Ryan Blakney
20 games graded behind the plate.
2,724 correct of 2,955 graded takes (92.2% ± 1.0, 95%). Best game 96.4% · worst 87.4%. 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 Ryan Blakney
This season is 2,955 graded takes, which puts Ryan Blakney's overall accuracy at 92.2% ± 1.0 (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 591 takes, so ±2.2 points. (the league-wide two-strike effect is about 1 point in 2026.)
- any single corner of the zone — about 246 takes, so ±3.4 points. (corner cells are where umpires actually differ.)
- whether one pitcher is called tighter than another — about 49 takes, so ±7.5 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 83 pitches players chose to challenge, which are the pitches they already believed were wrong. 83 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
Ryan Blakney
He worked over 600 MLB games as a call-up before earning a full-time staff position before the 2020 season.
The Call-Up Years
Ryan Blakney began as a Minor League umpire in 2006 and worked over 600 MLB games as a call-up before being promoted to a full-time staff position before the 2020 season. He debuted on April 21, 2015. For nearly five years he worked major league games without a permanent roster spot — filling in across ballparks, traveling on call-up duty, waiting for the number that would hold.
He was born on May 24, 1985, in Wenatchee, Washington. He wears uniform number 36 on MLB umpiring crew J, whose crew chief is Marvin Hudson.
The Games That Followed
A Boston University study analyzing over 372,000 pitches ranked Blakney among the ten most accurate home plate umpires in baseball for the 2018 season, with an error rate of 7.97 percent. The assignments accumulated: Wild Card games in 2021, Division Series in 2022, 2024, and 2025, and selection to the MLB All-Star Game in 2023.
On May 10, 2022, Blakney was behind the plate for Reid Detmers's no-hitter against the Tampa Bay Rays — one of the signature assignments of his career. On May 4, 2024, during a game between the Yankees and Tigers, he called Aaron Judge out on strikes and ejected him when Judge argued. It was the first ejection of Judge's major league career.
We have graded Blakney behind the plate in 18 games this season, and the record on this page is the reason his name is here.
Reporting: Wikipedia, MLB.com, Baseball Almanac. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CIN @ SF2026-08-26 | B- | 0.6 SF | 6/7 | A few too many trips to the challenge cart. |
| CHC @ SEA2026-08-22 | A | 0.2 SEA | 2/3 | You could set a watch by that zone. |
| CLE @ MIN2026-07-09 | D | 0.0 MIN | 4/6 | The black wasn't in play tonight. |
| SD @ LAD2026-07-04 | A- | 0.1 LAD | 0/3 | Down the middle. Both dugouts had the same zone. |
| SF @ AZ2026-06-30 | C | 0.0 SF | 3/5 | The zone kept to itself — the hitters said thanks. |
| CLE @ CWS2026-06-23 | B+ | 0.1 CLE | 1/3 | The kind of night where the umpire is the least of the story. |
| STL @ KC2026-06-18 | B- | 1.0 STL | 5/7 | The Automated Ball-Strike System put in some overtime here. |
| ATH @ HOU2026-06-07 | B | 0.1 ATH | 1/3 | A steady night's work behind the plate. |
| BAL @ BOS2026-06-03 | B+ | 0.4 BAL | 0/2 | Solid and unspectacular — exactly what the job asks. |
| ATL @ CIN2026-05-29 | B+ | 0.2 CIN | 0/2 | Called a fair game and let the players decide it. |
| CWS @ SEA2026-05-19 | D | 0.1 CWS | 3/5 | Expanded the plate a touch past its 17 inches. |
| AZ @ COL2026-05-15 | B+ | 0.0 AZ | 2/3 | A steady night's work behind the plate. |
| SF @ LAD2026-05-11 | C+ | 0.6 SF | 4/5 | You had to throw it down Broadway to get the call. |
| TEX @ DET2026-05-01 | A- | 1.0 DET | 2/3 | An honest evening's grade: nothing loud, nothing missed by much. |
| COL @ NYM2026-04-26 | B | 0.2 NYM | 4/7 | A steady night's work behind the plate. |
| CIN @ TB2026-04-22 | A- | 0.1 CIN | 2/3 | Nothing that'll trend, and on this beat that's a compliment. |
| CWS @ KC2026-04-11 | B+ | 0.4 CWS | 1/3 | Called a fair game and let the players decide it. |
| SD @ PIT2026-04-07 | C | 1.4 PIT | 3/5 | Somebody's pitching staff sent a thank-you note. |
| TB @ MIN2026-04-03 | B- | 1.1 MIN | 1/5 | Tonight's zone had a rooting interest. |
| ATH @ TOR2026-03-29 | B+ | 0.5 ATH | 2/3 | Called a fair game and let the players decide it. |