Tyler Jones
20 games graded behind the plate.
2,846 correct of 3,029 graded takes (94.0% ± 0.9, 95%). Best game 96.2% · worst 88.7%. 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 Tyler Jones
This season is 3,029 graded takes, which puts Tyler Jones's overall accuracy at 94.0% ± 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 606 takes, so ±1.9 points. (the league-wide two-strike effect is about 1 point in 2026.)
- any single corner of the zone — about 252 takes, so ±2.9 points. (corner cells are where umpires actually differ.)
- whether one pitcher is called tighter than another — about 50 takes, so ±6.6 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
Tyler Jones and the Long Ride to St. Louis
A call-up in Columbus, a six-hour drive, and twelve years of work — Tyler Jones's road to the majors.
Tyler Jones got the call on a Saturday in Columbus, Ohio, where he was working a Triple-A game. The assignment was a Sunday doubleheader in St. Louis — a six-hour drive — and he spent the ride thinking about twelve years as an umpire and eleven spent in the Minor Leagues.
On May 4, 2025, he walked onto the field at Busch Stadium for his first major league game, working first base in Game 1 and third base in Game 2 of a Cardinals-Mets doubleheader. He told MLB.com the surreal feeling truly hit him when he stepped onto the field.
That same afternoon, his twin brother Austin was behind the plate in Boston for a Red Sox-Twins matinee, putting both twins on MLB fields simultaneously. Tyler and Austin are the first set of twins to umpire at the major league level and the fourth set of brothers overall, joining the Hirschbeck, Welke, and Jimenez families. Born in Charleston, South Carolina, they started umpiring Little League games while still students at Fort Dorchester High School in North Charleston.
Through the 2026 season, Jones has worked 82 major league games across two seasons. His debut offered an early test: late in the first game, he called Mets first baseman Pete Alonso off the bag on a pickoff play. Replay review upheld the ruling — a measure of validation for a rookie umpire in his first MLB appearance.
His name is on this page because we have graded him behind the plate in 13 games this season.
Reporting: MLB.com, Baseball Almanac, Baseball Reference, ABC News 4, World Baseball Network. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SD @ TB2026-08-30 | A- | 1.1 SD | 2/5 | One dugout got the friendlier version of the evening. |
| MIA @ PHI2026-08-17 | A- | 0.2 PHI | 4/7 | Called a fair game and let the players decide it. |
| BAL @ MIN2026-08-12 | C+ | 1.6 MIN | 6/7 | The challenge cart got its steps in. |
| NYM @ PIT2026-08-08 | A | 0.2 PIT | 3/4 | An honest evening's grade: nothing loud, nothing missed by much. |
| MIA @ ATL2026-08-04 | B | 0.4 ATL | 2/5 | Nothing that'll trend, and on this beat that's a compliment. |
| CHC @ STL2026-07-30 | A | 0.4 STL | 2/2 | Called a fair game and let the players decide it. |
| CLE @ TB2026-07-26 | A | 0.7 TB | 4/4 | An honest evening's grade: nothing loud, nothing missed by much. |
| STL @ AZ2026-07-19 | A | 0.1 AZ | 3/5 | A workmanlike night — nothing to frame, nothing to fix. |
| KC @ NYM2026-07-08 | B+ | 2.4 KC | 1/3 | Somebody's pitching staff sent a thank-you note. |
| NYY @ BOS2026-06-26 | A | 1.0 BOS | 2/3 | Down the middle. Both dugouts had the same zone. |
| MIL @ CIN2026-06-22 | D | 0.9 MIL | 5/7 | The Automated Ball-Strike System put in some overtime here. |
| BAL @ SEA2026-06-18 | B | 0.5 SEA | 7/9 | A few too many trips to the challenge cart. |
| CHC @ SF2026-06-13 | B+ | 0.8 SF | 1/4 | The kind of night where the umpire is the least of the story. |
| TOR @ BAL2026-05-28 | A | 0.6 TOR | 0/3 | A workmanlike night — nothing to frame, nothing to fix. |
| LAD @ MIL2026-05-24 | B- | 1.2 LAD | 2/4 | The strike zone picked a side, and wasn't shy about it. |
| CIN @ CLE2026-05-16 | A | 1.0 CIN | 1/4 | The zone leaned, and the ledger noticed. |
| CHC @ ATL2026-05-12 | A- | 0.3 CHC | 2/5 | Solid and unspectacular — exactly what the job asks. |
| TB @ BOS2026-05-07 | A | 0.2 TB | 1/2 | The catcher barely had to sell a thing. |
| NYY @ TEX2026-04-29 | B+ | 0.0 TEX | 2/5 | The zone kept its promises. |
| KC @ NYY2026-04-18 | A | 0.7 NYY | 2/3 | The zone kept its promises. |