Tag: MLB Umpires

Angel Hernandez hasn’t worked a game since April 3 and MLB fans are starting to notice

He’s only worked one game this season.

When it comes to MLB’s least popular umpires, Angel Hernandez is often the first name fans and players mention. He’s among the worst-performing umpires behind that plate and controversial when working around the bases.

Every team knows they’re in for a long night when Hernandez’s name pops up on crew assignments. But this season has been different. Hernandez has quietly disappeared from MLB ballparks for the past six weeks. In fact, he hasn’t worked a game since April 3 — his only game this season — when he was stationed at first base for the Giants’ game against the White Sox.

It’s getting to the point where people are starting to notice his absence.

The Major League Baseball Umpires Association hadn’t commented about any sort of leave, suspension or retirement for Hernandez. He worked the World Baseball Classic. And despite filing a lawsuit against MLB for racial discrimination in 2017, Hernandez had continued to regularly work MLB games up until this past April. MLB blamed Hernandez’s lack of World Series assignments and crew promotions on his poor performance as an umpire.

But if Hernandez’s absence is performance based, the timing and lack of announcement would be curious. He worked once during the first week of the season and just wasn’t heard from again.

Update: Director of Major League Umpires Randy Marsh told For The Win that he believed Hernandez’s absence was due to a “medical matter.”

Fans also had thoughts on the lack of Hernandez so far this season. Many also wished him well.

[affiliatewidget_deal1]

Shohei Ohtani hilariously pick-pocketed an umpire for a weird — but kind! — reason

Shohei Ohtani is the best of us.

Shohei Ohtani is the absolute best of us. I mean that in every possible way.

The dude made history on Wednesday by being the first player in MLB history to violate the pitch clock as both a pitcher and a hitter on the same night, which is already hilarious and weird.

But, on that same night, he also pick-pocketed an umpire for a baseball. Yes, you read that correctly. Shohei Ohtani pick-pocketed an umpire in the middle of a game.

While the umpire spoke with Ohtani’s manager and his translator, the MLB phenom snagged a baseball from out of his pocket. Why? The reason is weird, but also very kind.

It was because the opposing pitcher needed a ball to warm up with.

This guy, man. Ohtani seems like such a joy to be around.

This is not the sort of gamesmanship we’re used to seeing around sports. Most people would normally want their opponents as frazzled as possible to ensure their best chances at a win.

Not Ohtani, though. Nope. Take this baseball and go warm up so we can get this game over with. That’s his vibe. And it’s a pretty cool one.

We need more folks in sports like this.

Umpire Ryan Blakney was astonishingly close to calling a perfect game behind the plate

Not today, robots!

It’s always easy to pile on Major League umpires when they miss an easy call or needlessly take over the game. It happens too often at all levels of baseball. But there are a few times when an umpire shows up to the ballpark and does the job exceptionally well.

MLB umpire Ryan Blakney had himself that kind of day in San Francisco on Sunday.

Blakney — who ranks around the middle of the pack amongst MLB umpires — was just about robotic in his performance behind the plate for the Dodgers-Giants game. According to Umpire Scorecards, Blakney accurately called 132 of the 133 taken pitches in the game.

His one miss was a borderline ball call to Freddie Freeman on a slider that wasn’t framed particularly well by Austin Wynns.

He was mere centimeters away from calling a perfect game behind the plate. It was that close. We’ve seen several near-perfect performances from umpires this season, including the time Pat Hoberg missed the first pitch of the game and then went perfect the rest of the way. So, perfection should be possible — even with the possibility of robot umps looming.

Still, Blakney deserves credit for a job well done. And MLB fans were ready recognize his near-perfect effort.

MLB evaluates its umpires like Angel Hernandez with an impossibly lenient grading system

It makes no sense.

There’s no denying that Major League umpires have an incredibly difficult job. They’re tasked with calling balls and strikes on pitches with an unprecedented combination of velocity and movement. And with the strike zone graphics on every broadcast, fans immediately see when a call is missed.

It’s why some umpires — like Angel Hernandez — are among the most heavily criticized officials in U.S. sports. But for as bad as Hernandez performs on a near nightly basis, Major League Baseball doesn’t see it that way at all.

Just look at what happened last week with Hernandez’s putting up a horrific night behind the plate, leading to a colorful outburst from Kyle Schwarber. Umpire evaluators on Twitter had Hernandez scoring a putrid 85 to 88 percent on the night. It was bad.

So, what did MLB think of Hernandez that night? According to ESPN’s Jeff Passan, the league’s internal evaluation had Hernandez scoring a 96.12 percent on the night.

Why such a discrepancy? Well, according to the report, the league evaluates umpires on such a lenient scale that it makes it nearly impossible to hold any umpire accountable for poor performance. The umpiring union negotiated for such a grading system, and it’s exactly why incompetent umpiring remains an issue for baseball fans.

This is the scale, via ESPN:

MLB employs a team of auditors to assist in its review of each game. The auditors set a unique strike zone for each player based on his setup in the batter’s box. The top of the strike zone is his beltline and the bottom the hollow of his back knee, both determined when he’s loading and preparing to swing. The margin of error is implemented off the corners — 2 inches on each side of the plate.

The rationalization for the margin of error, which was collectively bargained between the league and the umpires’ union — the MLB Umpires Association declined comment — was ostensibly due to the limitations of previous tracking technology but also buys umpires leeway in their grading.

