Shane Livensparger
23 games graded behind the plate.
3,187 correct of 3,432 graded takes (92.9% ± 0.9, 95%). Best game 98.0% · worst 89.1%. 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 Shane Livensparger
This season is 3,432 graded takes, which puts Shane Livensparger's overall accuracy at 92.9% ± 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 686 takes, so ±1.9 points. (the league-wide two-strike effect is about 1 point in 2026.)
- any single corner of the zone — about 286 takes, so ±3.0 points. (corner cells are where umpires actually differ.)
- whether one pitcher is called tighter than another — about 57 takes, so ±6.7 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 103 pitches players chose to challenge, which are the pitches they already believed were wrong. 103 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
382 Games in the Waiting
From the Jim Evans Academy to six seasons as a call-up, Shane Livensparger's road to the full-time MLB staff was built one assignment at a time.
In 2009, Shane Livensparger enrolled at the Jim Evans Academy of Professional Umpiring, one of roughly 150 students in a five-week course. Only 25 honor graduates earned the right to attend the PBUC evaluation course, and Livensparger was among the approximately 25 who passed to earn a job in professional baseball. A 2002 graduate of Angola High School in Angola, Indiana, he was born in Bryan, Ohio, on January 13, 1984.
The work began in the New York-Penn League in 2010 and moved through the South Atlantic, Florida State, Southern, and International Leagues, with off-seasons in the Venezuelan winter league. His first major-league assignment came on June 10, 2017 — a doubleheader between the Oakland Athletics and Tampa Bay Rays. Six seasons followed as a call-up umpire. By the time MLB promoted him to the full-time staff in 2023, he had accumulated 382 games of major-league experience, placing him among ten umpires elevated that year. In December 2022, he had been commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Air National Guard, having recently completed officer training.
This season, we have graded him behind the plate in 17 of his games. He wears uniform number 43 and is assigned to Crew A.
Reporting: KPC News, MLB.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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PHI @ LAA2026-08-28 | A- | 1.3 LAA | 0/4 | The corners were friendlier in one direction tonight. |
| CIN @ AZ2026-08-23 | C+ | 0.6 AZ | 5/8 | A few too many trips to the challenge cart. |
| MIA @ PHI2026-08-18 | B+ | 0.3 MIA | 2/5 | Reliable as a Tuesday: no complaints, no headlines. |
| SD @ CLE2026-08-14 | B- | 0.7 CLE | 5/8 | ABS had a long evening on this one. |
| PHI @ MIA2026-07-29 | B- | 0.5 PHI | 3/3 | Squeezed the edges; the hitters didn't mind at all. |
| HOU @ CWS2026-07-25 | B | 0.2 CWS | 1/3 | The plate grew a few inches after the first pitch. |
| STL @ LAA2026-07-20 | C+ | 1.0 STL | 5/8 | A busy night for the machines in the truck. |
| BOS @ NYM2026-07-12 | C | 1.9 NYM | 3/5 | The zone leaned, and the ledger noticed. |
| HOU @ WSH2026-07-07 | A | 0.2 WSH | 1/2 | You could set a watch by that zone. |
| COL @ MIN2026-06-27 | A | 0.3 MIN | 1/5 | Called it the way the rulebook drew it up. |
| ATL @ SD2026-06-22 | A- | 0.9 ATL | 2/4 | A workmanlike night — nothing to frame, nothing to fix. |
| LAA @ ATH2026-06-18 | A+ | 0.1 LAA | 1/4 | The catcher barely had to sell a thing. |
| KC @ MIN2026-06-07 | C | 0.5 KC | 4/8 | Off the corner was close enough tonight. |
| CHC @ PIT2026-05-26 | B- | 0.2 CHC | 2/2 | Not the sharpest, and the grade agrees. |
| TOR @ DET2026-05-15 | A+ | 0.4 TOR | 1/3 | The zone kept its promises. |
| SEA @ CWS2026-05-10 | B- | 1.1 CWS | 2/5 | Two dugouts, and only one of them smiling. |
| LAD @ HOU2026-05-05 | B+ | 0.2 HOU | 2/2 | An honest evening's grade: nothing loud, nothing missed by much. |
| CLE @ ATH2026-05-01 | A- | 0.9 CLE | 3/5 | Reliable as a Tuesday: no complaints, no headlines. |
| MIA @ SF2026-04-26 | B | 0.8 MIA | 1/4 | A workmanlike night — nothing to frame, nothing to fix. |
| PIT @ TEX2026-04-22 | B | 0.4 PIT | 2/5 | You had to throw it down Broadway to get the call. |
| NYY @ TB2026-04-11 | B | 0.4 NYY | 2/4 | Called a fair game and let the players decide it. |
| LAD @ TOR2026-04-06 | C+ | 0.9 TOR | 0/3 | A pitcher's-nightmare zone — you had to paint it to get it. |
| ATH @ ATL2026-04-01 | B- | 0.5 ATH | 2/3 | The plate grew a few inches after the first pitch. |