We knew that the ABS was going to expose a lot of umpires and the number of missed calls in a game. But no one has exposed Umpire CB Bucknor the way he has been. And the MLB seems to have had enough of his blunders. Or have they?

And since it was April, this was the perfect time to fool all the baseball fans. And that is when top.baseball.news Instagram handle posted, “Breaking: The MLB has fired umpire CB Bucknor effective immediately.”

Is it true? No. But after recent calls, do the fans want it to happen? Most fans would say yes.

CB Bucknor has struggled ever since the 2026 Spring Training started, and the season is going into Game Day 6; the fans are already fed up. In 2026, Bucknor started the season with an accuracy percentage of just 91.33%, while the expectations were higher at 93.61%. He also recorded -8.43 correct calls above expected, showing clear underperformance in his first 2 games.

Players challenged nine calls against him, and officials overturned seven, giving them 78 percent success. And this is not the story of just the regular season.

When he was the home plate umpire in the Nationals-Astros Spring Game, he had to overturn 3 of his calls in the very first inning. But at that, we could say that the umpires were also getting used to ABS and would improve in the regular season, but it has been the opposite.

The Boston Red Sox played against the Cincinnati Reds in their first game, and bad calls marred it. He had to overturn 6 out of the 8 challenged calls. The other moment in the game came when he ruled Trevor Story out on a check swing.

Alex Cora and Story argued that he didn’t make the right call standing behind the plate. They wanted him to ask the 1st base umpire, but in the end, Cora ejected him.

It didn’t get any better in the Rays-Brewers game either. This time, Bucknor was at first base, and he made a call that was so bad that the whole stadium was laughing at it. Jake Bauers, who was running to first base after getting a hit, clearly touched first base, yet Bucknor called him out.

When the reply was later looked at, we could see that Bucknor wasn’t even looking at Bauer’s running and simply called him out. This had both the managers, Pat Murphy and Kevin Cash, exchanging smiles and laughing at Bucknor.

When fans said ABS would expose umpires like CB Bucknor, they weren’t lying. And things are so bad that former umpires are starting to feel sad.

Former MLB umpires are not happy with ABS

With the ABS here, the major question that the umpires are fighting is “What is a Strike?” because even an inch off will change the decisions. And this has not made many of the former MLB umpires happy.

Former umpire Gary Darling said, “They’re flipping pitches missing by a tenth of an inch.” The umpires before judged the strike zone based on the shoulder to the knee. But with the ABS here, the strike zone has become a number: 53.5% from the top and 27% from the bottom. That shift replaces a 3D judgment with a fixed plane measured at home plate.

Former umpire Joe West, who has had his share of bad calls, said, “They haven’t proven it’s as accurate as they say it is.” Jim Joyce said, “They feel the strike zone has changed,” after speaking to active umpires.

Dale Scott said that umpires now mainly adjust calls to avoid getting overturned.

As tensions rise, MLB points to numbers that show improvements despite the scrutiny. League data shows 93.5% accuracy, which is 0.9% above last season’s record. Fans see umpires like CB Bucknor and cheer louder for the calls rather than homers when his call gets overturned on consecutive pitches.

This shows that fans want to have the right decision for their batters and not mess up things for the pitchers and the batters. Like when Jim Joyce missed an easy call and ruined a perfect call for Armando Galarraga.

Joyce says that he is all for instant replays. But Joyce is now warning fans that technology is here, and it is not leaving, and we should be careful what we wish for.