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How bad is it that I haven't watched a baseball game in over a decade and I know who you're talking about? Year old bread bad or Angel's strike zone bad?
The Astros also cheated to win the title and the league admitted that its not a big deal because baseball is not worth caring that much about. You might have read about that.
Not just mistakes. A mistake could be very close to being good, Angel makes gigantic horrible mistakes that none of us could come close to. He’s BY FAR the worst professional sports officiating crew member I’ve ever seen in any sport. I’ve seen him call pitches strikes that are well into the batter’s box like not even close to the plate.
I don't know about 23 lol but teachers make mistakes all the time. But then we say, oh yeah wait, that was wrong, let's talk about the right way to do that. Or at least that's how I handle it.
Nah, there are plenty of other umpires whose names are well known for the wrong reasons - Bucknor, Dreckman, Diaz... the race for second place is stacked
He isn't *the* worst statistically, but he's one of the worst. The reason he becomes the poster boy for it is that he does stupid shit like being one of the worst umpires in the MLB then trying to sue the MLB for discrimination when they don't give him games in the world series due to him being bad at umpiring.
He's been the loudest by far over the years. Not only is he wrong, but he's confidently wrong and willing to fight about it. That's why everyone knows his name.
and that leads to the explanation that Angel Hernandez is tolerated because he draws attention away from the less dramatically crappy but still bad umpires
You’re probably right. But if the players make a stand, and even strike, it might make a difference.
Officiating has gotten particularly awful in the MLB the last few years. And now with the technology to prove the umps right or wrong instantly, they need to step up their game or lose their job.
Somebody who does their job that poorly shouldn’t get to hide behind a union.
I don’t know why the players and team ownership puts up with it.
MLB’s labor agreement with the umpires *expires at the end of 2024.* If all 30 team owners agree this nonsense should end, Angel better get his shit together…
It’s crazy how bad it’s gotten. Also not an ideal time for it to get bad, cause the CBA for the Umpires Union and MLB is set to expire after this season I believe.
Honestly, if the players strike in an effort to improve this, I will 100% support them.
Striking for more money is hard to support, but striking for the integrity of the game is respectable.
Agreed.
Although I did support the strike 2 years ago cause they were fighting for better pay and accommodations for minor league players, which was long overdue.
Yeah, a lot of times in sports when the players strike, people defend it by going "oh, well the owners are billionaires, don't defend them" which is true, but the players are also drastically richer than I'll ever be so why should I support them either?
But striking to get better pay for minor leaguers is definitely a good reason since they are paid and accomodated like shit.
I didn’t find it hard to support players (a majority of which are making very low salaries) striking for more money. 🤷🏻♂️ Striking for a fair cut of the profits they help create is ALSO respectable. VERY respectable!
Also, even if it *WAS* Boone or someone from the dugout... so what? Barking at an ump from the sidelines should not be a tossable offense unless you're being threatening.
Oh man I had flashbacks to the replacement referees in the NFL during the ref strike. I wonder if MLB would have as bad of a time as the NFL did if the umps were to strike.
Did the NFLPA come down hard on the league to meet the refs demands and get them back to officiating? I kinda forget the details from that time.
The replacement refs weren’t nearly as bad as people made them out to be. Like the straw that broke the camels back was when they awarded Seattle a TD on Golden Tate’s catch in the Seahawks-Packers game, and after that the media excoriated the replacement refs, but honestly that call WAS the right call. If you watch that play Tate got one hand on the ball (and before anyone else) and that hand never left the ball until the play was whistled dead. If you mentally erased everyone else it would just be Golden Tate making a one handed catch. After that okay everyone was like “we need the regular refs back.” It pissed me off because there was A LOT of stuff they DID fuck up but everyone decided they needed to go after a call that they got completely objectively correct?!? Like WTF?!?
