Advertisement By Jayson Stark, Ken Rosenthal and Eno Sarris In the winter, Major League Baseball negotiated a seemingly simple change in how home-plate umpires are graded and evaluated.

According to The Athletic, MLB changed how its home plate umpires are evaluated on their calls of balls and strikes. MLB’s change? Shrinking the strike zone. Home-plate umpires have long been ...

Changes to the way Major League Baseball evaluates umpires has resulted in fewer called strikes on the edges of the zone through the first month of the 2025 season, reports The Athletic.