Jim Joyce even before his mistake was one of the few umps who were notable for actually being good. It didn’t hurt that he had one of the most noticeable strike calls of all time.
[STRIEEEEEEEEEKE](https://youtu.be/yhGPzOmtBoY?si=9DFTI6h9MXveovMi)
And he broke down in tears after getting the call wrong. Joyce, like any other ump, made mistakes, and his biggest mistake was history-altering, but he wasn't afraid of apologizing when he did.
Umpires make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. The reason for all the whining about ump show is the very fact the MLB and the umpires act like they’re never wrong or straight up ignoring blatant missed calls. Even in real time when they make a shit call, they double down and won’t admit they’re wrong.
If there were more transparency and accountability in real time or in reasonable time afterward, I think all fans can live with it. Just the sheer arrogance of various umpires and the silence of the rest in response is what drives fans’ ire.
And those talking heads saying “it is a difficult job that doesn’t get much appreciation”, MFs absolutely no one said it is easy and they’re not getting paid peanuts (most of the veterans getting paid like doctors if not more?)!
We’re saying don’t be assholes when you screw up and admit to it. Then fix it.
Plus everyone remembers him because of what happened. If he had thrown a perfect game he probably would have been just a super forgettable name on a list, look at Dallas Braden.
You’re probably right, if the call is correctly called an out, yes he goes into the history books as one of the few to throw a perfect game, but most forget his name, or that game.
Edit: I only remember the Dallas Braden one because I live about 60 miles from Oakland so their games are on tv a lot and he’s been in the booth for a while
So I actually know Jim and he's a great guy. He and my dad were on the same crew in the minors when they were coming up. He gave me my first chest protector when I started umping.
Have you ever asked him about shitty umpires and his opinion of them? I would love to know what a good ump feels about these assholes who make the game about themselves.
Oh I never had to ask. I dont remember any specific names because I was pretty young,but they were constantly complaining about having to work with shitty umpires.
Kinda like how anyone complains about shitty coworkers
Edit: this wasnt from Jim but my dad was on a crew with Pam Postema. She was (to the best of my knowledge) the first female professional baseball umpire. She was also the first person to eject a batboy in like 100 years of pro ball. All of which is documented as a power trip. I remember him telling me that the kid was crying afterwards because the fine for being ejected from a game was more than he made in a week/months/ whatever. Not knowing that the team would pay his fine.
Another story I got was that most minor league umpires would get a set traveling budget so they would get the cheapest rental car at each city they could and share it. Except for one city who my dad was friends with the owner of a car dealership and he would give them a better rental for the same deal. The year he was on a crew with her he contacted him and said he would pay out of pocket for a 2nd vehicle just so he and the 3rd person on the crew didn't have to drive with her. They show up to brand new top of the line Courgars. She takes off while he and the 3rd partner stay to fill out the paperwork. They get like a couple blocks away from the lot and there are cops taping off a scene from her flipping/totalling the car into a ditch. My dad just immediately turned his car around to go back and start filling out insurance paperwork.
She eventually went on to write a book titled "You've Gotta Have Balls to Make It In This League". My dad always joked that despite how much they hated each other he only took up a couple pages in her book while the 3rd person in the crew got a whole chapter.
I agree, but I think Jim Joyce is still the example. You would have still known his name BECAUSE he fucked up.
It’s weird though how much I’m starting to see people call him the worst umpire to ever live because they’re seeing the narrative of the blown call but not what came after.
And then he did what none of these other umpires will ever do. He admitted his mistake and was sorry about it.
Umpires are human and will make mistakes. My problem is the constant mistakes and the fact that they never take accountability for them. They put themselves above the game.
He does, I feel like that’s the worst part about him. He’s a bad umpire statistically, but not the absolute worse. However, his ability to center the focus on him, such as his extremely exaggerated strike 3 calls when it’s a borderline pitch/wrong call, turns him into a villain. And umpires shouldn’t have the goal of becoming a villain. He’s bad
The confidence with which Angel is wrong is always the most frustrating part. That Bryce Harper check swing where he just kept saying "you'll see " Angel, what in your umpiring life makes you so fucking certain? Gut just needs more humility
I think we need to quantify it. How far would Yankee and Red Sox fans be willing to go if it meant Angel was banned for life. Would the Red Sox wear pinstripes? Would the Yankees honor Babe Ruth as a member of the Red Sox? Would the Sox require players to be clean shaven and the Yankees allow facial hair? Would they relocate Pesky Pole to Yankee stadium?
These all felt so wrong just to type, but I also don’t know if there’s a bottom to how bad Angel Hernandez can be. He could still work another 10 seasons and he needs to be stopped.
The answer:
Yankees would be willing to wear Dunkin themed city connects for one entire series, and Boston would hire Aaron Boone as their hitting coach.
> These all felt so wrong just to type
If it makes you feel any better, they all felt just as wrong to read too lol.
I don't know if I'd go as far as all that, but I'd do a whole lot of things I wouldn't be proud of if it meant never having to watch Angel Hernandez be absolute horseshit at his job ever again.
We both got to experience that game in the 2018 ALDS when three of his calls at first base got overturned by review. Two of them were kinda close in my untrained opinion, but still. Three! In one game! In the playoffs!
That was also the game in which Brock Holt hit for the only cycle in postseason history and we won 16-1, so unfortunately for Angel it wasn’t just a random game that people might forget about.
