Scottsdale, Ariz. >> Justin Verlander was on a minor-league rehab assignment when he got his first taste of the automated ball-strike system, or ABS. Verlander hadn’t used the system before and didn’t plan on challenging any pitches. Before his outing, Verlander told his catcher to handle any and all appeals.

The temptation to reverse a call ended up being too appealing.

“The first time he didn’t appeal, I thought it was a strike,” Verlander said with a smile.

This spring, Major League Baseball is using spring training as a testing ground for the automated ball-strike system. ABS is only available at a select amount of Cactus League venues; Scottsdale Stadium, the Giants’ home venue for spring training, doesn’t have ABS capabilities but the Giants have experienced the system in five road games. Briefly, here’s how the system works:

• Each team starts every game with two challenges. Teams retain their challenge if they are successful but lose a challenge if they are unsuccessful.

• The home plate umpire will call balls and strikes as normal while Hawk-Eye technology, which is alos used for other Statcast data, monitors balls and strikes.

• Batters, catchers and pitchers are the only players who can challenge. To challenge, a player taps their head. Challenges must be made immediately. The average time of a challenge is about 15 seconds.

• If a player challenges a call, a stadium’s video board will show everyone in attendance the Hawk-Eye view. The call is then upheld or overturned.

• Players were measured at the beginning of spring training (without cleats) to get their measurements for the strike zone. The top end of the strike zone is 53.5% of a player’s height. The bottom end is 27%. The width of a strike zone is 17 inches and the depth is 8.5 inches.

• There are no extra challenges in extra innings.

ABS will not go into effect this season but could be implemented as early as next season. In the Giants’ clubhouse, reception is mixed.

Verlander, the oldest active player in the majors, took a measured stance on the topic. He acknowledged that technology is advantageous and the game needs to adapt accordingly, but also reminisced on studying an umpire’s tendencies and working within the confines of the strike zone on any given day. Verlander conceded that he doesn’t have enough experience with ABS to give his full opinion, but believes “it’s in the right vein.” The right-hander also believes that today’s umpires are also the best in the world at their craft and that perfection is an impossibility.

“You’re working with the umpire,” Verlander said. “Now, they’re kind of boxed into this zone that they don’t necessarily want to call. … The way that every umpire sets up, they have a little bit of a blind spot in certain places. If you look at the umpires’ strike zone, technically, it’s more of a blob than an exact square. There could be a fun way to be like, ‘Hey, this is the umpire’s strike zone today. Here’s what you’ve got to work with.’”

Verlander was neutral in his opinion, Patrick Bailey was more blunt in his assessment.

“I’m not a fan,” Bailey said. “I think it’s going to change a lot of the game. I think umpires do a really, really good job and people over-dramatize the one out of 100 calls that might be egregious. It could be, obviously, an important part of the game, but umpires do a really good job and it’s only going to put more scrutiny on them.”

One of Bailey’s biggest strengths as a catcher — if not his biggest strength — is pitch framing. Last season, no catcher was better than him at turning balls into strikes. He won his first Gold Glove Award due in large part to his framing ability. ABS won’t completely neutralize Bailey’s biggest strength since teams are limited in their challenges per game, but the system stands to chip away at his value, personally, and catchers’ collective value, generally.

“Catchers are extremely undervalued in the first place,” Bailey said. “It could potentially take a lot of people out of the game, in my opinion, for no reason. There’s a lot of catchers that can really catch and are really good clubhouse guys. I think it takes away an entire element of our game and what we do.”

When asked if he saw any potential benefits, Bailey said he was “all out on it.”

Fellow catcher Max Stassi, who has played in parts of 10 major-league seasons, isn’t a “big fan” of ABS, either. Similar to Bailey, Stassi believes that today’s umpires “do a phenomenal job to begin with” and that one viral video of a bad call can negatively impact the perception of umpires.

“If they watched the whole game, they’d see how many calls they actually got right,” Stassi said. “I really enjoy the human element. Those guys back there put in hard work to be good at their craft.”

LaMonte Wade Jr., though, isn’t opposed to the system as long as balls and strikes don’t become fully automated.