Dan Bellino
27 games graded behind the plate.
3,714 correct of 4,011 graded takes (92.6% ± 0.8, 95%). Best game 96.5% · worst 85.7%. 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 Dan Bellino
This season is 4,011 graded takes, which puts Dan Bellino's overall accuracy at 92.6% ± 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 802 takes, so ±1.8 points. (the league-wide two-strike effect is about 1 point in 2026.)
- any single corner of the zone — about 334 takes, so ±2.8 points. (corner cells are where umpires actually differ.)
- whether one pitcher is called tighter than another — about 67 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 120 pitches players chose to challenge, which are the pitches they already believed were wrong. 120 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
Dan Bellino
A Chicago-born umpire who passed the Illinois bar and chose the plate — the road from the minors to a World Series and a crew chief's post.
Dan Bellino earned a law degree from The John Marshall Law School in Chicago and passed the Illinois bar — and he never gave the law up: he is a licensed practicing attorney who manages a suburban law firm alongside his umpiring career.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, on October 10, 1978, he attended Loyola Academy for high school, went on to Northern Illinois University, and spent a semester at Oxford in England. From there, he moved into the minor leagues, working his way through the Florida State League, the Eastern League, and the Pacific Coast League before umpiring his first major league game on June 25, 2008. Three years later, in 2011, he was appointed a full-time MLB umpire and assigned to Brian Gorman's crew. He was later promoted to crew chief in 2023.
When MLB senior vice president Mike Hill called to inform Bellino he would umpire in the 2021 World Series, the call came after he had already worked nine postseason rounds over the years, including an LCS in 2019. The World Series was his first. MLB noted that umpires earn their postseason assignments through merit.
On May 4, 2022, at LoanDepot Park, Bellino was conducting a foreign substance check on Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Madison Bumgarner in the first inning when he stared down the pitcher. Bumgarner noticed and asked what was happening, after which Bellino ejected him almost immediately. Bumgarner had to be restrained by bench coach Jeff Banister.
This season, we have graded Bellino behind the plate in 20 games. The grades from all those games appear above on this page.
Reporting: Wikipedia, Retrosheet, Baseball Reference Bullpen, Shaw Local. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PHI @ LAA2026-08-30 | A | 0.6 PHI | 1/5 | A steady night's work behind the plate. |
| PIT @ SD2026-08-25 | A- | 0.4 PIT | 3/6 | Down the middle. Both dugouts had the same zone. |
| CIN @ AZ2026-08-21 | D | 2.3 AZ | 5/6 | The Automated Ball-Strike System put in some overtime here. |
| ATL @ NYY2026-08-09 | A | 1.0 NYY | 1/3 | Nothing that'll trend, and on this beat that's a compliment. |
| LAA @ BAL2026-08-05 | A- | 0.2 BAL | 1/3 | Solid and unspectacular — exactly what the job asks. |
| PIT @ CIN2026-07-31 | C+ | 0.2 PIT | 4/7 | Expanded the plate a touch past its 17 inches. |
| PHI @ MIA2026-07-27 | A- | 0.4 MIA | 4/4 | Reliable as a Tuesday: no complaints, no headlines. |
| STL @ LAA2026-07-22 | A | 0.8 LAA | 2/4 | A workmanlike night — nothing to frame, nothing to fix. |
| SF @ SEA2026-07-18 | C | 0.3 SF | 2/4 | The zone kept to itself — the hitters said thanks. |
| STL @ CHC2026-07-03 | D | 0.9 CHC | 6/6 | The robots earned their keep tonight. |
| CIN @ MIL2026-06-29 | A | 0.2 CIN | 2/5 | A clean sheet behind the plate — the kind of night nobody posts about. |
| ATL @ SD2026-06-24 | A | 0.4 ATL | 0/0 | Reliable as a Tuesday: no complaints, no headlines. |
| LAA @ ATH2026-06-20 | B | 0.3 ATH | 1/3 | The kind of night where the umpire is the least of the story. |
| TB @ LAD2026-06-16 | D | 0.3 LAD | 4/4 | A small strike zone, generously enforced for the offense. |
| KC @ MIN2026-06-05 | C+ | 0.4 KC | 3/4 | The black wasn't in play tonight. |
| DET @ TB2026-06-01 | A- | 0.7 DET | 4/7 | A workmanlike night — nothing to frame, nothing to fix. |
| CHC @ PIT2026-05-28 | A | 0.8 CHC | 2/3 | The zone kept its promises. |
| TOR @ DET2026-05-17 | B- | 0.1 TOR | 3/6 | The zone kept its promises. |
| PHI @ BOS2026-05-13 | B- | 0.1 BOS | 0/2 | The black wasn't in play tonight. |
| SEA @ CWS2026-05-08 | A- | 0.3 SEA | 0/1 | Solid and unspectacular — exactly what the job asks. |
| CLE @ ATH2026-05-03 | D | 0.3 CLE | 2/4 | The zone kept to itself — the hitters said thanks. |
| CHC @ SD2026-04-28 | A- | 1.0 CHC | 4/6 | A tilt to the evening — the numbers say which way. |
| MIA @ SF2026-04-24 | B- | 0.7 MIA | 3/7 | A pitcher's-nightmare zone — you had to paint it to get it. |
| NYY @ TB2026-04-12 | A- | 0.3 NYY | 3/5 | A workmanlike night — nothing to frame, nothing to fix. |
| LAD @ TOR2026-04-08 | B | 1.2 TOR | 1/3 | One side pitched to a slightly bigger plate. |
| CHC @ CLE2026-04-05 | D | 0.3 CHC | 4/6 | The zone stretched its legs. |
| ATH @ ATL2026-03-30 | B+ | 0.3 ATL | 5/6 | The Automated Ball-Strike System put in some overtime here. |