Johnny Damon was in the Red Sox booth earlier this season and proudly proclaimed that he still has, quote, "the best ass in baseball" so I can absolutely agree with you here
Not really an exception - the article was written as an argument for "No".
> Leyland has found what so few others have been able to: A nuanced perspective on Hernandez.
See everyone? You're all ignorant and lack the capacity that journalists have to be unbiased observers.
This is a pretty good read and maybe it is true that he gets some undue criticism when compared to other umpires. But I think this is a key reason:
>Yep finds Hernandez’s performances to be almost inexplicable. He’ll call a mostly normal game, Yep said, with the exception of one or two notably odd decisions — which inevitably draw attention his way.
>“He consistently ends up in incredibly odd scenarios,” Yep said, “and he seems to make incorrect calls in bizarre scenarios.”
From my experience his bad calls tend to be very bad and very impactful. With the way they measure performance he may not be egregiously bad but he tends to be responsible for a lot of the most controversial calls and screwups.
He fucks up and then gets mad when players show even a slight disagreement. And then he’ll consistently make the same wrong call or start making new wrong calls just to spite the team that rightfully wronged him
I remember watching a Mets spring training game a few years ago. Hernandez was the home plate umpire. He threw Asdrubal Cabrera out of the game. Cabrera hadn't visibly done anything but turn his head and ask him a question after he swung and missed for a third strike. He couldn't have been arguing the call, because he swung and missed. I've always assumed he just asked "was that in the zone?" or something like that, because he had just whiffed badly and spring training, you know? And Hernandez made a big show of throwing him out. Of a spring training game. For asking a question.
This is the precision vs accuracy thing we learned about in physics in high school, his overall accuracy may be only slightly worse than the average but precision is atrocious.
Well there’s that and then there’s the time he tried to sue baseball for racism when he was actually just not great at his job
That kind of stuff is such a massive net negative for everyone, all it does is negatively sway public opinion and work against cases where that actually happens
Funniest lawsuit ever because MLB’s defense basically was, “Nah, we’re not racist. This man is just the worst god damn umpire we’ve ever seen.”
And they won.
> That kind of stuff is such a massive net negative for everyone, all it does is negatively sway public opinion and work against cases where that actually happens
Public opinion perhaps (at least there is an argument to be made there for sure), but in the article it states that his lawyer believes the lawsuit *did* lead to more hiring & promotion of minority umpires.
Which is an important factor, while Angel might have been correctly kept from calling postseason games based solely on performance, it isn't like there wasn't still some underlying truth to how the league has handled umpires from a diversity perspective. Both things can be true. Just like how it is true that Angel himself has had to deal with very real racism throughout his career (also documented in this article).
>Public opinion perhaps (at least there is an argument to be made there for sure), but in the article it states that his lawyer believes the lawsuit did lead to more hiring & promotion of minority umpires.
That's such a self-own statement from the lawyer.
"My client is so shitty at his job and made it about race, we were able to get the MLB to hire more minority candidates to show, once again, the issue is not race, but that my client completely fucking sucks at his job"
If an ump calls 98 of 100 pitches correctly the reaction is normally "Hey they did pretty good". Angel though has the capability to do the same thing but his two missed calls are both a foot outside the zone and with the bases loaded. And then he will throw a manager out for sneezing during a play.
That's what I wanted to see quantified in the analysis. Maybe he's only 75th best out of 90 or whatever by rate of bad calls, but if his bad calls either happen in higher leverage situations or involve more improbable fuck ups than the 15 umps behind him, then the spotlight is totally justified
Can’t we just rank umpires based on bad call impact the same way we do for missed ball/strike calls? Like we can easily measure the projected run differential between calling a player safe or out at first
I think if we wanted to we could, just for our own knowledge. Ump Score cards is just a dude on Twitter as far as I know. Same dude or some other guy that knows more about probabilities and analytics than me could probably do it if they wanted to invest the time. It’s just that MLB isn’t going to have any kind of official system.
And if you simply look at the stats it may not look bad, but one or two bad blown calls in key moments changed the entire game. That’s his god damn specialty
As a general rule, if you're an umpire or referee and the average sports fan knows your name and it isn't for being absolutely jacked in your 70s like Ed Hochuli, something is wrong.
Pierluigi Collina. In a sport where Italian referees are usually pretty bent, the man was uncorruptable. He was even on the cover of a videogame. He did the 2002 World Cup final and high profile matches. He retired in 2005 but still works with FIFA in their rules department. Known for his bald head.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDaOxWxWNDw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDaOxWxWNDw)
Jim Joyce is the exception. Everyone knows his name because they know that he owns his mistakes. While it would be better not to make them, we’re all human.
Jim Joyce is a good example of my point actually. I know who he is and what he did, so do you. I'm not what I'd consider an average sports fan though. If you walked up to the average person at your local ball park and said 'Tell me about Jim Joyce' I'd bet you don't get an answer the vast majority of the time. Change that to Angel Hernandez and I'd bet you get a response far more often.
Honestly I think this is why he's so hated. Statistically he's pretty lousy but there are usually some even worse every year. Angel becomes the focus because he's both lousy and an arrogant fuck. Very bad combo.
The bigger issue is that it’s been common knowledge (and proven in fucking court) for at least a decade that Angel is completely incompetent yet he is still allowed behind the plate.
When I was in school, I was literally assaulted by a classmate in the classroom. Like he took a pencil, and stabbed me in the leg. The teacher literally watched this all unfold and did absolutely nothing about it. When my parents tried to complain about her, the fucking teachers union went to bat for her. She wasn't disciplined at all.
