Umpire Grade · Blue Notes

Gabe Morales

25 games graded behind the plate.

Season Grade

93.6% ± 0.8

Avg Swing

runs / game

ABS Overturns

46/91 calls

3,414 correct of 3,649 graded takes (93.6% ± 0.8, 95%). Best game 97.2% · worst 90.2%. 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 Gabe Morales

This season is 3,649 graded takes, which puts Gabe Morales's overall accuracy at 93.6% ± 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 730 takes, so ±1.8 points. (the league-wide two-strike effect is about 1 point in 2026.)
any single corner of the zone — about 304 takes, so ±2.8 points. (corner cells are where umpires actually differ.)
whether one pitcher is called tighter than another — about 61 takes, so ±6.2 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 91 pitches players chose to challenge, which are the pitches they already believed were wrong. 91 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

Gabe Morales

An umpire who spent three seasons as a fill-in before earning a full-time MLB post in 2017.

Morales graduated from the Jim Evans Academy of Professional Umpiring in 2009 and began working minor league games that same year. He first appeared in a major league game on April 2, 2014, in uniform number 47. His debut was a fill-in assignment. For three seasons he worked major league games as a call-up, without a permanent place on the staff, until February 2017 brought the promotion: he was elevated to the full-time MLB staff, one of four umpires tapped that winter to fill vacancies left by the retirements of Bob Davidson, John Hirschbeck, Jim Joyce, and Tim Welke. Across 13 seasons as a major league umpire, he has issued 22 ejections, the first coming in 2015 when he ejected Twins manager Paul Molitor.

Born in Santa Clara, California, in 1984, Morales has drawn October assignments since 2018: Wild Card Games and Series in 2018, 2020, and 2025, Division Series in 2021 and 2023, League Championship Series in 2024 and 2025, and the 2022 All-Star Game. His 2021 Division Series assignment produced a call that drew intense scrutiny. In the decisive Game 5 between the Giants and Dodgers, with San Francisco's Wilmer Flores at the plate, Morales ruled that Flores had swung on a check-swing attempt — a strikeout that ended the game and the series. Crew chief Ted Barrett indicated afterward that Morales had seen a replay but declined to comment further.

He serves on Crew B under crew chief Doug Eddings, and 18 of his games behind the plate this season make up the grading record on this page.

Reporting: Wikipedia, Baseball Almanac, UEFL / Close Call Sports. 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
BAL @ ATH2026-08-29	A-	0.2 ATH	2/3	The zone kept its promises.
CLE @ LAA2026-08-24	B+	0.1 LAA	1/3	An honest evening's grade: nothing loud, nothing missed by much.
MIL @ LAD2026-08-13	A-	1.5 MIL	4/8	The zone leaned, and the ledger noticed.
TB @ SEA2026-08-09	B-	0.3 SEA	1/2	If it was close, it was a strike. The hitters noticed.
TOR @ HOU2026-08-04	A	0.0 HOU	0/3	Both benches went home with nothing to say — the rarest kind of night.
BOS @ LAD2026-07-31	A	0.4 BOS	1/2	An honest evening's grade: nothing loud, nothing missed by much.
CIN @ STL2026-07-26	B	0.5 STL	1/2	The plate grew a few inches after the first pitch.
SD @ ATL2026-07-22	A-	0.3 ATL	2/4	Solid and unspectacular — exactly what the job asks.
ATH @ CWS2026-07-11	A	0.0 ATH	1/4	A steady night's work behind the plate.
NYY @ TB2026-07-07	B-	0.0 TB	0/2	The zone had wings tonight.
PHI @ NYM2026-06-26	B+	1.3 PHI	2/4	Tonight's zone had a rooting interest.
KC @ TB2026-06-22	A	0.4 TB	2/4	The kind of night where the umpire is the least of the story.
CWS @ NYY2026-06-18	A-	0.4 NYY	3/3	Corner-to-corner and then some.
DET @ CLE2026-06-12	B	0.5 DET	0/2	A workmanlike night — nothing to frame, nothing to fix.
SEA @ BAL2026-06-08	A	0.4 SEA	4/6	Down the middle. Both dugouts had the same zone.
MIA @ TOR2026-05-26	B	1.2 TOR	3/4	A tilt to the evening — the numbers say which way.
HOU @ MIN2026-05-20	C+	0.3 MIN	4/5	Corner-to-corner and then some.
DET @ KC2026-05-09	C+	0.1 DET	2/5	A pitcher's-nightmare zone — you had to paint it to get it.
AZ @ CHC2026-05-02	A-	0.9 CHC	3/6	Solid and unspectacular — exactly what the job asks.
SEA @ MIN2026-04-27	A+	0.4 SEA	1/3	Nothing that'll trend, and on this beat that's a compliment.
MIL @ DET2026-04-23	B	0.3 DET	2/3	An honest evening's grade: nothing loud, nothing missed by much.
SD @ LAA2026-04-18	B-	1.6 SD	1/2	The corners were friendlier in one direction tonight.
TEX @ ATH2026-04-14	B	0.2 TEX	3/4	A steady night's work behind the plate.
LAD @ WSH2026-04-03	C+	1.0 LAD	2/4	The zone leaned, and the ledger noticed.
KC @ ATL2026-03-29	B+	0.7 KC	1/3	Down the middle. Both dugouts had the same zone.