Umpire Grade · Blue Notes

Tom Hanahan

25 games graded behind the plate.

Season Grade

92.9% ± 0.8

Avg Swing

runs / game

ABS Overturns

54/106 calls

3,534 correct of 3,803 graded takes (92.9% ± 0.8, 95%). Best game 96.5% · 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 Tom Hanahan

This season is 3,803 graded takes, which puts Tom Hanahan's overall accuracy at 92.9% ± 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 761 takes, so ±1.8 points. (the league-wide two-strike effect is about 1 point in 2026.)
any single corner of the zone — about 317 takes, so ±2.8 points. (corner cells are where umpires actually differ.)
whether one pitcher is called tighter than another — about 63 takes, so ±6.3 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 106 pitches players chose to challenge, which are the pitches they already believed were wrong. 106 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

Tom Hanahan: 329 Games Before the Call

Born in 1990, an Ohio resident, Hanahan climbed from the minor leagues in 2015 to the full-time MLB staff in 2026 — 329 call-up games after his 2023 debut.

The Same Year

Tom Hanahan and Brian Walsh both began their minor-league umpiring careers in 2015. Both reached the major leagues as call-ups in 2023. Both were promoted to the full-time MLB umpiring staff ahead of the 2026 season, filling the openings left by the retirements of Mark Carlson and Phil Cuzzi. Eight years of work in the minor leagues, then three more seasons as major-league call-ups, and both were named to the permanent staff together.

Before his promotion, Hanahan had worked 329 major-league games as a call-up. The stretch ran from his June 2023 debut through the close of the 2025 season — three seasons of fill-in assignments across the league before a permanent place on the staff. His first major-league game came on June 9, 2023, at American Family Field, where the Oakland Athletics were visiting the Milwaukee Brewers. He was positioned at second base that June afternoon, working on a crew with Jeff Nelson at first, Ben May behind the plate, and C.B. Bucknor at third.

Hanahan was born in 1990 and is an Ohio resident. He wears uniform number 69 and works behind the plate in the major leagues in 2026, his first season on the full-time staff. Baseball Almanac records his first career ejection in June 2024, when Athletics manager Mark Kotsay was thrown out of a game during Hanahan's call-up period.

Fever has graded Hanahan behind the plate in 19 games this season. That record is the reason his name appears on this page.

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
COL @ ATL2026-08-28	B+	1.4 COL	4/6	Somebody's pitching staff sent a thank-you note.
DET @ KC2026-08-23	A	0.4 DET	2/5	An honest evening's grade: nothing loud, nothing missed by much.
CWS @ CHC2026-08-19	B-	0.9 CWS	2/6	The zone shrank when the pitchers needed it most.
ATH @ BOS2026-08-08	B	0.2 ATH	1/4	The kind of night where the umpire is the least of the story.
WSH @ PHI2026-08-04	C+	0.3 PHI	3/4	Nothing off the plate, and not much on the black either.
NYY @ CHC2026-07-31	A	0.4 CHC	2/3	A workmanlike night — nothing to frame, nothing to fix.
CWS @ TOR2026-07-19	A-	0.4 TOR	5/7	Hawkeye did more talking than the umpire tonight.
SEA @ TB2026-07-10	B	0.1 SEA	1/1	The zone stretched its legs.
SF @ COL2026-07-05	D	1.0 SF	2/4	If it was close, it was a strike. The hitters noticed.
LAD @ ATH2026-07-01	B+	0.7 ATH	2/3	An honest evening's grade: nothing loud, nothing missed by much.
MIL @ ATL2026-06-19	A-	0.1 MIL	0/3	A steady night's work behind the plate.
LAD @ CWS2026-06-13	B+	0.1 LAD	2/4	An honest evening's grade: nothing loud, nothing missed by much.
HOU @ LAA2026-06-08	B+	1.2 HOU	0/3	Tonight's zone had a rooting interest.
TEX @ STL2026-06-03	A-	0.1 STL	3/5	Solid and unspectacular — exactly what the job asks.
WSH @ ATL2026-05-22	A-	0.7 ATL	0/4	Nothing that'll trend, and on this beat that's a compliment.
CLE @ DET2026-05-18	A-	0.8 CLE	2/4	A steady night's work behind the plate.
MIA @ MIN2026-05-14	B	0.3 MIN	1/4	The zone kept its promises.
PIT @ SF2026-05-10	C	1.0 PIT	2/6	Nothing off the plate, and not much on the black either.
CIN @ CHC2026-05-06	A-	0.9 CIN	4/5	Down the middle. Both dugouts had the same zone.
TOR @ MIN2026-05-02	B-	0.0 MIN	2/4	Pitchers found a little extra real estate.
TB @ CLE2026-04-28	B	1.5 TB	1/3	The zone leaned, and the ledger noticed.
PIT @ MIL2026-04-24	D	0.5 PIT	4/4	Pitchers found a little extra real estate.
MIN @ TOR2026-04-11	B-	0.0 MIN	4/5	The plate grew a few inches after the first pitch.
STL @ WSH2026-04-06	A-	0.5 WSH	3/4	Called a fair game and let the players decide it.
MIA @ NYY2026-04-03	B+	0.7 NYY	2/5	Expanded the plate a touch past its 17 inches.