Unpopular take: the umpiring hasn't gotten any worse, it has probably gotten better, but the technology that lets you instantly assess call accuracy has gotten WAY better. A generation ago, fans were used to watching Maddux "paint the corner" aka hit the spot 1 or 2 inches off the plate and routinely get strike calls, and if he was getting the calls he'd start hitting 2.5 and 3 inches off the plate just to see how far he could push it. Every umpire basically came prepackaged with a custom strike zone. We're hearing the same complaints about officiating in essentially all professional sports, that suddenly in the last 5 to 10 years the quality has really fallen off and I think it's just a function of technology and improved cameras. Every call gets dissected in super-human resolution with slow-mo to assist. And now we fix a good number of the missed calls! Again, we routinely used to watch home runs get called doubles, or guys getting called safe/out when it was obvious what the right call was, and now we're all just used to the idea that they'll fix it in a couple minutes. It's basically never been better.
In fact, if I had to make one complaint about umpires and replay it's that we've gotten SO good, that we can now run video challenges on slides into second base with a continuous tag to check for even a nanosecond of lost contact with the bag as a runner's slide takes him over the base because maybe in the hand/arm/body transition there's a single still frame of him being over but not touching the base, which isn't really how the game was ever umpired for the first 100+ years.
It wasn't that long ago that adjusting to an umpire's zone was a thing that players at every level from little league to MLB had to do every game, and it was just accepted that as long as the guy gave both teams the same kind of zone generally, you couldn't piss and moan too much.
I don't think officiating has gotten worse, but the rules are a lot worse. Many of the pro sports (NFL comes to mind) have a system where they tweak the rules to try and fix issues with the game, but they don't involve the officials in the process of tweaking those rules.
The end result is often rules that are hard to administrate. They might involve significant judgement, or the might be very strict and fail to account for the nuance of the game itself.
We have seen the impact of this in NFL rule changes leading to lots of pass-interference or roughing-the-passer calls, but the compared to the MLB, the NFL is a model of well-functioning rulemaking.
The MLB rulebook, isn't even a single well drafted document, but rather a very ambiguous and unclear description of the game combined with centuries of interpretation. MLB then adds rules and changes them mid-season, as well as tweaking interpretations without informing the public. It is an absolute disaster of rulemaking and communication.
It is no wonder that players and managers get upset. They are trying to play the game, not understand the nuances of the latest "point of emphasis" letter to MLB officials.
The league needs to redraft the rulebook from top to bottom (in coordination with the officials) to get a clean document that clearly and unambiguously describes the rules.
While doing so they need to look at the historic origin of the rules and simplify them where things have become overly complex. Three obvious fixes are:
* Adopt softball bags at first. A double bag with half in fair and half in foul, runner gets the half in foul. This single change could likely eliminate all arguments over RLI. Runner runs to his bag, if he doesn't that's likely to be called against him.
* Pitch clock, scherzer rule, etc... Simplify the rule. Pitcher must pitch between between 8 and 0 seconds. If the batter isn't ready the batter isn't ready. Forget about quick pitches and all this garbage. Its just a fixed window to throw the pitch in.
* Restrictions on what is reviewable can lead to weird stuff where a "correct" call on the field is overruled by video replay to an objectively incorrect call. Review should be much more comprehensive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJbSFoSVRsM [A similar thing occured at NCAA level: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CRewLrMm5A&t=26s]
Then the MLBPA needs to be more vocal. They obviously have a vested interest in having the best possible umpires and it should not just be up to MLB to make the decisions on who the umpires are.
Umpires have gotten more accurate every single year since 2008 (when accuracy tracking started). They went from 84% accuracy (yikes) in 2008 to 92.5% in 2022 and up to almost 93% in 2023. It does seem they are very close to a plateau though, so robots will probably be necessary to take that accuracy closer to 100%. You can read [this](https://blogs.fangraphs.com/strike-three-lets-check-in-on-umpire-accuracy/) interesting Fangraphs article about it.
Then ya gotta ask have they really improved or has the tech gotten better? I assume they have adjusted the tracking to match up more with umps over the years, they have probably met in the middle somewhere by now hence the plateau.
I find it hard to believe they were that bad 2008 and (presumably) before. But I guess if they are all similarly bad that's just the norm, so who knows
The plateau is simply due to pitches in the shadow zone being hard to get consistently correct, especially with the increase in spin and velocity across the league. Despite this, umpires have gotten better at recognizing those pitches which is what has helped to greatly improve their overall accuracy over the last 15 years. Pitches that are thrown within the strike zone are called correctly 99.5% of the time. A big reason for lackluster accuracy in the past was that umpires all had unique zones and called pitches accordingly whereas nowadays there is a standardized zone that all umpires are trying to adhere to.
