Are MLB umpires getting worse? Fans say yes, but the stats might disagree

Robot wives, robot sex partners, and even robot entrepreneurs have made headlines this year, but what about robot umpires?

It seems every baseball fan has called for robot umpires at some point in the 2025 season, especially after fans saw an automated ball-strike challenge system being used during the 2025 MLB All-Star Game.

‘The meter maids of baseball.’

Multiple calls garnered a challenge from players that changed the course of the game, leaving viewers to invoke the digital strike zone placed on screen whenever an umpire gets a call wrong.

But are the umpires actually getting worse?

Using numbers from a recent Umpire Scorecards post, overall accuracy for umpires in 2025 is 93%. While this may seem low, it’s a combination of called-ball accuracy averages (97%) and called-strike accuracy averages (88%).

Scoring the average accuracy rating of an umpire throughout the course of the season and weighing that against what is expected of them, we see that fewer umpires are dipping below the expected performance levels year over year.

In 2022, 35 umpires had an average accuracy rating below what was expected of them. In 2023, that number was 27, and in 2024, it was 21. In 2025, that number dropped to just 16.

Looking back through these years, not only are poor averages less abundant, but the MLB even seems to be getting less lenient about giving inaccurate umpires the go-ahead to call games.

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First female MLB umpire Jen Pawol at PNC Park on August 24, 2025, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Photo by Justin Berl/Getty Images

Umpires with below-average accuracy ratings are calling fewer games than before.

In 2025, five of the six worst under-performing umpires (in terms of average accuracy vs. expected accuracy) have played five games or fewer. Just four umpires inside the bottom 10 for worst accuracy overall have umpired more than five games.

Perhaps those umpires will be seen more in the final 30 games of 2025, but it seems unlikely they will reach anywhere close to the number of games that inaccurate umpires got in 2024.

MLB umpiring even took a step forward — or back, depending on fan perspective — with a female umpire appearing twice so far.

Some took Jen Pawol, the first female umpire to call balls and strikes in a regular season game, as an end-of-days scenario for the league, but it was not as bad as expected. While Pawol did not actually rattle any cages in her debut and performed just below average, her second game went mostly unreported when she performed better than her first.

Still, it should be noted that Pawol has the fifth-worst overall accuracy for umpires this season and the third-worst against the expected average. But with what seems to be the new normal, she has been limited to just two games all year.

While poor performers are getting the nod less frequently and fewer umps are below average, fans are still unhappy.

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Kansas City Manager Matt Quatraro argues with home plate umpire Ryan Addition on August 13, 2025, at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, MO. Photo by Keith Gillett/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Experts and analysts say it’s because of the umpires’ attitudes.

“I’m ready to get rid of the mall cop macho mentality these guys have officiating the game,” baseball broadcaster Gary Sheffield Jr. told Blaze News. “Get me an automated system when it’s ready so we can get back to baseball.”

Sheffield had previously shared sentiments with Blaze News that he thought any “below-average” umpire should be fired, male or female.

Former Division I and pro player Leo Dottavio agreed, telling Blaze News that he’s been involved in “countless games that were decided by umpire error.”

Adding that it was clear to him in the past that umpires had been influenced by player attitudes or outside sources, Dottavio plainly stated, “It’s time for the robo ump.”

Now a comedian, Dottavio stressed that he has grown to despise the average umpire as a fan and called average umpires “a bunch of beta males trying to get back at the true … kings, the guys on the field.”

It does seem that no matter what stats the MLB boys in black (or blue) put up, they certainly have an image problem. Fan reactions show this, referring to them either as bullies, or as Dottavio joked, “the meter maids of baseball.”

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