SAN FRANCISCO — It took only a few minutes of talking with Cardinals starter Miles Mikolas about Major League Baseball’s game-changing adoption of the Automated Ball Strike system for 2026 before the veteran started to think of ways it might bend his strategy.

Consider the curveball.

Mikolas described how beginning in spring training and perhaps throughout the season it will be important for pitchers to use ABS and its tech-precision strike zone in bullpen sessions and live batting practice outings to get a feel for how pitches can tickle its edges. He mentioned his curveball and attempting to calibrate it to brush the zone as it breaks down and out of it.

“For someone like myself with those curveballs at the bottom of the zone, I think if I can learn which of those pitches are catching

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