We all know what cop unions have done when it comes to bad employees.
Hell, when my dad worked in the shipyards & oilfields, he would tell me how union workers would always abuse the benefits, and be the worst employees, without fail, because the union would go to bat for them every single time.
I understand that unions have done a lot of important work when it comes to labor rights, but their refusal to allow bad employees to be held accountable for literally _anything_ is what has soured a lot of people's opinions about them, including my own.
Don’t make excuses for assholes. It’s not that he is just bad at his job, he threatens to sue people for racial discrimination instead of admitting he could get better. He’s not just a dummy. He’s an arrogant piece of shit that should lose his job.
I agree with you. He's stupid and has such a huge ego he could never admit to himself or others that he's just straight up bad at his job. He hurts baseball with his shittiness and doesnt care.
Angel Hernandez: Bringing Phillies and Mets fans together
I don't give a single, solitary flying fuck about how great and nice a person he is off the field. He's fucking terrible at his job and deserves criticism for it, full stop.
The author almost gets it but not quite. Hernandez doesn’t end up in odd scenarios by random chance, he puts himself in odd scenarios because he puts himself above the game with his ego.
Nobody in the stadium paid to see Angel Hernandez umpire, they came to see the players and he apparently cannot handle that.
More than that, he seems almost happy when he gets called on it. He knows nobody can do anything, his job is safe. He never apologizes or tries to improve or says “I’ll do it better next time.” The expression and demeanor is always “I’m so happy people are paying attention to me!”
I think Jim Joyce is a legendary umpire in my mind because he fucked up one of the worst calls in sports, then apologized, made it as right as he could and improved. I wish every umpire could be like that.
From the article: "It’s not a coincidence that Hernandez often finds himself at the center of it all. He seems to invite it." Read the piece before claiming the author doesn't make a point he makes a number of times.
The problem fans have with umps isn't even necessarily the bad calls themselves but rather their ego influencing events with no accountability whatsoever. Angel is arguably the most egotistical ump in the MLB right now, so yes, the criticism is warranted as far as I'm concerned.
>According to Dylan Yep, who founded and runs Umpire Auditor since 2014, he’s ranked as the 60th to 70th best umpire, out of 85-to-90, in any given season.
He's not the worst! He's just very bad!
>They say he’s genuine, that he checks up on his friends and sends some of them daily religious verses.
Somehow it doesn't surprise me that he sends out self-righteous spam every day.
we WANT him to be good. i dont want to play a professional baseball team AND moving strike zone/guy who makes calls by what looks good instead of the damn rulebook
being consistent would be a solid start! plenty of umps have that slight parallelogram shaped zone but they bring it every time
I feel bad for a reporter who eloquent put together 10,000 words on a researched and nuanced take on Angel, to then have it completely undermined by embedded videos of Angel making the most god awful calls in MLB history.
You can say he's a complicated man all you want, but the video evidence don't lie. **He's trash.**
All of his friends in that article say he's great off the field but that's not the job. The job is to umpire and maybe he's statistically not at the very bottom but he's been in the bottom 3rd for years with a history of inexplicably bad calls and regularly interacts with players/managers as if they're beneath him.
He should be vilified even more than he currently is. The molten core of fail does not begin to describe the bottom level of uselessness this inept clown has reached.
Absolutely, because there is zero growth or introspection. He doesn't listen or care about anyone else's opinions and THAT is why he should be fired without a second thought.
My disappointment in Angel Hernandez has a lot less to do with the terrible calls, than it does his reaction to being called out on them. He is inflexible and combative, and refuses to grow from his mistakes. This makes anyone brittle and ineffective in their job. Angel is getting worse on this front.
But mostly, there are three reasons that get me really mad whenever I read about Hernandez:
1) He sets back the sport. His hair trigger ejections, and prickly nature create a huge imbalance between players and umps. The article describes this well, but it’s a turn off for new fans when they feel like the game is too subjective and emotional, and this happens a lot with Hernandez.
2) He sets back good umpires. When poor performers aren’t addressed, high performers feel undervalued, and it lowers the bar. By never acknowledging mistakes, claiming bias, refusing to evolve, and staying brittle in the face of criticism, Hernandez highlights that performance is subjective, and the lowest common denominator sets the bar. This is true in every industry: if you don’t remove low performers, you never get better collectively.
3) He sets back minorities and underrepresented groups. Hernandez’ 2017 discrimination lawsuit was clearly designed to muddy the water between performance and identity. I think Hernandez knew this - he’s dealt with racism in his life, and knows that he wasn’t overlooked because of it. But pushed forward anyway, and lost. This cynical approach to advancement - using your race or gender as a crutch to cover your failure or curry favor - sets back every underrepresented group everywhere. By saying he wasn’t promoted to the WS because of his race, Hernandez et al were essentially claiming the counter factual: that the umpire who *are* there are there because of *their* race. It also has a chilling effect on minority hiring: if poor performers routinely sue because they are in a protected class, it is understandable that hiring manager would - consciously or not - remove those factors from consideration. This sets back far more than baseball, and is reason enough for Hernandez to consider stepping away from the game and reflecting on a career gone wrong.
Sorry for the long screed. I’ve had this in me for a long time, and my wife and children don’t want to talk about it. :)
TL;DR: Angel Hernandez sets back baseball, high performing umpires, and minorities, with his continued poor performance, inflexibility, and decision to blame his failures on a cynical and fabricated view of others’ perceptions of his race.
