Umpire Grade · Blue Notes

Manny Gonzalez

25 games graded behind the plate.

Season Grade

91.6% ± 0.9

Avg Swing

runs / game

ABS Overturns

75/119 calls

3,355 correct of 3,661 graded takes (91.6% ± 0.9, 95%). Best game 95.3% · worst 84.7%. 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 Manny Gonzalez

This season is 3,661 graded takes, which puts Manny Gonzalez's overall accuracy at 91.6% ± 0.9 (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 732 takes, so ±2.0 points. (the league-wide two-strike effect is about 1 point in 2026.)
any single corner of the zone — about 305 takes, so ±3.1 points. (corner cells are where umpires actually differ.)
whether one pitcher is called tighter than another — about 61 takes, so ±6.9 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 Turn Behind the Plate

Manny Gonzalez started umpiring because his youth league in Venezuela couldn't pay anyone else to do it.

Manuel Augusto Gonzalez was born on December 4, 1979, in Caracas, Venezuela, and raised about 100 miles west in Valencia. The youth league he played in could not afford to pay umpires, so the players took turns. Gonzalez was a catcher and a first baseman. When his turn came behind the plate, he found he liked it. He kept at it, and the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League noticed him.

He was 16. The year was 1996, and umpiring was a hobby — he was studying chemical engineering at the University of Carabobo and did not commit to baseball full-time until 2001, when he earned a scholarship to the Jim Evans Academy of Professional Umpiring in Florida. He finished first in his class, left the university, and began working the rookie-level Gulf Coast League in May 2002.

On May 17, 2010, Gonzalez made his major league debut — the first Venezuelan umpire in MLB history. He worked fill-in games until early 2013, when Joe Torre called to offer him a full-time position on the MLB umpiring staff. Gonzalez kept the news to himself, out of respect for his colleagues, until after his final Venezuelan league game between Caracas and Magallanes had ended. Only then did he tell anyone.

He was the second base umpire on September 13, 2020, when Alec Mills threw a no-hitter for the Chicago Cubs against the Milwaukee Brewers.

He has been on a major league staff since 2013. We have graded 18 of his games behind the plate this season.

Reporting: La Vida Baseball, San Diego Union-Tribune, 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
SD @ CIN2026-08-31	C+	0.3 SD	4/8	Generous with the corners — the pitchers said thank you.
BOS @ MIA2026-08-26	C+	0.0 BOS	3/6	One of those nights the challenge system was invented for.
DET @ KC2026-08-22	D	0.3 DET	2/2	Expanded the plate a touch past its 17 inches.
CWS @ CHC2026-08-18	C+	0.8 CWS	5/7	The challenge cart got its steps in.
ATH @ BOS2026-08-07	D	0.1 ATH	5/6	The challenge cart got its steps in.
WSH @ PHI2026-08-03	B+	0.4 WSH	2/3	Nothing that'll trend, and on this beat that's a compliment.
ATL @ NYM2026-07-29	A-	0.2 ATL	4/4	Called a fair game and let the players decide it.
CWS @ TOR2026-07-18	B	0.0 CWS	2/4	The zone shrank when the pitchers needed it most.
KC @ NYM2026-07-09	B+	0.4 NYM	0/2	A workmanlike night — nothing to frame, nothing to fix.
LAD @ ATH2026-06-29	B	0.6 ATH	3/4	Pitchers earned every strike the hard way.
TOR @ BOS2026-06-18	B-	0.3 TOR	2/4	Corner-to-corner and then some.
LAD @ CWS2026-06-12	B	0.9 CWS	2/3	Expanded the plate a touch past its 17 inches.
WSH @ AZ2026-06-07	B+	0.6 WSH	4/5	The kind of night where the umpire is the least of the story.
TEX @ STL2026-06-02	B-	0.1 STL	2/3	You had to throw it down Broadway to get the call.
CLE @ DET2026-05-21	B+	0.8 DET	6/7	ABS had a long evening on this one.
TEX @ HOU2026-05-17	C	0.4 TEX	5/5	A few too many trips to the challenge cart.
MIA @ MIN2026-05-13	D	0.5 MIN	5/7	The robots earned their keep tonight.
PIT @ SF2026-05-08	A	0.5 SF	0/2	The kind of night where the umpire is the least of the story.
CIN @ CHC2026-05-04	B	0.6 CIN	4/5	An honest evening's grade: nothing loud, nothing missed by much.
TOR @ MIN2026-04-30	A	0.1 TOR	1/3	Nothing that'll trend, and on this beat that's a compliment.
PIT @ MIL2026-04-26	B-	0.6 MIL	0/2	A pitcher's-nightmare zone — you had to paint it to get it.
STL @ MIA2026-04-21	B	0.0 STL	4/8	Called a fair game and let the players decide it.
MIN @ TOR2026-04-10	C+	1.3 MIN	3/7	The corners were friendlier in one direction tonight.
MIA @ NYY2026-04-05	B	0.6 NYY	3/7	The zone kept its promises.
TEX @ BAL2026-04-01	C+	0.8 BAL	4/5	Pitchers found a little extra real estate.