Todd Tichenor
25 games graded behind the plate.
3,367 correct of 3,630 graded takes (92.8% ± 0.8, 95%). Best game 96.1% · worst 89.5%. 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 Todd Tichenor
This season is 3,630 graded takes, which puts Todd Tichenor'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 726 takes, so ±1.9 points. (the league-wide two-strike effect is about 1 point in 2026.)
- any single corner of the zone — about 303 takes, so ±2.9 points. (corner cells are where umpires actually differ.)
- whether one pitcher is called tighter than another — about 61 takes, so ±6.5 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 91 pitches players chose to challenge, which are the pitches they already believed were wrong. 91 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
Todd Tichenor's 530 Job Interviews
Five years and 530 games as a substitute umpire before the full-time call came in 2012.
The 530
For five seasons after his June 8, 2007 debut at Dodger Stadium, Todd Tichenor worked as a substitute umpire at the major league level — 530 games across those years, a stretch he later described as essentially that many job interviews. Evaluators graded his accuracy and his rules knowledge, but also his feel for managing a game: when to defuse a situation, and when to let one escalate. The full-time offer came in January 2012, filling the vacancy left by Bill Hohn's retirement.
The Road
The road to those 530 games began in Lincoln, Nebraska, where he was born in 1976, and ran through Garden City, Kansas, where he moved as a child. He played baseball at Garden City Community College in 1996-97 before attending the Jim Evans Academy of Professional Umpiring School in Kissimmee, Florida. His first big-league call-up found him in Triple-A in 2007 and sent him to Dodger Stadium — on a day that also happened to be his tenth wedding anniversary.
The Games
He has worked the World Series in 2020 and 2024, and the All-Star Game in 2014 and 2023. He was at third base when Oakland's Dallas Braden threw the 19th perfect game in MLB history on May 9, 2010, and has worked two additional no-hitters during his career. He was promoted to crew chief for the 2023 season.
The record on this page covers 18 of his games behind the plate this season.
Reporting: Wikipedia, Kansas Baseball Hall of Fame, Kansas City Star, Garden City Community College. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ATL @ MIL2026-08-21 | A- | 0.1 MIL | 1/4 | Down the middle. Both dugouts had the same zone. |
| SD @ CLE2026-08-16 | A | 0.2 SD | 0/4 | Called a fair game and let the players decide it. |
| BAL @ MIN2026-08-11 | B+ | 0.5 MIN | 2/3 | Solid and unspectacular — exactly what the job asks. |
| NYM @ PIT2026-08-07 | A- | 0.0 NYM | 2/4 | The zone kept its promises. |
| TEX @ HOU2026-08-02 | A | 0.5 HOU | 1/3 | Reliable as a Tuesday: no complaints, no headlines. |
| CHC @ STL2026-07-29 | B | 0.5 STL | 2/4 | A steady night's work behind the plate. |
| CLE @ TB2026-07-25 | A | 0.4 TB | 1/1 | The kind of night where the umpire is the least of the story. |
| WSH @ COL2026-07-20 | A | 0.1 COL | 2/3 | Textbook top to bottom — a quiet masterclass. |
| MIL @ STL2026-07-09 | A- | 0.3 MIL | 2/4 | Down the middle. Both dugouts had the same zone. |
| NYY @ BOS2026-06-25 | B+ | 0.1 NYY | 1/3 | An honest evening's grade: nothing loud, nothing missed by much. |
| PIT @ COL2026-06-21 | C+ | 0.1 COL | 4/6 | Expanded the plate a touch past its 17 inches. |
| BAL @ SEA2026-06-17 | B- | 0.9 SEA | 2/3 | A few he'd want back, and the grade says so. |
| CHC @ SF2026-06-12 | B | 2.0 CHC | 5/6 | ABS had a long evening on this one. |
| TOR @ BAL2026-05-31 | C+ | 1.5 BAL | 3/3 | Two dugouts, and only one of them smiling. |
| STL @ MIL2026-05-27 | C+ | 0.4 MIL | 6/6 | ABS had a long evening on this one. |
| SEA @ KC2026-05-23 | C | 0.1 SEA | 3/5 | The black wasn't in play tonight. |
| NYM @ WSH2026-05-18 | C+ | 0.9 WSH | 2/5 | A pitcher's-nightmare zone — you had to paint it to get it. |
| SD @ SF2026-05-04 | B- | 0.1 SF | 0/2 | You wanted a strike, you had to earn it twice. |
| ATH @ TEX2026-04-26 | C | 0.9 ATH | 2/2 | The zone shrank when the pitchers needed it most. |
| NYY @ BOS2026-04-22 | B+ | 0.6 BOS | 3/3 | An honest evening's grade: nothing loud, nothing missed by much. |
| NYM @ CHC2026-04-17 | B+ | 0.6 CHC | 3/4 | A workmanlike night — nothing to frame, nothing to fix. |
| HOU @ SEA2026-04-13 | B+ | 0.4 HOU | 2/3 | The kind of night where the umpire is the least of the story. |
| PHI @ SF2026-04-08 | B | 0.4 SF | 3/5 | A steady night's work behind the plate. |
| CIN @ TEX2026-04-04 | B- | 0.3 TEX | 0/2 | Squeezed the edges; the hitters didn't mind at all. |
| DET @ AZ2026-03-30 | B | 0.4 AZ | 2/3 | The kind of night where the umpire is the least of the story. |