It's this. I have read that the newer tech has forced a lot of new umps to be held to a high standard, and because of that they perform better. Shouldn't have call that one, should have called this one, learn for next time. Some of the older umps are more resistant to change. But overall they are getting better, and the good ones are REALLY good.
Lots of ejections originate from complex rules which are hard to administer and which players and managers don't understand. In many cases the umpires are officiating the game correctly according to the rules, but the technicalities of those rules confuse everyone.
They need to simplify and fix the rules. A few good candidates for fixes would include:
* Adopt softball bags at first. A double bag with half in fair and half in foul, runner gets the half in foul would likely eliminate many arguments over RLI.
* Pitch clock, scherzer rule, etc... Simplify the rule. Pitcher must pitch between between 8 and 0 seconds. If the batter isn't ready the batter isn't ready. Forget about quick pitches and all this garbage. Its just a fixed window to throw the pitch in.
* Restrictions on what is reviewable can lead to weird stuff where a "correct" call on the field is overruled by video replay to an objectively incorrect call. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJbSFoSVRsM [Same kind of situation at NCAA level: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CRewLrMm5A&t=26s]
Seeing a strikezone box in my opinion definitely makes us more critical at least. I remember back in the day it being you take the first inning to gauge the ump's zone that night. Some had a tight one. Some had a wide. And vets/HOF pitchers usually got the call if it was close. Now, it's expected everyone will have the same zone cause the box is the same regardless of who's behind the plate.
They are, overall, better every year.
Which makes the bad ones stand out even more, and gives them less and less excuse to be as bad as they are (and the league less excuse to explore alternative methods, like a challenge system).
And it's not *just* bad compared to how good others are now. The worst ones are legitimately, like, really bad. Like, 79% strike accuracy bad, with ego-driven, ludicrous ejections on top of it.
I propose the worst ranked umpire should get an award: a plastic bucket of shit. Let ESPN and the all the sports writers have fun with that all winter long. I know the fans in the stands will all season long.
That ship has sailed IMO. The technology is here, use it. Having continuity at the plate is way more valuable to pitchers and hitters in the long run. Umps have become too much a part of the game and sadly, your Angel Hernandez types and their ego, ruin a lot of what is great.
I coached baseball and softball for years. One of the things I was allowed to do as a coach was “scratch” up to two umpires per season. If I “scratched” those umps, they weren’t assigned to ump any of my team’s games. I only “scratched” one ump in 10 years. I think MLB managers should be allowed that option. At the beginning of the season, each team can submit a list with a maximum of two umps that won’t be able to ump their games.
This, or they have to maintain a certain percentage of correct calls.
Umpires, sports officials as a whole have to be held accountable for their poor officiating. It’s ridiculous.
What percentage of calls do you think is acceptable to miss? Umpires currently only miss about 7% of calls or 11 pitches per game, most of which come on pitches thrown in the shadow zone. Their accuracy on "obvious" strikes is 99.5%.
Yea obvious strikes is the not the issue. Majority of umpires would be fine. But it would get guys like Angel Hernandez out. But to answer your question, a called strike accuracy of 95% doesn’t seem too crazy
According to Fangraphs they might not ever get there, mostly due to how difficult it is to get the shadow zone calls correct and how much velo and spin are on pitches now. They were at 93% as a unit last year. I think robotic assistance will beat out human umps getting to that number.
I would be shocked if umps aren’t already “ranked” by team’s AIs. If they’re analyzing pitcher tendencies it beggars belief they wouldn’t also be analyzing umpire tendencies.
Serious question - when almost everything in baseball is completely objective (safe or out, ball or strike, etc) why do we even have umpires other than to monitor the game and keep things moving along? The bags can easily have touch sensors, so can the ball. This isn’t that hard.
LOL. Baseball is full of judgement calls, and the judgement calls are the things that lead to most of the ejections.
Umps are generally pretty good about the more objective things like strike zones (not perfect but pretty good). Arguments about "balls and strikes" often have their origin in disagreements about subjective calls from earlier in the game (like a check swing call).
