Squeezed: The Pitchers Who Lost the Most to Bad Calls in 2025

Some pitchers paint the corners and get rewarded for it. Others put the ball in the same spot and get punished. The difference isn't command — it's the umpire.

Using every pitch from the 2025 MLB season, we tracked which pitchers received the most favorable and unfavorable ball-strike calls. The results reveal who benefited from an expanded zone and who lost real runs to a shrinking one.

The Most Gifted Pitchers of 2025

These are the pitchers who received the most "gifts" — balls outside the rulebook zone that were called strikes in their favor.

| Rank | Pitcher | Team | Games | Gifted | Squeezed | Net Run Impact | |------|---------|------|-------|--------|----------|----------------| | 1 | Logan Webb | SF | 35 | 165 | 7 | +20.8 | | 2 | Kevin Gausman | TOR | 38 | 144 | 5 | +17.3 | | 3 | Will Warren | NYY | 34 | 130 | 10 | +16.9 | | 4 | Carlos Rodón | NYY | 36 | 148 | 12 | +16.8 | | 5 | Zac Gallen | AZ | 33 | 149 | 10 | +16.5 | | 6 | Sonny Gray | STL | 32 | 131 | 11 | +15.9 | | 7 | José Berríos | TOR | 31 | 109 | 5 | +14.9 | | 8 | Jack Flaherty | DET | 34 | 128 | 15 | +14.8 | | 9 | Chris Bassitt | TOR | 39 | 109 | 3 | +14.1 | | 10 | Freddy Peralta | MIL | 36 | 117 | 5 | +13.7 |

Logan Webb led the league with 165 gifted calls worth +20.8 runs. That's an extraordinary number — roughly two wins of value delivered by umpires calling his borderline pitches as strikes. Webb's elite sinker-slider combination lives on the edges of the zone, and umpires consistently gave him the benefit of the doubt on pitches that technically missed.

Three Blue Jays appear in the top 10: Gausman, Berríos, and Bassitt. Combined, they received +46.2 runs of gift favor. This single fact explains most of Toronto's league-leading +47.3 team run favor. The Blue Jays didn't get lucky with umpires randomly — their pitching staff's edge-of-zone repertoire systematically drew favorable calls.

The Yankees placed two pitchers in the top 5: Warren (+16.9) and Rodón (+16.8). Together, they account for more than double the team's +16.2 net run favor.

The Most Squeezed Pitchers of 2025

On the other end — pitchers who lost the most value to umpires calling their strikes as balls:

| Rank | Pitcher | Team | Games | Squeezed | Gifted | Net Run Impact | |------|---------|------|-------|----------|--------|----------------| | 1 | Mason Barnett | OAK | 5 | 2 | 5 | -1.69 | | 2 | Ty Adcock | NYM | 3 | 3 | 1 | -0.38 | | 3 | Ron Marinaccio | SD | 7 | 3 | 3 | -0.37 | | 4 | AJ Blubaugh | HOU | 11 | 4 | 12 | -0.37 | | 5 | Eric Orze | TB | 33 | 5 | 11 | -0.29 |

The squeeze list skews toward relievers and pitchers with fewer appearances. That's partly a sample-size effect — a single badly squeezed outing can put a reliever on this list — but it also reflects how relievers work: they throw harder, aim for the edges, and have less margin for error. When the umpire shrinks the zone on a reliever in a high-leverage spot, the per-pitch damage is amplified.

Why Some Pitchers Get More Gifts

The gift leaderboard isn't random. Specific pitcher characteristics correlate with receiving favorable calls:

Edge command. Pitchers who consistently locate pitches within an inch of the zone boundary generate more opportunities for borderline calls. Webb, Gausman, and Gallen are elite at putting the ball exactly where they want it — which happens to be exactly where umpires have to make judgment calls.

Pitch movement. Breaking balls that start outside the zone and dive toward it (or sinkers that start inside and tail out) may be harder for umpires to track. A slider that starts as a ball and appears to catch the corner — even if it doesn't — might earn a called strike that a straighter pitch in the same final location would not.

Volume. Pitchers who pitch deeper into games and throw more called pitches create more opportunities for favorable calls. Webb (35 starts), Gausman (38), and Bassitt (39) all logged heavy workloads.

Framing. Though we don't measure catcher framing directly, the catcher's presentation of the pitch influences the umpire's call. A good framer can turn a borderline miss into a called strike.

What This Means Under ABS

The 2026 ABS challenge system changes this equation entirely. Every gifted call — every ball outside the zone called a strike — is now challengeable by the batter. If the batter recognizes the pitch was off the plate and taps his helmet, the call gets overturned.

Logan Webb's 165 gifted calls? Under ABS, those are 165 potential challenges. Not all would be challenged (teams only get 2 per game, and not every batter can tell in real time), but the most egregious ones — the pitches that clearly missed the zone — would be.

This has real implications for pitching strategy. Pitchers who've built their approach around getting calls on the edges may need to adjust. If the expanded zone shrinks because batters challenge it, nibbling the corners becomes riskier. We'll be tracking gift rates under ABS throughout the 2026 season to see if the numbers shift.

The Connection to Team Favor

The pitcher gift leaderboard explains most of the team-level ump favor data. The teams at the top of the team favor rankings — Toronto (+47.3), San Francisco (+24.7), New York Yankees (+16.2) — are the same teams whose pitchers dominate the gift leaderboard.

This isn't home cooking. It's not conspiracy. It's roster construction: teams with pitchers who live on the edges generate more favorable calls. The effect is large — 20+ runs for the top pitchers — and it's consistent enough to appear in multi-year data.

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Explore the full pitcher squeeze and gift rankings on our leaderboards page, or see how any individual pitcher's zone calls broke down on their game pages.