Major League Baseball has promoted umpires Tom Hanahan and Brian Walsh to its full-time staff, the league announced Friday, filling two openings created by retirements on the major league umpire roster.
Hanahan and Walsh move up from the minor leagues, where they have been working and evaluated under MLB’s standard development and monitoring system. Their promotions come as MLB regularly updates its umpiring ranks in response to departures and staff needs each offseason. Specific details about their prior assignments or years of service were not disclosed in the announcement.
The two promotions follow the retirements of a pair of veteran umpires, creating the exact number of vacancies that Hanahan and Walsh will now fill. With the moves, MLB continues its practice of elevating umpires who have gained extensive experience in professional baseball’s development system, including work in upper-level minor leagues and other MLB-run events.
While Hanahan and Walsh will join the full-time roster for the regular season, Jen Pawol, who has broken ground as MLB’s first woman umpire in its system, has been assigned to work major league spring training for the third consecutive year. Her continued presence at spring training reflects MLB’s ongoing evaluation and training process, in which umpires from the minor leagues are given opportunities to work alongside established major league crews during exhibition games.
Spring training assignments serve as a key stage in umpire development. Umpires are evaluated on mechanics, positioning, rules knowledge, and game management while working in an environment that closely mirrors the regular season, but with additional input from supervisors and coordinators. Pawol’s repeated selection for these assignments signals that she remains an active part of MLB’s professional umpiring pipeline, even though she was not chosen for one of the two new full-time openings this offseason.
MLB did not announce any changes to its broader umpiring policies or procedures in connection with Friday’s moves. The league periodically updates its staff to respond to retirements and other changes, and continues to draw from its minor league ranks when filling major league positions. As with other personnel decisions, specific internal evaluations and criteria used to select Hanahan and Walsh for promotion were not detailed publicly.
With spring training approaching, the umpiring roster will feature a mix of veteran MLB umpires, newly promoted full-time staff like Hanahan and Walsh, and invited minor league officials such as Pawol. Their performances in exhibition play will help shape assignments and depth options for the upcoming regular season, while also continuing MLB’s long-term process of training and assessing the next wave of potential full-time umpires.
