Tony Mansolino thought the world was ending when Major League Baseball introduced the extra-inning ghost runner rule a few years ago when he was a coach in the minor leagues.

“Hated it,” the Orioles interim manager said.

He couldn’t stand the three-batter minimum rule change for pitchers. An infield coach at heart, the shift restrictions irked him. The step-off and pick-off attempt limitations he thought would be awful.

Each time, he came around to the rule changes — Mansolino even grew to love them, seeing the value it brought to concerns over the average game time and the fan experience. With the announcement that MLB will implement the automated ball-strike challenge system for the 2026 season, Mansolino knows better than to get worked up.

He figures he’ll love this change, and he’s sure the viewers will, too.

“I think the fans are going to love it,” Mansolino said. “Entertainment value in our game of baseball isn’t a bad thing. This doesn’t need to be the crusty, grungy, bunt them over, do the whole deal, play the game it was in the ‘60s type of deal — although I do like that version of the game. I think it is important in today’s day and age for it to be entertaining for the people who buy tickets and the people who ultimately allow us to be here.”

Across the Orioles clubhouse, there are some concerns over how it will be rolled out, but for the most part, Baltimore’s hitters and pitchers see it as a positive.

Each team will have two challenges to use during the course of games, and if they are out of challenges entering extra innings, they’ll receive one additional challenge. Human umpires will still call the balls and strikes, but this offers teams a chance to overrule an egregious miss.

MLB tested the system at 13 ballparks during spring training and reported 52.2% of challenges were successful in getting calls overturned. Each challenge lasted an average of 13.8 seconds, according to the league, and there were an average of 4.1 challenges per game.

Challenges must be made by a pitcher, catcher or batter — signaled by tapping their helmet or cap — and a team retains its challenge if successful. Reviews will be shown as digital graphics on outfield video boards.

In that sense, Orioles players saw this as a happy marriage between tradition and modern times — a way to keep the human element of baseball while accounting for the technological advances that can serve as a check on umpires.

“I know umpires aren’t perfect and I don’t expect them to be perfect,” left-hander Trevor Rogers said. “But if we clean up that aspect of the game and take that part out of it, when a big moment of the game was affected by a call, if we clean that up, I think it’s better for the game as a whole.”

Much of the concern around the automated strike zone related to the definition of the strike zone itself. Last year, then-Orioles pitchers Corbin Burnes and Cole Irvin expressed caution about the arrival of an electronic strike zone.

Irvin said his experience with the Hawk-Eye system, which was first implemented in the minors and will be brought to MLB next year, was subject to inconsistencies.

Burnes added that “you don’t know what the actual shape of the strike zone is. It’s tough to calculate for each hitter. Stuff that I don’t really know if it can be resolved as far as having to change the height of the strike zone every time a guy gets up, a guy stands tall, and when he strides, he shrinks down. So there’s always a change in strike zone.”

MLB will define the strike zone for replay purposes as “a two-dimensional rectangle that is set in the middle of home plate with the edges of the zone set to the width of home plate (17 inches) and the top and bottom adjusted based on each individual player’s height (53.5% of the batter’s height at the top and 27% at the bottom).”

The league will certify the official heights of players with independent testers to standardize the process.

But even with that definition, left-hander Cade Povich wondered about the park factors, and how sensors at different stadiums will influence the challenges.

“What’s the consistency of it, location to location?” Povich said. “Is Gunnar’s [Henderson] challenge zone gonna look the same here as it does in New York or in Boston or on the West Coast?”

Still, those who have used the challenge system in Triple-A this year see the advantages. Jeremiah Jackson, whose hitting in Norfolk made him deserving of an extended look in the majors, said the additional layer of accountability led to better umpire performances.

“I feel like in Triple-A when I was there, the zone was good,” Jackson said. “Guys didn’t want to get shown up by the pitcher or the hitter, so they were locked into the game and making sure they kept the ball in the strike zone. I think it’ll be good.”

He acknowledged there will be an adjustment period for some players who haven’t used the system before.

“I will like it a lot more than some of the guys who haven’t [used it], just because you got some guys who have been in the league for 10-plus years who have earned the right to maybe get a few calls that probably a rookie or younger guy wouldn’t get, which, unfair or not unfair, however you want to look at it, that’s just kind of the game,” Jackson said. “I think it adds a different element to the game.”

Jackson said the element of strategy will be heavy. Most teams will likely want to keep their challenges for key moments late in games, and there may well be restrictions on which hitters know the zone well enough to be trusted with challenges.

But for the most part, the Orioles are welcoming the future of ball-strike challenges.

“The umpires are humans, too, and they’re going to make mistakes,” right-hander Yennier Cano said through team interpreter Brandon Quinones. “This is something that benefits everyone, not only us as players but the umpires as well, and even the fans, because sometimes the fans can get upset when we lose a game and it’s because the umpire missed a call.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.