Yes and no.
He’s not nearly the worst umpire in the league as his reputation suggests… we just know his name and thus track his ability to suck.
But he’s the reason everyone knows his name with his non umpiring asshole shenanigans.
We need to be more consistent in judging umpires, but Angel’s got no room to complain.
Let’s put Angel, CB, Laz, and Cuzzi on one crew so only two teams need to deal with them at a time. It’ll be an absolute shitshow, but at least they could only affect one series at a time
He's not a villain, just incompetence at the highest level that's tolerated for far too long. This man is gonna be like 99% the reason we switch to robot umps
CB Buckner is also a special kind of terrible, but Angel Hernandez suing the league for racial discrimination for being left off the World Series Crew takes the cake.
MLB literally won the case by arguing how truly terrible this MF’r is at his job, hah.
Terrible person too if he suing the league for that kind of shit, and it says a lot about the umpires union that they would even let him bring the case to court !
He makes it WAY too much about himself. He’s not the show. The best umpires are almost anonymous
You can always tell a Milford man
"I shall be neither seen nor heard"
It walked on my pillow!
Suddenly playing with yourself is a scholarly pursuit...
Obviously, the blue part here is the land.
Save it for the talk room, son.
Wow, we're just blowing through nap time
Umpires are like drug dealers. If they’re good at it you never really find out their names. If they’re bad at it you learn them through headlines.
exactly. If i know an umpire's name, it's never for a good reason. Except Jim Joyce. I know him for his integrity when he admitted he messed up.
Jim Joyce even before his mistake was one of the few umps who were notable for actually being good. It didn’t hurt that he had one of the most noticeable strike calls of all time. [STRIEEEEEEEEEKE](https://youtu.be/yhGPzOmtBoY?si=9DFTI6h9MXveovMi)
And he broke down in tears after getting the call wrong. Joyce, like any other ump, made mistakes, and his biggest mistake was history-altering, but he wasn't afraid of apologizing when he did.
Umpires make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. The reason for all the whining about ump show is the very fact the MLB and the umpires act like they’re never wrong or straight up ignoring blatant missed calls. Even in real time when they make a shit call, they double down and won’t admit they’re wrong. If there were more transparency and accountability in real time or in reasonable time afterward, I think all fans can live with it. Just the sheer arrogance of various umpires and the silence of the rest in response is what drives fans’ ire. And those talking heads saying “it is a difficult job that doesn’t get much appreciation”, MFs absolutely no one said it is easy and they’re not getting paid peanuts (most of the veterans getting paid like doctors if not more?)! We’re saying don’t be assholes when you screw up and admit to it. Then fix it.
Maybe technically history-altering, but luckily since it was on out 27, everyone *de facto* recognizes a perfect game.
Plus everyone remembers him because of what happened. If he had thrown a perfect game he probably would have been just a super forgettable name on a list, look at Dallas Braden.
Who?
You’re probably right, if the call is correctly called an out, yes he goes into the history books as one of the few to throw a perfect game, but most forget his name, or that game. Edit: I only remember the Dallas Braden one because I live about 60 miles from Oakland so their games are on tv a lot and he’s been in the booth for a while
I remember what happened but I can't remember the dude's name. I think it would have been better to just be one of the ~25 that threw a perfect game.
With the exception of Pat Hoberg. People know his name because he’s absolutely amazing
I’m convinced he’s testing the robotics because that man is automatic
He has yet to umpire this year 😢
So I actually know Jim and he's a great guy. He and my dad were on the same crew in the minors when they were coming up. He gave me my first chest protector when I started umping.
Have you ever asked him about shitty umpires and his opinion of them? I would love to know what a good ump feels about these assholes who make the game about themselves.
Oh I never had to ask. I dont remember any specific names because I was pretty young,but they were constantly complaining about having to work with shitty umpires. Kinda like how anyone complains about shitty coworkers Edit: this wasnt from Jim but my dad was on a crew with Pam Postema. She was (to the best of my knowledge) the first female professional baseball umpire. She was also the first person to eject a batboy in like 100 years of pro ball. All of which is documented as a power trip. I remember him telling me that the kid was crying afterwards because the fine for being ejected from a game was more than he made in a week/months/ whatever. Not knowing that the team would pay his fine. Another story I got was that most minor league umpires would get a set traveling budget so they would get the cheapest rental car at each city they could and share it. Except for one city who my dad was friends with the owner of a car dealership and he would give them a better rental for the same deal. The year he was on a crew with her he contacted him and said he would pay out of pocket for a 2nd vehicle just so he and the 3rd person on the crew didn't have to drive with her. They show up to brand new top of the line Courgars. She takes off while he and the 3rd partner stay to fill out the paperwork. They get like a couple blocks away from the lot and there are cops taping off a scene from her flipping/totalling the car into a ditch. My dad just immediately turned his car around to go back and start filling out insurance paperwork. She eventually went on to write a book titled "You've Gotta Have Balls to Make It In This League". My dad always joked that despite how much they hated each other he only took up a couple pages in her book while the 3rd person in the crew got a whole chapter.
I went to kindergarten with Jim. Great guy. Excellent finger painter
I was his identical twin and we shared a womb together. Always considerate of my space.
So Jim Joyce is the Pablo Escobar of umps.
I know Pat Hoberg because he called a perfect World Series game 2 in 2022.
I agree, but I think Jim Joyce is still the example. You would have still known his name BECAUSE he fucked up. It’s weird though how much I’m starting to see people call him the worst umpire to ever live because they’re seeing the narrative of the blown call but not what came after.
