MLB Ump Watch
Ump Watch, Which Umpires Tilted Totals in 2025
Published
Some zones are cathedrals and some are closets, and the hitters know which is which long before the numbers do. Our Retrosheet build keeps score anyway: 2025 rolling run factors per home-plate umpire, with 1.00 meaning perfectly neutral.
All told, 73 umpires qualify for the board, and the gap between the extremes is real: about 12 percent above the norm at the top, 14 percent below at the bottom.
Where the runs flowed
The friendliest zone belongs to Mark Wegner, 1.125 over 71 games calling balls and strikes, where scoring has run about 12 percent above the league norm.
Adrian Johnson (1.101 in 89 games) keeps the trend company.
Next in line: Dan Bellino, 1.097 across 96 games.
Where runs go to die
At the other extreme, Brennan Miller has squeezed scoring hardest: a 0.863 factor over 73 games, where scoring has run about 14 percent below the league norm.
David Rackley (0.893 in 92 games) rounds out the pitching-friendly wing.
At a glance
The over-leaning end of the board, in one look:
| Umpire | Run factor | Games |
|---|---|---|
| Mark Wegner | 1.125 | 71 |
| Adrian Johnson | 1.101 | 89 |
| Dan Bellino | 1.097 | 96 |
| Mike Muchlinski | 1.093 | 86 |
| Chris Guccione | 1.091 | 79 |
One more thing
These factors are built on rolling three-season windows, which is long enough to mean something and short enough to notice when a zone genuinely changes.
None of this is about bad umpiring. Zones are simply different, and hitters and pitchers feel those differences long before the box score does.
These are historical tendencies from seasons past, not tonight's assignments, treat them as trivia about the shape of the sport, not a betting signal on any specific game.