MLB Names Rookie MLBU Crew Chief for Season Finale

MLB will shuttle postseason-bound umpires to first-round cities in advance of baseball's expanded playoffs, leaving young umpires on their own for regular season finales. Enter Chris Segal, named a Crew Chief in his rookie season on Major League Baseball's full-time umpiring staff.

Some teams name players as interim managers for the final day of the regular season. MLB names Birdman a Crew Chief.

With 16 teams set to advance to the postseason, many ballparks on Sunday aren't in need of personnel movement—either because one of the two teams will play postseason games or because the stadiums happen to be fairly close to another venue which will host postseason games—but in Kansas City, both the home Royals and visiting Tigers were eliminated from playoff contention, meaning that the umpiring crew of Ron Kulpa, Manny Gonzalez, Todd Tichenor, and Chris Segal could be reallocated.

Accordingly, Sunday's crew in KC saw the subtraction of Kulpa, Gonzalez, and Tichenor, leaving first-year full-timer Segal in charge of a crew of Triple-A triple digits: Erich Bacchus, Alex MacKay, and Paul Clemons. First-year full-time staffers generally are not eligible for postseason assignments, allowing the crew's more veteran members in MLB's more spread-out Central Division (e.g., many teams on the east coast are in relatively close proximity to each-other) a head-start on commuting to their October destinations.