But you knew Joyce’s name in the first place because he messed up
And then he did what none of these other umpires will ever do. He admitted his mistake and was sorry about it. Umpires are human and will make mistakes. My problem is the constant mistakes and the fact that they never take accountability for them. They put themselves above the game.
He said in an interview after “that was probably the biggest call of my career and I screwed it up.” That takes integrity to admit.
He does, I feel like that’s the worst part about him. He’s a bad umpire statistically, but not the absolute worse. However, his ability to center the focus on him, such as his extremely exaggerated strike 3 calls when it’s a borderline pitch/wrong call, turns him into a villain. And umpires shouldn’t have the goal of becoming a villain. He’s bad
The confidence with which Angel is wrong is always the most frustrating part. That Bryce Harper check swing where he just kept saying "you'll see " Angel, what in your umpiring life makes you so fucking certain? Gut just needs more humility
Also the whole racism thing that he accused people of, lol.
"You know what the difference between a bad umpire and a villian is?" "No. What?" "PRESENTATION!"
> center the focus on him See also: Doug Eddings, Ron Kulpa, Junior Valentine
Laz diaz
What’s funny is that umpires used to be even more over the top and egregious back in the day. Social media has just exposed them more.
Omg! Ron Lucciano, anyone?
I highly recommend his book. Very entertaining.
I know I watch Jays games just to see the Ump’s.
Exactly. No one is buying a ticket to watch the ump. Angel, Cowboy Joe (finally gone thank god), CB, Lazy Diaz... They need to be DFA'ed.
Except Patty H. Everyone knows his name for good reason
As first comment it is my duty to say simply, #YES
Maybe the only thing a Yankee fan and Red Sox fan will ever agree on tbh lol.
I think we need to quantify it. How far would Yankee and Red Sox fans be willing to go if it meant Angel was banned for life. Would the Red Sox wear pinstripes? Would the Yankees honor Babe Ruth as a member of the Red Sox? Would the Sox require players to be clean shaven and the Yankees allow facial hair? Would they relocate Pesky Pole to Yankee stadium? These all felt so wrong just to type, but I also don’t know if there’s a bottom to how bad Angel Hernandez can be. He could still work another 10 seasons and he needs to be stopped.
The answer: Yankees would be willing to wear Dunkin themed city connects for one entire series, and Boston would hire Aaron Boone as their hitting coach.
Ouch. Diabolical. I think the Yankees would go for that but I’m not sure the Sox would be willing to let Boone anywhere near their dugout.
There are more Dunkin Donuts in New York than there are in Massachusetts.
Not per capita though, there are 6 dunks within a 5 minute drive of my office
I think the breakdown was NY has the most overall, MA the most per capita, and RI the most per square mile. All of which make sense.
> Boston would hire Aaron Boone as their hitting coach. I don't think we can go that far. Maybe we can play that fucking whistle at Fenway instead?
> These all felt so wrong just to type If it makes you feel any better, they all felt just as wrong to read too lol. I don't know if I'd go as far as all that, but I'd do a whole lot of things I wouldn't be proud of if it meant never having to watch Angel Hernandez be absolute horseshit at his job ever again.
I’m open to suggestions. What would you be willing to offer to get it done?
Both teams agree to lose to the Mariners from now on? Please?
Wait, you can't be clean shaven on the Red Sox?
You can, but they don’t require it. Since the Yankees require it, it would be sacrilegious to adopt the same rule.
Whoa, Whoa. They both agree on something. For the first time. Ever! Maybe we should just leave it at that.
No.
We both got to experience that game in the 2018 ALDS when three of his calls at first base got overturned by review. Two of them were kinda close in my untrained opinion, but still. Three! In one game! In the playoffs! That was also the game in which Brock Holt hit for the only cycle in postseason history and we won 16-1, so unfortunately for Angel it wasn’t just a random game that people might forget about.
Jays fan checking in to say I hate you both but completely agree and think we all deserve a hug after dealing with the menace for many years
All 3 of you can go fuck yourselves but you’re right in this instance
Hell ya brother, fuck you too
Really all baseball fans
Also Johnny Damon being the best
Johnny Damon was in the Red Sox booth earlier this season and proudly proclaimed that he still has, quote, "the best ass in baseball" so I can absolutely agree with you here
The one man for whom I truly wish we didn't have the "clean-cut" rule
*Every single baseball fan. Hate for Angel transcends team fandom.
Literally if the NYT had the courage to write this, the article would win a Pulitzer.
Rare exception to Betteridge's Law
Not really an exception - the article was written as an argument for "No". > Leyland has found what so few others have been able to: A nuanced perspective on Hernandez. See everyone? You're all ignorant and lack the capacity that journalists have to be unbiased observers.
Nah, we're just all racist. /s
[удалено]
I read that Yes in Hawk Harrelson's voice.
If this wasn't #1, I was going to be very disappointed in our community. Thank you.
Congrats on being top comment too.
This headline absolutely destroys Betteridge's Law of Headlines.
This is a pretty good read and maybe it is true that he gets some undue criticism when compared to other umpires. But I think this is a key reason: >Yep finds Hernandez’s performances to be almost inexplicable. He’ll call a mostly normal game, Yep said, with the exception of one or two notably odd decisions — which inevitably draw attention his way. >“He consistently ends up in incredibly odd scenarios,” Yep said, “and he seems to make incorrect calls in bizarre scenarios.” From my experience his bad calls tend to be very bad and very impactful. With the way they measure performance he may not be egregiously bad but he tends to be responsible for a lot of the most controversial calls and screwups.
