The St. Louis Cardinals as well as the other teams in the major leagues will have a new facet of the game to work with this upcoming season.

Major League Baseball will introduce a new automated ball-and-strike system this upcoming season, which will allow pitchers, catchers and batters to challenge the calls from umpires on two pitches per game.

This system has been used in the minor leagues for several seasons and was used in spring training and the All-Star Game last season.

The Cardinals, who've seen significant changes in their pitching staff this past season, have the goal of getting familiar with the system before their spring training opener, but there might be a hurdle in that regard.

According to a report on "X" from Belleville News-Democrat writer Jeff Jones, St. Louis manager Oli Marmol said the team is hoping to get live bullpen sessions in at Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium on Friday to get used to the ABS system. The team's spring training opener takes place at 1:05 p.m. ET on Saturday against the Washington Nationals at Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter, Fla.

However, Roger Dean Stadium in undergoing multi-million dollar renovations and the team might not be able to have the live BP session Friday due to them, according to Jones' report.

The Cardinals' pitching staff has undergone several changes over the last year. The team traded closer Ryan Helsley to the New York Mets, starting pitcher Sonny Gray to the Boston Red Sox and netted top 100 pitching prospect Jurrangelo Cijntje and major league pitchers Hunter Dobbins and Richard Fitts in respective deals. The team also signed Dustin May to a one-year contract with an option in place for 2027.

St. Louis' starting rotation will likely undergo more changes over the course of the season and the more time the pitchers and catchers can put in with the new ABS system, the better.

Catcher Ivan Herrera, who was originally expected to compete for his native Panama in the 2026 World Baseball Classic, will be with the Cardinals all of spring training. He will enter the season splitting catching duties with Pedro Pages. He played 14 of 107 games at catcher last year.

Pages currently projects as the team's starting catcher, according to FanGraphs' roster resource page and Herrera projects as the team's main designated hitter.

Currently, the starting rotation projects as: Matthew Liberatore, Dustin May, Andre Pallante, Michael McGreevy and Kyle Leahy, per FanGraphs.

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