MLB’s Umpiring Problems Showed Up Again During The World Series

Major League Baseball has an umpiring problem, and once again, it reared its ugly head on the game’s biggest stage. In game three of the 2024 World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees, home plate umpire Mark Carlson turned in an atrocious, embarrassing performance. All with tens of millions of people watching around the globe.

In a testament to the power of the MLB Umpire’s Union, Carlson, who ranked in the bottom half of the league’s umpires in 2024, was somehow handed one of the most important assignments of the season. And he failed, in spectacular fashion. There were missed calls throughout the game that heavily impacted the outcome for both sides. But the biggest miss of the game took a run off the board for the Dodgers. At least one. With the bases loaded and two outs, Yankees reliever Mark Leiter Jr. threw a cutter to Will Smith on a 3-1 count that completely missed the zone.

It wasn’t just an artifact of the television camera angle either; Baseball Savant’s strike zone illustrator, directly from MLB, showed the pitch wasn’t close.

Smith grounded out weakly back to the pitcher on the next pitch to end the inning. Instead of a 4-0 lead and Max Muncy hitting with the bases loaded, Carlson’s blown call effectively ended the Dodgers threat. It wouldn’t be the last time.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – OCTOBER 28: Michael Kopech #45 of the Los Angeles Dodgers celebrates after a 4-2 win over the New York Yankees during Game Three of the 2024 World Series at Yankee Stadium on October 28, 2024 in the Bronx borough of New York City. (Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)

MLB Umpires Continue To Embarrass The Game On The Biggest Stage

In the very next inning, the Dodgers put runners at first and third with nobody out, and NLCS MVP Tommy Edman due up. Edman, one of the team’s best bunters, laid down a squeeze bunt, resulting in a close play at the plate. It was a questionable judgment call whether Yankees catcher Jose Trevino blocked the plate early, but regardless, a camera angle seemed to show Lux’s hand sliding in under the tag and Trevino’s ankle pads. 

Carlson missed the call in real time, and MLB’s absurd, pointless, ineffective replay room did the most unsurprising thing possible and allowed it to stand.

READ: MLB’s Replay Review System Might Be Broken, And It’s Time To Fix It

At least two runs for Los Angeles vanished, thanks in large part to the home plate umpire being bad at his job. Later on, it seemed like he’d turned his attention to hurting the Yankees too. With the Dodgers now up 4-0 in the top of the 7th inning, runners at 1st and 2nd and two outs, Anthony Banda threw a 2-2 fastball to Gleyber Torres that appeared to miss the zone on camera.

Yankees fans were understandably furious, considering Juan Soto was waiting on deck as a potential trying run. But the umpire scorecard after the game didn’t show the Torres strike as one of the missed calls, and confirmed that Carlson handed New York an extra run throughout the course of the game. 

How’s that possible? Because that call, believe it or not, was actually the “correct” one, with Baseball Savant’s page showing it clipped the top of the strike zone.

The Dodgers held on to win 4-2, despite the umpiring mistakes. But it’s indefensible for MLB to allow this type of performance to happen on their biggest international stage. Carlson was atrocious, missing plenty of calls for both sides. The call on the Lux slide at the plate was more excusable, and could have gone either way, but the balls and strikes were simply not acceptable. And it’s been a consistent pattern throughout October. 

The Yankees, for example, have now played 12 postseason games, and benefited from poor umpiring in nine of them. They’ve gained nearly three and a half runs of expected value throughout the playoffs. It’s a hidden variable that can easily change the outcomes of extremely tight, coin-flip games. That’s not to suggest that the umpires or the league are purposefully trying to help New York, but Monday night’s game three was the worst one yet, and one of the biggest run expectancy swings of the postseason. In the World Series, in a pivotal game three.

Quite simply, they have to do better.