Chris Guccione
25 games graded behind the plate.
3,561 correct of 3,832 graded takes (92.9% ± 0.8, 95%). Best game 96.2% · worst 87.9%. Grade is accuracy on taken pitches vs the rulebook zone; ABS is the Automated Ball-Strike System challenge record (how often the robots overruled the call).
What we can't say about Chris Guccione
This season is 3,832 graded takes, which puts Chris Guccione's overall accuracy at 92.9% ± 0.8 (95% interval). That is a real measurement against a league spanning about four points end to end. It is not enough for anything finer, and here is the arithmetic rather than our word for it:
- how the zone moves with two strikes — about 766 takes, so ±1.8 points. (the league-wide two-strike effect is about 1 point in 2026.)
- any single corner of the zone — about 319 takes, so ±2.8 points. (corner cells are where umpires actually differ.)
- whether one pitcher is called tighter than another — about 64 takes, so ±6.3 points. (a given pitcher is worked once or twice a season.)
And a note on the number itself: an accuracy figure is a rate plus a convention for what counts as a miss. Ours grades every taken pitch against the rulebook zone as the feed reports it. Others are more forgiving — UmpScorecards counts a call wrong only when the pitch was at least 90% likely to be a strike — so two sites can print the same percentage about the same umpire and not mean the same thing by it. How the grade is built.
The overturn rate is a different kind of number and does not belong beside the grade: it is accuracy on the 119 pitches players chose to challenge, which are the pitches they already believed were wrong. 119 is enough to print it with its own denominator, which is what we do — but it still ranks umpires by how often they are appealed, not by how often they are right.
The road to the plate
The Bus from Salida
Chris Guccione rode a Greyhound 52 hours to umpire school and worked 1,255 fill-in games before the majors had him full-time.
The Bus from Salida
In 1995, Chris Guccione and some friends raised roughly $3,000 through local fundraisers and family help and boarded a Greyhound in Salida, Colorado — a small town in the Rockies about 140 miles southwest of Denver. The ride to Kissimmee, Florida, and the Jim Evans Academy of Umpiring took 52 hours. They could not afford any other transportation.
That ride began a climb through the Pioneer League and on through the Midwest, California, Texas, and Pacific Coast leagues. His first major-league game came on April 25, 2000, at Turner Field in Atlanta — a 1-0 game, third base, crew chief Tim Tschida. Then came the long middle: 1,255 games as a fill-in umpire before his promotion to the full-time Major League staff before the 2009 season. SABR notes that fill-in record may never be broken. In 2002 alone, he worked 156 of 162 scheduled major-league games.
Under the Mask
He was at first base for Game Seven of the 2016 World Series, when the Cubs ended a 108-year championship drought. Kris Bryant slipped on a grounder but threw to Anthony Rizzo for the final out, and Guccione had the call at first. On June 28, 2023, he was on the crew again — at third base this time — when Domingo Germán threw a perfect game at the Oakland Coliseum.
He was promoted to crew chief ahead of the 2024 season. He works behind the plate in 2026, and we have graded him in 18 games this season.
Reporting: SABR.org, Wikipedia. Umpire data: MLB StatsAPI, via the Fever engine.
By the Desk · filed 2026-07-24 — the profile reads as of its filing; the grading record above is live · every fact in this piece comes from a sourced research pack and clears an independent fact-check, and nothing is edited after filing.
The games
| Game | Grade | Favor | ABS | Blue Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LAD @ DET2026-08-29 | A | 0.2 LAD | 2/5 | Both benches went home with nothing to say — the rarest kind of night. |
| TEX @ CWS2026-08-24 | B | 0.1 CWS | 4/7 | Called a fair game and let the players decide it. |
| BOS @ TOR2026-08-13 | B- | 1.1 BOS | 1/2 | The zone leaned, and the ledger noticed. |
| COL @ STL2026-08-09 | D | 0.7 COL | 2/4 | The zone stretched its legs. |
| MIN @ KC2026-08-05 | B+ | 0.2 MIN | 3/5 | The plate grew a few inches after the first pitch. |
| SF @ SD2026-07-31 | A | 0.2 SF | 2/3 | The zone kept its promises. |
| HOU @ LAA2026-07-27 | B- | 2.3 HOU | 4/6 | Two dugouts, and only one of them smiling. |
| BOS @ CWS2026-07-09 | B+ | 0.3 CWS | 3/4 | You had to throw it down Broadway to get the call. |
| MIL @ AZ2026-07-04 | A | 0.1 AZ | 1/2 | Both benches went home with nothing to say — the rarest kind of night. |
| LAA @ SEA2026-06-29 | A | 0.4 SEA | 2/5 | Nothing that'll trend, and on this beat that's a compliment. |
| PIT @ ATH2026-06-16 | A- | 0.3 ATH | 4/5 | The kind of night where the umpire is the least of the story. |
| TB @ LAA2026-06-12 | B+ | 0.1 TB | 4/4 | The zone kept to itself — the hitters said thanks. |
| CLE @ TEX2026-06-07 | D | 1.0 TEX | 6/9 | Hawkeye did more talking than the umpire tonight. |
| PIT @ HOU2026-06-03 | A | 0.8 PIT | 1/5 | A workmanlike night — nothing to frame, nothing to fix. |
| AZ @ SEA2026-05-29 | B+ | 0.3 AZ | 1/3 | A small strike zone, generously enforced for the offense. |
| CWS @ SF2026-05-24 | B- | 0.2 SF | 4/8 | A small strike zone, generously enforced for the offense. |
| ATH @ LAA2026-05-20 | B | 0.2 ATH | 1/5 | An honest evening's grade: nothing loud, nothing missed by much. |
| WSH @ MIA2026-05-10 | B- | 0.9 MIA | 2/5 | The zone had wings tonight. |
| TOR @ TB2026-05-05 | B | 0.1 TOR | 2/5 | A pitcher's-nightmare zone — you had to paint it to get it. |
| LAD @ STL2026-05-01 | B | 0.6 STL | 5/7 | A few too many trips to the challenge cart. |
| KC @ NYY2026-04-19 | B | 1.5 NYY | 2/6 | Tonight's zone had a rooting interest. |
| TOR @ MIL2026-04-15 | B | 0.4 MIL | 3/4 | Solid and unspectacular — exactly what the job asks. |
| TEX @ LAD2026-04-10 | B+ | 0.1 TEX | 4/4 | Called a fair game and let the players decide it. |
| LAA @ CHC2026-03-31 | C+ | 0.0 LAA | 1/3 | The black wasn't in play tonight. |
| TB @ STL2026-03-26 | A- | 0.5 STL | 2/3 | The zone kept its promises. |