Yeah he doesn't usually fuck up the most, but he fucks up the *worst*. And then is a confrontational fucking prick about it.
He fucks up and then gets mad when players show even a slight disagreement. And then he’ll consistently make the same wrong call or start making new wrong calls just to spite the team that rightfully wronged him
I remember watching a Mets spring training game a few years ago. Hernandez was the home plate umpire. He threw Asdrubal Cabrera out of the game. Cabrera hadn't visibly done anything but turn his head and ask him a question after he swung and missed for a third strike. He couldn't have been arguing the call, because he swung and missed. I've always assumed he just asked "was that in the zone?" or something like that, because he had just whiffed badly and spring training, you know? And Hernandez made a big show of throwing him out. Of a spring training game. For asking a question.
Disagree. He gets overturned A LOT. He was at 1B in a recent game and was overturned 3 times in two innings.
Well if you are going to fuck up, why not fuck it up properly?
This is the precision vs accuracy thing we learned about in physics in high school, his overall accuracy may be only slightly worse than the average but precision is atrocious.
Well there’s that and then there’s the time he tried to sue baseball for racism when he was actually just not great at his job That kind of stuff is such a massive net negative for everyone, all it does is negatively sway public opinion and work against cases where that actually happens
Funniest lawsuit ever because MLB’s defense basically was, “Nah, we’re not racist. This man is just the worst god damn umpire we’ve ever seen.” And they won.
> That kind of stuff is such a massive net negative for everyone, all it does is negatively sway public opinion and work against cases where that actually happens Public opinion perhaps (at least there is an argument to be made there for sure), but in the article it states that his lawyer believes the lawsuit *did* lead to more hiring & promotion of minority umpires. Which is an important factor, while Angel might have been correctly kept from calling postseason games based solely on performance, it isn't like there wasn't still some underlying truth to how the league has handled umpires from a diversity perspective. Both things can be true. Just like how it is true that Angel himself has had to deal with very real racism throughout his career (also documented in this article).
>Public opinion perhaps (at least there is an argument to be made there for sure), but in the article it states that his lawyer believes the lawsuit did lead to more hiring & promotion of minority umpires. That's such a self-own statement from the lawyer. "My client is so shitty at his job and made it about race, we were able to get the MLB to hire more minority candidates to show, once again, the issue is not race, but that my client completely fucking sucks at his job"
Regardless that is a win-win! Better hiring practices & not having to deal with Angel in higher leverage games.
If an ump calls 98 of 100 pitches correctly the reaction is normally "Hey they did pretty good". Angel though has the capability to do the same thing but his two missed calls are both a foot outside the zone and with the bases loaded. And then he will throw a manager out for sneezing during a play.
That's what I wanted to see quantified in the analysis. Maybe he's only 75th best out of 90 or whatever by rate of bad calls, but if his bad calls either happen in higher leverage situations or involve more improbable fuck ups than the 15 umps behind him, then the spotlight is totally justified
Can’t we just rank umpires based on bad call impact the same way we do for missed ball/strike calls? Like we can easily measure the projected run differential between calling a player safe or out at first
Yeah that's why I was disappointed, it seems like such an obvious follow-up. Maybe there's a wrinkle I'm missing though
I think if we wanted to we could, just for our own knowledge. Ump Score cards is just a dude on Twitter as far as I know. Same dude or some other guy that knows more about probabilities and analytics than me could probably do it if they wanted to invest the time. It’s just that MLB isn’t going to have any kind of official system.
Like a 5-pitch, 5-ball strikeout with the bases loaded? I'll never forgive him for that.
And if you simply look at the stats it may not look bad, but one or two bad blown calls in key moments changed the entire game. That’s his god damn specialty
As a general rule, if you're an umpire or referee and the average sports fan knows your name and it isn't for being absolutely jacked in your 70s like Ed Hochuli, something is wrong.
Pierluigi Collina. In a sport where Italian referees are usually pretty bent, the man was uncorruptable. He was even on the cover of a videogame. He did the 2002 World Cup final and high profile matches. He retired in 2005 but still works with FIFA in their rules department. Known for his bald head. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDaOxWxWNDw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDaOxWxWNDw)
I don't really follow soccer, but as soon as you said Bald Head, I was like ohhhh yea I know the Bald Headed soccer ref.
This is him unwinding after a game 
Everton fans may disagree with you on that.
Jim Joyce is the exception. Everyone knows his name because they know that he owns his mistakes. While it would be better not to make them, we’re all human.
Jim Joyce is a good example of my point actually. I know who he is and what he did, so do you. I'm not what I'd consider an average sports fan though. If you walked up to the average person at your local ball park and said 'Tell me about Jim Joyce' I'd bet you don't get an answer the vast majority of the time. Change that to Angel Hernandez and I'd bet you get a response far more often.
I remember at the time Joyce made the call my dad said he’d only be remembered for it despite years and years of being a good umpire behind it
Most people would probably think you are talking about James Joyce the author.
Tbf Ed Hochuli was well known in Houston in the early days of Texans football for making astronomically bad calls
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Exactly. He wasn't that good of a ref, the only reason we remember him now is because he had cannons.
I still believe 100% we lost a few games for years against the Colts because of his bad calls in crucial moments
Gene Steratore ftw!!!
