Blue Notes · Umpire Grade2026-04-07
LAD @ TOR
Home plate: Dan Merzel
“Called a fair game and let the players decide it.”
Umpire Grade
95.6% accurate
Run Favor
runs, TOR
ABS Overturns
of 4 reviewed
What this shows — how Dan Merzel called the 137 pitches that were taken (no swing), graded against the tracked rulebook strike zone. He got 131 right. Below, only his misses are plotted, alongside every pitch the ABS (Automated Ball-Strike System) reviewed on a challenge.
The zone, as he called it
strike called ballball called strikeABS overturnedABS upheld
The calls that moved the game
- 1-0.21▼9 · 3-0 ball called strike
Ernie Clement vs Edwin Díaz - 2+0.10▼2 · 0-1 strike called ball
Jesús Sánchez vs Yoshinobu Yamamoto - 3+0.10▲8 · 0-1 strike called ball
Freddie Freeman vs Louis Varland
Run impact from the count run-value table: a missed strike three is worth far more than one on 3-0.
ABS — the Automated Ball-Strike System
4 pitches went to the robots · 3 overturned (ump overruled) · 1 upheld (ump confirmed). This is Hawkeye ground truth, no model involved.
- 1Brandon Valenzuela — ump said strike, robot ruled ball: overturned.
- 2Kazuma Okamoto — ump said ball, robot ruled strike: overturned.
- 3Will Smith — ump said ball, robot ruled ball: upheld.
- 4Will Smith — ump said strike, robot ruled ball: overturned.
Our tracked-rulebook zone matched the ABS ruling on 1 of 4 — a zone-definition gap (ABS grades a standardized, height-based zone), not our error.