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Several new umpires will enforce MLB’s rule changes next season.
According to ESPN’s Jesse Rogers, 10 umpires are retiring at the end of the month. That creates the job’s highest turnover since 1999.
The umpires stepping down include seven crew chiefs: Ted Barrett, Greg Gibson, Tom Hallion, Sam Holbrook, Jerry Meals, Jim Reynolds and Bill Welke. Marty Foster, Paul Nauert, and Tim Timmons are also retiring.
The retiring umpires have worked over 200 combined seasons and called 16 World Series. Barrett, the home-plate umpire for David Cone’s perfect game in 1999, worked five Fall Classics.
“I’m so grateful to have the career that I did and to be a part of baseball history,” Barrett told Rogers in a phone interview. “I’m incredibly proud of the crews that I worked with and everything baseball provided for me. For all of us.”
Rogers said the large number of retirements is unrelated to MLB introducing a pitch clock and other changes in 2023. It’s also not connected to the looming chance of MLB implementing automated balls and strikes down the road.
MLB will promote or hire 10 umpires next month, the game’s most new umpires since hiring eight when instituting instant replay in 2014.
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