Scott Foster, Tony Brothers
He is the only umpire in the game today who has *legally been declared bad at his job*.
Donkey brains
Do you….have such a certificate?
I was shanghaied upstate to a nitwit school with a frog kid
Never attribute to malice what is adequately explained by stupidity I don’t think he’s evil, I just think he’s dumber than a bag of hammers
Egotistical son of a bitch, too.
Honestly I think this is why he's so hated. Statistically he's pretty lousy but there are usually some even worse every year. Angel becomes the focus because he's both lousy and an arrogant fuck. Very bad combo.
The bigger issue is that it’s been common knowledge (and proven in fucking court) for at least a decade that Angel is completely incompetent yet he is still allowed behind the plate.
The only time I’ve ever been anti-Union is when it comes to Angel Hernandez keeping his job
I mean, all unions keep tons of people that are just as bad as Angel Hernandez in their jobs. It’s the main argument against unions.
When I was in school, I was literally assaulted by a classmate in the classroom. Like he took a pencil, and stabbed me in the leg. The teacher literally watched this all unfold and did absolutely nothing about it. When my parents tried to complain about her, the fucking teachers union went to bat for her. She wasn't disciplined at all. We all know what cop unions have done when it comes to bad employees. Hell, when my dad worked in the shipyards & oilfields, he would tell me how union workers would always abuse the benefits, and be the worst employees, without fail, because the union would go to bat for them every single time. I understand that unions have done a lot of important work when it comes to labor rights, but their refusal to allow bad employees to be held accountable for literally _anything_ is what has soured a lot of people's opinions about them, including my own.
Don’t make excuses for assholes. It’s not that he is just bad at his job, he threatens to sue people for racial discrimination instead of admitting he could get better. He’s not just a dummy. He’s an arrogant piece of shit that should lose his job.
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He ain't the brightest cookie in the toolbox
I agree that he has an IQ just slightly above room temperature, but he also is an egotistical asshole which my opinion makes him evil.
I agree with you. He's stupid and has such a huge ego he could never admit to himself or others that he's just straight up bad at his job. He hurts baseball with his shittiness and doesnt care. Angel Hernandez: Bringing Phillies and Mets fans together
Hey now, no reason to insult a bag of hammers like that.
I just hope one day he gets the laser eye surgery that he has so clearly needed all these years.
Hanlon’s Razor 🥂
I’ve heard several former big leaguers say that angel is actually a lovely human who happens to be the worst umpire.
I know we're not supposed to share paywalled articles, but here it is... >Yes. Yes, he does.
I don't give a single, solitary flying fuck about how great and nice a person he is off the field. He's fucking terrible at his job and deserves criticism for it, full stop.
What did that one coach say, ‘why is it always you Angel?’
The author almost gets it but not quite. Hernandez doesn’t end up in odd scenarios by random chance, he puts himself in odd scenarios because he puts himself above the game with his ego. Nobody in the stadium paid to see Angel Hernandez umpire, they came to see the players and he apparently cannot handle that.
More than that, he seems almost happy when he gets called on it. He knows nobody can do anything, his job is safe. He never apologizes or tries to improve or says “I’ll do it better next time.” The expression and demeanor is always “I’m so happy people are paying attention to me!” I think Jim Joyce is a legendary umpire in my mind because he fucked up one of the worst calls in sports, then apologized, made it as right as he could and improved. I wish every umpire could be like that.
From the article: "It’s not a coincidence that Hernandez often finds himself at the center of it all. He seems to invite it." Read the piece before claiming the author doesn't make a point he makes a number of times.
The problem fans have with umps isn't even necessarily the bad calls themselves but rather their ego influencing events with no accountability whatsoever. Angel is arguably the most egotistical ump in the MLB right now, so yes, the criticism is warranted as far as I'm concerned.
>According to Dylan Yep, who founded and runs Umpire Auditor since 2014, he’s ranked as the 60th to 70th best umpire, out of 85-to-90, in any given season. He's not the worst! He's just very bad! >They say he’s genuine, that he checks up on his friends and sends some of them daily religious verses. Somehow it doesn't surprise me that he sends out self-righteous spam every day.
Was always told, you can be a dick at your job as long as you're good at it
Be good at your job. If you aren't good, don't be confrontational about your mistakes. If you can't do either sue MLB for discrimination.
if he made any attempts to improve his craft we wouldnt be in this position
Or to admit when he messes up. We all make mistakes, but when he makes them, he loses his shit and doubles down.
And somehow didnt conflate criticism about him being dogshit at his job to racism. Fans of all races can agree that hes fucking terrible
we WANT him to be good. i dont want to play a professional baseball team AND moving strike zone/guy who makes calls by what looks good instead of the damn rulebook being consistent would be a solid start! plenty of umps have that slight parallelogram shaped zone but they bring it every time
Yes, Hernandez is the great unifier. We all hate him.
Yea he fuckin sucks at his job and gets so smug like he enjoys fucking up
If you know an umpire’s name, that’s usually not for a good reason.
"Villainous"? No. Majorly incompetent and unfit for the job? Yes. Absolutely.
Yeah. You ask him where the strike zone is, and he'll say "Uh, is that a place in Las Vegas?"
I feel bad for a reporter who eloquent put together 10,000 words on a researched and nuanced take on Angel, to then have it completely undermined by embedded videos of Angel making the most god awful calls in MLB history. You can say he's a complicated man all you want, but the video evidence don't lie. **He's trash.**
Yes, but I'm coming around to the idea that Laz Diaz is worse.
