Umpire Grade · Blue Notes

Will Little

26 games graded behind the plate.

Season Grade

93.5% ± 0.8

Avg Swing

runs / game

ABS Overturns

56/117 calls

3,698 correct of 3,957 graded takes (93.5% ± 0.8, 95%). Best game 98.0% · worst 89.0%. 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 Will Little

This season is 3,957 graded takes, which puts Will Little's overall accuracy at 93.5% ± 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 791 takes, so ±1.7 points. (the league-wide two-strike effect is about 1 point in 2026.)
any single corner of the zone — about 330 takes, so ±2.7 points. (corner cells are where umpires actually differ.)
whether one pitcher is called tighter than another — about 66 takes, so ±6.0 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 117 pitches players chose to challenge, which are the pitches they already believed were wrong. 117 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

Will Little

The first Can-Am Association graduate to reach the majors, the Tennessean has worked his way to a World Series assignment.

Will Little became the first graduate of the Can-Am Association to reach the major leagues when he took third base for the Indians-Orioles game on June 24, 2013, joining Ted Barrett's crew. He preceded his colleague Adam Hamari to the big leagues by just one day.

The road to Baltimore ran through Fall Branch, Tennessee, where Little was born in 1984. He attended Science Hill High School in Johnson City and studied biology at Milligan College before enrolling at the Jim Evans Academy of Professional Umpiring, from which he graduated with honors in 2006. The minor leagues followed — the Appalachian League, the South Atlantic League, the Carolina League, the Southern League, the International League, and a 2007 season in the Can-Am Association.

He served as a fill-in umpire beginning with that 2013 debut and was promoted to a full-time MLB position in February 2015. The postseason assignments came after — the 2016 American League Wild Card Game was his first. He has worked multiple Division Series, the 2020 League Championship Series, the 2022 All-Star Game, and the World Baseball Classic in 2017 and 2023. In 2025, he worked his first World Series.

He was at first base on June 3, 2017, when Albert Pujols hit his 600th career home run against the Minnesota Twins. Little wears uniform number 93 and works as a member of Crew G, alongside Ryan Additon and Ryan Wills under Lance Barksdale.

We have graded him behind the plate in 20 games this season.

Reporting: Wikipedia, Close Call Sports, Baseball Reference Bullpen. Umpire data: MLB StatsAPI, via the Fever engine.

By the Desk · filed 2026-07-23 — 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
ATH @ HOU2026-08-22	B	0.4 HOU	4/7	The zone shrank when the pitchers needed it most.
NYY @ BAL2026-08-18	B-	0.1 NYY	3/7	Expanded the plate a touch past its 17 inches.
LAA @ MIA2026-08-09	B+	1.4 LAA	4/6	The zone leaned, and the ledger noticed.
ATH @ CIN2026-08-05	B-	0.1 ATH	2/5	You had to throw it down Broadway to get the call.
AZ @ CLE2026-07-31	B-	1.0 CLE	5/5	The robots earned their keep tonight.
SD @ MIA2026-07-26	C+	0.4 MIA	4/7	Nothing off the plate, and not much on the black either.
CWS @ TEX2026-07-21	B	0.7 CWS	1/3	Off the corner was close enough tonight.
DET @ LAA2026-07-17	A-	0.8 DET	1/3	An honest evening's grade: nothing loud, nothing missed by much.
AZ @ SD2026-07-09	A+	0.1 SD	0/2	No notes. Well, one: nicely done.
HOU @ DET2026-06-27	A	0.2 HOU	0/3	The catcher barely had to sell a thing.
LAD @ MIN2026-06-23	A-	1.3 MIN	1/5	A tilt to the evening — the numbers say which way.
WSH @ TB2026-06-19	B	0.6 WSH	1/2	The zone kept its promises.
MIN @ DET2026-06-10	A-	0.5 DET	1/4	The zone kept its promises.
MIA @ NYM2026-05-29	B	0.1 MIA	5/5	Hawkeye clocked in early and stayed late.
MIN @ BOS2026-05-24	A+	0.4 MIN	0/2	Reliable as a Tuesday: no complaints, no headlines.
CIN @ PHI2026-05-19	B+	1.7 PHI	5/6	This one went to video review more than most.
KC @ STL2026-05-15	B-	1.0 STL	4/6	A tilt to the evening — the numbers say which way.
NYM @ AZ2026-05-10	A+	0.0 NYM	2/5	Quietly excellent. The best umpiring is the kind you forget was there.
ATL @ SEA2026-05-05	A-	0.2 ATL	1/3	Solid and unspectacular — exactly what the job asks.
DET @ ATL2026-04-29	B	0.1 DET	2/4	The zone kept its promises.
WSH @ CWS2026-04-24	C	0.1 CWS	4/7	Corner-to-corner and then some.
DET @ BOS2026-04-20	B	0.7 BOS	0/2	Nothing off the plate, and not much on the black either.
LAA @ NYY2026-04-16	B+	1.2 NYY	5/8	A few too many trips to the challenge cart.
MIL @ KC2026-04-05	A-	0.1 MIL	0/4	Down the middle. Both dugouts had the same zone.
SF @ SD2026-03-31	A	0.2 SF	1/2	The kind of night where the umpire is the least of the story.
CLE @ SEA2026-03-27	B+	0.5 CLE	0/4	Down the middle. Both dugouts had the same zone.