And anyone who watches baseball knows that two inches is a significant margin of error when you’re dealing with balls and strikes. With that buffer zone, only the most blatant of missed calls actually get scored as misses internally.

That gives the league inflated averages with no umpire scoring worse than 96 percent for the 2021 season — the average on that scare was 97.4 percent. That’s a grading curve that would make any college student jealous.

While an automated strike zone (Robot Umps) is something that is being tested at various minor-league levels, it wasn’t among the rule changes included in this most recent CBA. And with such a pro-umpire evaluation method, it’s clear that nothing is going to be done to move away from baseball’s worst umps. Which makes no sense because there are great umpires out there. 

It’s a problem that only hurts the game.

[mm-video type=video id=01g1gqdecftzmqk82b42 playlist_id=01f09p3bf720d8rg02 player_id=none image=https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/video/thumbnail/mmplus/01g1gqdecftzmqk82b42/01g1gqdecftzmqk82b42-a08b663706c51a760c462832c7e3b72c.jpg]

Angel Hernandez had a solid night as the home plate umpire and MLB fans were genuinely stunned

Anything is possible!

MLB umpire Angel Hernandez has built a reputation as baseball’s worst ump. Whenever teams see him on the schedule to work behind the plate, they know that it’s going to be a long night for pitchers and hitters alike. He can even impact games from first base — there’s no stopping him.

But on Wednesday, something wild happened. Hernandez showed up to work behind the plate for the Blue Jays’ game against the Red Sox. And, well, Hernandez actually put together a competent performance.

According to Umpire Scorecards, Hernandez called 156 of 161 taken pitches correctly on Wednesday night — good for a very solid 97 percent accuracy.

His one egregious missed call didn’t look all that terrible in real time either.

It wasn’t quite the virtually perfect game that MLB umpire Pat Hoberg had in Denver the other night, but for Hernandez, it was a shockingly good job. Needless to say, MLB fans were surprised.

Nearly every missed call from umpire Chris Conroy favored the Astros in Game 1 of the World Series

A bit one-sided.

In theory, Major League Baseball is supposed to send its top-performing umpires to work the World Series games. But even the best that MLB has to offer can be jarringly mediocre.

The Atlanta Braves took Game 1 of the World Series, 6-2, on Tuesday night in Houston with umpire Chris Conroy working behind the plate in his first career World Series assignment. Though Conroy ranked in the top third of umpire accuracy this past season, his performance on Tuesday happened to be noticeably one-sided.

According to Umpire Auditor, Conroy missed 11 calls in Game 1 with 10 of them going against the Braves and in favor of the Astros.

Umpire Scorecard estimated that Conroy’s strike zone added 1.62 runs in Houston’s favor.

And while Conroy avoided the kind of missed call that swung a ballgame, he didn’t make matters easy for the Braves. Will Smith’s ninth-inning walk should have been a strikeout.

He also had Freddie Freeman visibly confused when he announced, “That’s outside.” And then proceeded to punch Freeman out anyway.

As we’ve pointed out numerous times, it’s an easy problem to fix. The technology is there to institute an automated strike zone, and MLB would still have an umpire behind the plate to signal calls and rule on plays at home. All that would change is that balls and strikes — particularly in the biggest games — are called with accuracy.

It shouldn’t be so complicated.

[mm-video type=video id=01fjys1jqqqdqkc2xv4s playlist_id=01f09p3bf720d8rg02 player_id=none image=https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/video/thumbnail/mmplus/01fjys1jqqqdqkc2xv4s/01fjys1jqqqdqkc2xv4s-d1631a6aec688563d56fd0294f397a39.jpg]

MLB umpire Ted Barrett had an absolutely atrocious night calling the Giants-Dodgers Game 3

That’s how you make the case for robot umps.

So much was unusual about Monday’s National League Division Series Game 3 between the Dodgers and Giants. It was the first time the Dodgers had lost 1-0 at home in two years, and the teams had to deal with swirling winds in Los Angeles that were more reminiscent of the Giants’ Candlestick Park days than anything you’d see in Southern California.

It also didn’t help that the home plate umpire had one of the worst nights you’ll ever see in a postseason game.

Umpire Ted Barrett’s strike zone was all over the place on Monday night. He basically made his own case for MLB to institute an automated strike zone.

MLB umpire Fieldin Culbreth did his best robot ump impression by calling a near-perfect game

Best game by an ump … ever?

We’re so used to calling out umpires for missed calls because, well, it happens far too often. After all, the job of accurately calling balls and strikes for today’s big-league pitching is no small task. It’s precisely why MLB should consider instituting an automated strike zone.

But on Wednesday, something astonishing happened. MLB umpire Fieldin Culbreth (yes, that’s a real name) channeled the energy of a robot umpire and essentially called a perfect game behind the plate for the crucial Phillies-Braves matchup in Atlanta.

According to Umpire Scorecards, Culbreth saw 122 taken pitches during Wednesday’s game and called 121 of those pitches correctly. On top of that, none of his ball calls were inside his established strike zone — he was 100 percent consistent. His one missed call was borderline too.

If every umpire could do that on a daily basis, we wouldn’t be calling for robot umps. It wasn’t even a performance that Culbreth has shown the ability to consistently pull off. He ranks 72nd out of 99 umpires in terms of accuracy, according to Ump Analysis.

But Culbreth deserves credit — he had a phenomenal game behind the plate. Possibly the best ever. MLB fans agreed.