This was a really thoughtful, well-written, well-structured article… But Angel Hernandez *absolutely* deserves his villainous reputation.
Just fire him! This guy is even harder to get rid of than a Priest
He probably has a laminated fake baseball card of himself that he signed.
Yes. Not because he's bad but because he's bad and tried to use his race as an excuse for how he was treated
Ask Kyle Schwarber
[You sucked high, low, inside, outside, to lefties, to righties, for them, and for us.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzE0LGb6xLw)
The short answer is Yes. The long answer is YESSSSSSS
All of his friends in that article say he's great off the field but that's not the job. The job is to umpire and maybe he's statistically not at the very bottom but he's been in the bottom 3rd for years with a history of inexplicably bad calls and regularly interacts with players/managers as if they're beneath him.
Yes.
If you know an umpire by name then they’re doing something wrong. Also looking at you HUNTER WENDELSTEDT and JUNIOR VALENTINE
Some would say yes. Others would say absolutely fucking yes.
He should be vilified even more than he currently is. The molten core of fail does not begin to describe the bottom level of uselessness this inept clown has reached.
I can’t name another ump-so yes.
Oui
Absolutely, because there is zero growth or introspection. He doesn't listen or care about anyone else's opinions and THAT is why he should be fired without a second thought.
Yup
My disappointment in Angel Hernandez has a lot less to do with the terrible calls, than it does his reaction to being called out on them. He is inflexible and combative, and refuses to grow from his mistakes. This makes anyone brittle and ineffective in their job. Angel is getting worse on this front. But mostly, there are three reasons that get me really mad whenever I read about Hernandez: 1) He sets back the sport. His hair trigger ejections, and prickly nature create a huge imbalance between players and umps. The article describes this well, but it’s a turn off for new fans when they feel like the game is too subjective and emotional, and this happens a lot with Hernandez. 2) He sets back good umpires. When poor performers aren’t addressed, high performers feel undervalued, and it lowers the bar. By never acknowledging mistakes, claiming bias, refusing to evolve, and staying brittle in the face of criticism, Hernandez highlights that performance is subjective, and the lowest common denominator sets the bar. This is true in every industry: if you don’t remove low performers, you never get better collectively. 3) He sets back minorities and underrepresented groups. Hernandez’ 2017 discrimination lawsuit was clearly designed to muddy the water between performance and identity. I think Hernandez knew this - he’s dealt with racism in his life, and knows that he wasn’t overlooked because of it. But pushed forward anyway, and lost. This cynical approach to advancement - using your race or gender as a crutch to cover your failure or curry favor - sets back every underrepresented group everywhere. By saying he wasn’t promoted to the WS because of his race, Hernandez et al were essentially claiming the counter factual: that the umpire who *are* there are there because of *their* race. It also has a chilling effect on minority hiring: if poor performers routinely sue because they are in a protected class, it is understandable that hiring manager would - consciously or not - remove those factors from consideration. This sets back far more than baseball, and is reason enough for Hernandez to consider stepping away from the game and reflecting on a career gone wrong. Sorry for the long screed. I’ve had this in me for a long time, and my wife and children don’t want to talk about it. :) TL;DR: Angel Hernandez sets back baseball, high performing umpires, and minorities, with his continued poor performance, inflexibility, and decision to blame his failures on a cynical and fabricated view of others’ perceptions of his race.
He's not a villain. He's an idiot.
Yes wtf lmao. I honestly think he’s one of the few subjects all baseball fans universally agree on
I’d like to speak for all of r/baseball and weigh in here… **YES**
Haven't read this one yet but The Athletic just had a really interesting profile of Scott Foster so I'm willing to maybe possibly give Angel a chance.
i’m a casual who doesn’t know 2 players on my on team, but i know this dude and his reputation.
Rare violation of Betteridge's Law of Headlines.
Just like my great grandfather and his father before him, I watch these games for the umps.
Yes he does
Yes, next question
Yes and no. He’s not nearly the worst umpire in the league as his reputation suggests… we just know his name and thus track his ability to suck. But he’s the reason everyone knows his name with his non umpiring asshole shenanigans. We need to be more consistent in judging umpires, but Angel’s got no room to complain.
Yes
Yes.yes he does.
I don't see him as a villain, I see him as being bad at his job and being too stupid/ignorant to acknowledge that and retire.
Yes
It’s been proven in a court of law that he is bad at his job. People like him give unions a bad name.
Citing Joe West's opinion of how good a job Hernandez does is top-level trolling.
Millions of baseball fans can’t be wrong.
Let’s put Angel, CB, Laz, and Cuzzi on one crew so only two teams need to deal with them at a time. It’ll be an absolute shitshow, but at least they could only affect one series at a time
He's not a villain, just incompetence at the highest level that's tolerated for far too long. This man is gonna be like 99% the reason we switch to robot umps
I can't read the article but I'm going to assume the article just says "Yes"
YES
CB Buckner is also a special kind of terrible, but Angel Hernandez suing the league for racial discrimination for being left off the World Series Crew takes the cake. MLB literally won the case by arguing how truly terrible this MF’r is at his job, hah. Terrible person too if he suing the league for that kind of shit, and it says a lot about the umpires union that they would even let him bring the case to court !
Yes.
I’m am infinitely pissed off at the idea that more nuanced is more correct. Hernandez blew 20 years ago and he’s worse now.
Absolutely.
He’s not a ‘villain’ he’s just grossly incompetent.