The 2025 Yankees Got +16.2 Runs of Free Umpire Favor. Here's the Full Story.
New York ranked third in ump run favor — but their WPA favor was negative. The calls went their way, just not when it mattered. Two pitchers explain almost everything.
The 2025 New York Yankees received +16.2 runs of net umpire favor across 169 games. That puts them third in baseball behind Toronto (+47.3) and San Francisco (+24.7), and comfortably ahead of the league median near zero.
Sixteen runs. That's not a rounding error. That's roughly 1.5 wins of value delivered by incorrect umpire calls. But the full story is more complicated than the headline.
The Headline Number
Net run favor of +16.2 means that when you add up every missed call in every Yankees game — weighting each by its run value using count-based and RE24 frameworks — the cumulative effect favored the Yankees by the equivalent of 16.2 runs.
How does that happen? Mostly through their pitching staff. Two Yankees starters ranked in the top 5 nationally for most gifted calls:
- Will Warren: 130 gifted calls, +16.9 run impact
- Carlos Rodón: 148 gifted calls, +16.8 run impact
Combined, Warren and Rodón alone accounted for +33.7 runs of gift favor. The rest of the roster was net-negative, meaning the team's overall +16.2 reflects these two pitchers carrying the entire ledger.
The WPA Tells a Different Story
Here's where it gets interesting. The Yankees' WPA favor was -0.97 — slightly negative. Their run favor was +16.2, but their win probability favor was below zero.
What does that mean? The favorable calls came in low-leverage moments. The balls outside the zone that umpires called strikes for Warren and Rodón — those tended to happen in innings where the Yankees were already winning comfortably or the game was still in its early, low-stakes portion.
When the game was tight — bases loaded in the 8th, one-run lead in the 9th — the calls didn't systematically favor the Yankees. If anything, they broke slightly against them in those spots.
This is a critical distinction. Run favor tells you the total volume of umpire impact. WPA favor tells you whether it affected who won. For the Yankees in 2025, the answer is: probably not much.
How It Compares
In 2024, the Yankees were also in the top 5 at +7.8 run favor with +1.13 WPA favor. So they've been consistently favored by total run value in both seasons — but the WPA story differs. In 2024, the favorable calls did come in meaningful moments (+1.13 WPA). In 2025, they didn't (-0.97 WPA).
For context, the team that got the most help in high-leverage spots in 2025 was Toronto, with +3.26 WPA favor. The team that got the least was Baltimore at -1.69.
It's the Pitchers, Not the Pinstripes
Nothing in this data suggests umpire bias toward or against the Yankees specifically. The run favor tracks directly to two pitchers who live on the edges of the zone and consistently received borderline calls in their favor.
Warren's sinker and Rodón's slider both attack the edges — they're designed to paint corners and challenge hitters to swing at pitches that may or may not be strikes. When an umpire calls those borderline pitches strikes, it shows up as "gift" favor for the pitcher and the team.
Put the same pitchers on any other team and the numbers would follow them. This is a roster composition effect, not a stadium effect or a league favoritism effect.
Every AL East Rival's Response
For fans of Yankees' rivals, here's how the division stacked up in 2025:
| Team | Run Favor | WPA Favor | |------|-----------|-----------| | NYY | +16.2 | -0.97 | | TOR | +47.3 | +3.26 | | BOS | -1.0 | -1.07 | | TB | -17.1 | -0.27 | | BAL | -20.7 | -1.69 |
Toronto got far more ump help than New York. Baltimore got crushed. The AL East's umpire luck distribution was wildly uneven in 2025 — a 68-run gap between first and last in the division.
But again: this isn't about which team the umpires "like." It's about which pitching staffs generate the most borderline calls. Toronto had three top-10 gifted pitchers. Baltimore didn't. The zone doesn't care about your jersey.
See the full 30-team rankings in our team umpire luck breakdown, or explore individual team game logs on our team pages.