Mark Ripperger
27 games graded behind the plate.
3,998 correct of 4,249 graded takes (94.1% ± 0.7, 95%). Best game 97.9% · worst 91.0%. 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 Mark Ripperger
This season is 4,249 graded takes, which puts Mark Ripperger's overall accuracy at 94.1% ± 0.7 (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 850 takes, so ±1.6 points. (the league-wide two-strike effect is about 1 point in 2026.)
- any single corner of the zone — about 354 takes, so ±2.5 points. (corner cells are where umpires actually differ.)
- whether one pitcher is called tighter than another — about 71 takes, so ±5.5 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 115 pitches players chose to challenge, which are the pitches they already believed were wrong. 115 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 Road from Escondido
A teenager from Escondido who took up umpiring to earn money reached the majors in 2010 and recorded a perfect game behind the plate in 2025.
Mark Ripperger was born on August 6, 1980, in Escondido, California. At 16, he joined a high school umpires association and began taking assignments far from home — choosing umpiring as a way to earn money in the sport he loved. The road from those early games to the major leagues was a long one.
It reached the majors on September 30, 2010, when Ripperger made his MLB umpiring debut. He was promoted to full-time status before the 2015 season, and the assignments grew. He was behind the plate for Mike Fiers' no-hitter on May 7, 2019, when the Oakland Athletics no-hit the Cincinnati Reds. He worked the 2022 All-Star Game. The postseason followed — Wild Card rounds in 2020, 2023, and 2025, Division Series in 2022 and 2024, League Championship Series in 2023 and 2025, and the 2024 World Series.
136
On April 10, 2025, Ripperger was behind the plate for a game between the Minnesota Twins and the Kansas City Royals. He correctly called all 136 taken pitches — the ones the hitters let pass, where the call belongs to the umpire. He became just the second umpire to record a perfect game behind the plate in the Umpire Scorecards era.
He wears uniform number 90 and works Crew A, whose crew chief is Dan Bellino. We have graded him behind the plate in 21 games this season, and the record on this page is the reason his name is here.
Reporting: Wikipedia, The Athletic. Umpire data: MLB StatsAPI, via the Fever engine.
By the Desk · filed 2026-07-23 — 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CWS @ HOU2026-08-31 | A- | 0.1 HOU | 5/7 | The Automated Ball-Strike System put in some overtime here. |
| PIT @ SD2026-08-26 | A- | 0.3 PIT | 1/2 | A workmanlike night — nothing to frame, nothing to fix. |
| CIN @ AZ2026-08-22 | B+ | 0.2 AZ | 3/7 | Nothing that'll trend, and on this beat that's a compliment. |
| LAD @ COL2026-08-17 | B+ | 0.1 COL | 1/3 | Off the corner was close enough tonight. |
| ATL @ NYY2026-08-07 | A | 0.3 NYY | 3/5 | The zone kept its promises. |
| HOU @ CWS2026-07-26 | A- | 1.1 HOU | 1/4 | One dugout got the friendlier version of the evening. |
| STL @ LAA2026-07-21 | A | 0.5 STL | 0/4 | Solid and unspectacular — exactly what the job asks. |
| SF @ SEA2026-07-17 | A- | 0.8 SEA | 2/5 | An honest evening's grade: nothing loud, nothing missed by much. |
| HOU @ WSH2026-07-08 | A | 1.0 HOU | 1/3 | The zone had wings tonight. |
| STL @ CHC2026-07-04 | B- | 0.3 STL | 1/3 | The zone stretched its legs. |
| CIN @ MIL2026-06-30 | A- | 0.8 MIL | 3/4 | The zone kept its promises. |
| COL @ MIN2026-06-26 | B- | 0.9 COL | 2/5 | Pitchers earned every strike the hard way. |
| LAA @ ATH2026-06-21 | A | 0.1 ATH | 3/6 | Solid and unspectacular — exactly what the job asks. |
| TB @ LAD2026-06-17 | B | 1.0 TB | 2/6 | Solid and unspectacular — exactly what the job asks. |
| KC @ MIN2026-06-06 | A- | 0.6 KC | 4/7 | Called a fair game and let the players decide it. |
| DET @ TB2026-06-02 | B- | 0.4 DET | 3/5 | A few he'd want back, and the grade says so. |
| SD @ WSH2026-05-29 | B- | 0.8 SD | 1/3 | A steady night's work behind the plate. |
| CHC @ PIT2026-05-25 | A | 0.2 PIT | 0/2 | Down the middle. Both dugouts had the same zone. |
| PHI @ BOS2026-05-14 | A+ | 0.3 PHI | 0/3 | You could set a watch by that zone. |
| SEA @ CWS2026-05-09 | A | 0.9 SEA | 0/2 | Solid and unspectacular — exactly what the job asks. |
| LAD @ HOU2026-05-04 | A | 0.2 LAD | 2/3 | If umpiring had a highlight reel, this wouldn't make it. That's the compliment. |
| CHC @ SD2026-04-29 | B+ | 0.3 CHC | 4/6 | Reliable as a Tuesday: no complaints, no headlines. |
| MIA @ SF2026-04-25 | B | 0.5 SF | 2/5 | Corner-to-corner and then some. |
| PIT @ TEX2026-04-21 | A | 0.5 TEX | 1/2 | Reliable as a Tuesday: no complaints, no headlines. |
| NYY @ TB2026-04-10 | A | 0.8 NYY | 1/5 | Called a fair game and let the players decide it. |
| CHC @ CLE2026-04-05 | B- | 1.2 CHC | 3/6 | One side pitched to a slightly bigger plate. |
| ATH @ ATL2026-03-31 | B | 0.1 ATL | 1/2 | Called a fair game and let the players decide it. |