance of when to attack, when not to.”

Not only do the Phillies have a better sense of the strike zone, they now have more faith in the umps, who, Turner said, seem sharper than before.

“I think we both [players and umps] got a little better,” Turner said. “The ABS helped a little bit. Now I feel like I can trust the umpire more. Like, he’s going to do his job, for the most part.”

On Friday against the Dodgers, with runners on second and third with two out in the seventh, Turner struck out looking on a 3-2 pitch. All three strikes were called; all were sweeping sliders on the outside part of the plate. Strikes two and three were perfectly placed on the low, outside portion of the strike zone.

When Turner returned to the dugout he asked Long, “Were those strikes?”

“Yeah,” Long replied.

“Huh. I thought all three were balls,” Turner said.

“That’s great,” Long said. “They all just barely nicked the strike zone.”

On Sunday, with runners on second and third and two out in the sixth, Turner swung at the first pitch and grounded out. He returned to the dugout and asked, “Kev, was that a strike?”

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“No. It was just below the zone.”

“Heart of the plate, though? In the middle?”

“Yep.”

“OK.”

Turner isn’t exactly pleased that he struck out looking on Friday and grounded out Sunday, but he isn’t beating himself up, either — especially the Friday plate appearance. Dodgers reliever Luis Garcia just won that battle.

“Looking back at the at-bat, I got nothing to hit. Everything was so borderline,” Turner said. “So it’s like, you kind of tip your cap, you know?”

Nobody thinks the Phillies will be this efficient all season. They have 43 walks, ranking fourth in baseball, and just 63 strikeouts, sixth-fewest in baseball.

That’s a pace for 1,134 strikeouts, or a decrease of 236 K’s from 2024. That’s also a pace for 774 walks, which would be 259 more than last season and the fourth highest total in baseball history. Tigers might be able to change their stripes, but they can’t change their DNA.

Long isn’t delusional. After chasing themselves out of the 2023 NLCS, the Phillies’ chase rate in the first half of 2024 was acceptable, but it ballooned to almost 40% down the stretch, and it was atrocious in their four-game NLDS loss to the Mets. They looked particularly anemic in Game 4 against Jose Quintana, when they scored once and were eliminated.

“We knew going into the Mets series, Quintana was going to dance around the strike zone,” Long said of the lefty, who struck out six Phillies in five innings. “[Long’s instructions] didn’t translate, right?”

Since the day Long arrived, he has begged Phillies hitters to be more selective. They have lots of chase-rate scar tissue, and 153 more games, so no, they’re not celebrating.

“We know that there are going to be some tough days, and we know that we’re going to have to bear down on some guys and talk to them openly about this stuff,” Long said. “For now, though, we know that they’re basically trusting their eyes. If they do that a little more frequently, we’ll be good.”