Jen Pawol
12 games graded behind the plate.
1,683 correct of 1,846 graded takes (91.2% ± 1.3, 95%). Best game 95.4% · worst 89.0%. 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 Jen Pawol
This season is 1,846 graded takes, which puts Jen Pawol's overall accuracy at 91.2% ± 1.3 (95% interval). That interval is a large share of the whole league's four-point spread, so this grade is a reading and not yet a ranking — we print it, and we do not place it against umpires with a full season behind the plate. Everything finer is further out of reach still:
- how the zone moves with two strikes — about 369 takes, so ±2.9 points. (the league-wide two-strike effect is about 1 point in 2026.)
- any single corner of the zone — about 154 takes, so ±4.5 points. (corner cells are where umpires actually differ.)
- whether one pitcher is called tighter than another — about 31 takes, so ±10.0 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 60 pitches players chose to challenge, which are the pitches they already believed were wrong. 60 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
August 9
Born in West Milford, New Jersey, she became the first woman to umpire an MLB regular-season game in 2025.
On August 9, 2025, Jen Pawol took her position at first base for the opening game of a Marlins-Braves doubleheader at Truist Park — the first woman to umpire a Major League Baseball regular-season game. She worked third base in the second game. The next day, August 10, she was behind the plate, the first woman to work behind the plate in an MLB regular-season game.
The road to that weekend began in West Milford, New Jersey, where Pawol was born on December 29, 1976. In 2016, she attended the Minor League Baseball Umpire Training Academy in Vero Beach, Florida, and began her professional career that same year in the rookie-level Gulf Coast League. From there she progressed through the New York-Penn, Midwest, South Atlantic, Eastern, and Pacific Coast leagues before her major-league debut.
The milestones came late in the climb. In 2023, Pawol became the first female umpire to work at the Triple-A level in 34 years and umpired the Triple-A National Championship Game as home plate umpire. She served as a crew chief at Triple-A during the 2024 season. That same year she became the first woman assigned to MLB spring training games since Ria Cortesio in 2007, officiating Grapefruit League matchups including a game between the Astros and Nationals. She credited both Postema and Cortesio as her mentors in the umpiring profession.
Pawol wears uniform number 95. We have graded her behind the plate in 11 games this season, and the record on this page is the reason her name is here.
Reporting: MLB.com, AP News, ESPN, NorthJersey.com, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LAA @ TEX2026-08-22 | B- | 0.4 TEX | 4/4 | One of those nights the challenge system was invented for. |
| TOR @ SD2026-07-12 | C | 0.6 SD | 4/6 | Pitchers found a little extra real estate. |
| MIL @ STL2026-07-08 | C | 0.7 STL | 2/4 | You had to throw it down Broadway to get the call. |
| LAA @ AZ2026-06-17 | B | 0.1 LAA | 2/4 | Off the corner was close enough tonight. |
| STL @ MIN2026-06-14 | D | 1.5 STL | 6/9 | The players kept asking for a second opinion — and kept getting one. |
| WSH @ SF2026-06-09 | B- | 1.2 SF | 4/5 | The grade leaned — the ledger says which way. |
| LAA @ LAD2026-06-05 | A | 1.0 LAD | 3/6 | A steady night's work behind the plate. |
| NYY @ ATH2026-05-31 | B- | 0.2 NYY | 3/5 | Squeezed the edges; the hitters didn't mind at all. |
| MIN @ CWS2026-05-27 | C+ | 0.2 CWS | 2/3 | Expanded the plate a touch past its 17 inches. |
| MIN @ BOS2026-05-23 | B | 0.7 MIN | 1/5 | A workmanlike night — nothing to frame, nothing to fix. |
| KC @ CWS2026-05-13 | C | 0.0 CWS | 3/5 | Nothing off the plate, and not much on the black either. |
| SF @ WSH2026-04-17 | C | 0.2 WSH | 2/4 | Pitchers found a little extra real estate. |