Mike Muchlinski
27 games graded behind the plate.
3,900 correct of 4,205 graded takes (92.8% ± 0.8, 95%). Best game 98.1% · worst 87.5%. 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 Mike Muchlinski
This season is 4,205 graded takes, which puts Mike Muchlinski's overall accuracy at 92.8% ± 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 841 takes, so ±1.8 points. (the league-wide two-strike effect is about 1 point in 2026.)
- any single corner of the zone — about 350 takes, so ±2.7 points. (corner cells are where umpires actually differ.)
- whether one pitcher is called tighter than another — about 70 takes, so ±6.1 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 96 pitches players chose to challenge, which are the pitches they already believed were wrong. 96 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
Mike Muchlinski
A Tacoma native who attended the University of Washington and reached the majors in 2006, Muchlinski worked 569 games before his full-time hire and has since drawn World Series and LCS assignments.
On June 13, 2012, Mike Muchlinski stood at first base when Matt Cain threw a perfect game for the San Francisco Giants against the Houston Astros. It was one of the marquee assignments in a major league umpiring career that began on April 24, 2006, and that has since taken him to the World Series, the All-Star Game, and a string of League Championship Series.
Muchlinski was born on February 26, 1977, in Tacoma, Washington. He attended the University of Washington, where he was a member of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity. He umpired his first Major League Baseball game on April 24, 2006, and before MLB hired him as a full-time umpire prior to the 2014 season, he had worked 569 major league games.
Three years after the Cain perfect game, Muchlinski was behind the plate for another piece of pitching history. On June 20, 2015, he was the home plate umpire for Max Scherzer's no-hitter. With two outs in the ninth, Muchlinski controversially ruled that Pittsburgh's José Tábata was hit by a pitch, ending Scherzer's bid for a perfect game.
The postseason résumé has deepened steadily across his career. Muchlinski worked the All-Star Game in 2018 and was assigned to the World Series in 2021. His Division Series assignments came in 2016, 2018, and 2021. The League Championship Series followed in 2019, 2022, 2023, and 2024 — four LCS over six seasons.
He is a member of MLB umpiring Crew B, where Doug Eddings serves as crew chief. We have graded him behind the plate in 19 games this season.
Reporting: Wikipedia, MLB.com, Retrosheet. 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 @ AZ2026-08-31 | B- | 0.6 AZ | 3/5 | If it was close, it was a strike. The hitters noticed. |
| CLE @ LAA2026-08-26 | B | 0.3 CLE | 0/3 | The zone had wings tonight. |
| MIL @ LAD2026-08-14 | B- | 0.1 LAD | 2/3 | Not the sharpest, and the grade agrees. |
| COL @ AZ2026-08-10 | A | 0.0 COL | 0/2 | An honest evening's grade: nothing loud, nothing missed by much. |
| TOR @ HOU2026-08-05 | D | 0.3 TOR | 2/3 | The plate grew a few inches after the first pitch. |
| BOS @ LAD2026-08-02 | D | 0.3 LAD | 3/5 | Off the corner was close enough tonight. |
| MIL @ SF2026-07-28 | A- | 0.7 SF | 0/1 | Called a fair game and let the players decide it. |
| CIN @ STL2026-07-24 | A | 0.1 STL | 0/2 | Both benches went home with nothing to say — the rarest kind of night. |
| SD @ ATL2026-07-20 | B | 1.1 SD | 2/4 | The strike zone picked a side, and wasn't shy about it. |
| NYY @ TB2026-07-09 | B+ | 0.3 TB | 2/4 | If it was close, it was a strike. The hitters noticed. |
| PHI @ NYM2026-06-28 | B | 0.0 NYM | 3/5 | Reliable as a Tuesday: no complaints, no headlines. |
| KC @ TB2026-06-24 | C+ | 0.0 TB | 5/7 | Hawkeye did more talking than the umpire tonight. |
| SD @ TEX2026-06-21 | B | 0.3 TEX | 1/1 | Corner-to-corner and then some. |
| CWS @ NYY2026-06-16 | D | 0.7 NYY | 2/3 | Pitchers found a little extra real estate. |
| SEA @ BAL2026-06-10 | A- | 0.6 SEA | 0/2 | Reliable as a Tuesday: no complaints, no headlines. |
| SF @ COL2026-05-30 | B+ | 0.3 COL | 2/3 | Down the middle. Both dugouts had the same zone. |
| CWS @ SEA2026-05-20 | A | 0.1 CWS | 2/6 | Reliable as a Tuesday: no complaints, no headlines. |
| PHI @ PIT2026-05-16 | A+ | 0.1 PIT | 0/2 | Called it the way the rulebook drew it up. |
| WSH @ CIN2026-05-12 | B | 0.1 WSH | 4/6 | Corner-to-corner and then some. |
| MIL @ STL2026-05-06 | B | 0.0 MIL | 2/3 | Down the middle. Both dugouts had the same zone. |
| AZ @ CHC2026-05-01 | B | 0.8 AZ | 1/3 | Borderline went to the battery all night. |
| PHI @ ATL2026-04-26 | B | 0.4 PHI | 7/9 | The robots earned their keep tonight. |
| MIL @ DET2026-04-22 | B+ | 0.3 DET | 0/1 | The zone kept its promises. |
| SD @ LAA2026-04-17 | C+ | 0.1 SD | 3/7 | Nothing off the plate, and not much on the black either. |
| TEX @ ATH2026-04-13 | B+ | 0.2 ATH | 3/3 | An honest evening's grade: nothing loud, nothing missed by much. |
| CWS @ MIA2026-04-01 | B+ | 0.2 MIA | 0/0 | The zone kept to itself — the hitters said thanks. |
| KC @ ATL2026-03-28 | A- | 0.1 KC | 1/3 | Called a fair game and let the players decide it. |