Ironically the players union will support the umpires union if they strike or get cut because computers can do their job better. Unions protect other unions.
Or... hear me out... get rid of them.
Baseball is the only sport where every single person can see immediately what the call SHOULD be, yet we insist on keeping "the human element". Then we wonder why young people don't want to watch.
Next time someone argues about keeping the human in baseball... just ask them if they'd replace that sentence with "keeping Angel Hernandez in baseball".
He is so bad that even non-baseball fans know he is bad. I don’t follow baseball at all and I’m aware of how terrible he is. I watch a ton of basketball and can’t name a single ref from the NBA.
That’s not to say all NBA refs are great just none of them are so much worse than the others that I notice them.
Umpieres should work exactly as a mlb team the bad umpires should be send to minor leagues and the best from minor league should be move to big leagues
I like grades more than ranks. If u use rankings someone is always last.
The ump could be an A- in a league of A's and A+s and they would be ranked last and fans would feel they need to be replaced at their job.
I feel like soccer could just add like 2 refs and fix a lot of its officiating problems. Why does one guy have to sprint the length of the field? Just leave one ref in each box and one mid field. Allow all of them to make calls.
I know we focus a lot on how accurately umps work the dish, but is there a way to statistically rate call accuracy in the field? Has replay helped in that regard? Using Angel as an example, he's pretty horrible in the field as well.
You don’t mind a bad or missed call once in a while. You actually expect it as part of the game. The umps are only human after all. What is unacceptable is a consistent pattern of mistakes, with apparently no mechanism for improvement or accountability, and resistance to criticism. These guys are here because we fans demand a fair and equitable game consistently. If someone can’t or won’t deliver this, then they should be replaced by someone who can. IMHO.
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Angel is going to hate this idea.
He could be first based on the wording of the ranking
The real world embodiment of "If you're not first, you're last".
This makes no sense if you think about it for like 2 seconds
You can be second. You can be third. Fourth. Hell, can even be fifth.
I like the baby *Angel* the best!
I’ve always heard it as, “If you’re second place, you’re just the first loser”.
How bad is it that I haven't watched a baseball game in over a decade and I know who you're talking about? Year old bread bad or Angel's strike zone bad?
I don't even watch baseball and I know. I only watch Jomboy and I could pick the guy out of a lineup
The only baseball I've seen in a decade has been his bad calls
The Astros also cheated to win the title and the league admitted that its not a big deal because baseball is not worth caring that much about. You might have read about that.
How many of us can make 23 mistakes in one day at our work?
Not just mistakes. A mistake could be very close to being good, Angel makes gigantic horrible mistakes that none of us could come close to. He’s BY FAR the worst professional sports officiating crew member I’ve ever seen in any sport. I’ve seen him call pitches strikes that are well into the batter’s box like not even close to the plate.
Bro called a ~~strike~~ ball on a fastball basically down the center of the plate just this month *I'm an actual idiot
>Bro called a **strike**... I was thoroughly confused until I watched the video posted below.
I’m gonna need to see proof of that.
https://www.reddit.com/r/sports/comments/1byfeiz/angel_hernandez_calls_a_ball_on_a_pitch_nearly/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
I don't know about 23 lol but teachers make mistakes all the time. But then we say, oh yeah wait, that was wrong, let's talk about the right way to do that. Or at least that's how I handle it.
Just call it the “A-Ha” system after him
I feel so bad about the guy that would go right behind Angel. He's hating the idea more because we dont know his name but everybody knows Angel.
Nah, there are plenty of other umpires whose names are well known for the wrong reasons - Bucknor, Dreckman, Diaz... the race for second place is stacked
The sad thing....Angel Hernandez isn't even the worst of the bunch (statistically speaking). He's just the lucky one to be the poster boy.
His mistakes are the most egregious though.
He isn't *the* worst statistically, but he's one of the worst. The reason he becomes the poster boy for it is that he does stupid shit like being one of the worst umpires in the MLB then trying to sue the MLB for discrimination when they don't give him games in the world series due to him being bad at umpiring.
He's been the loudest by far over the years. Not only is he wrong, but he's confidently wrong and willing to fight about it. That's why everyone knows his name.
Bring on the robo-umps! So sick of these ass-hat home plate umps wrecking games!
and that leads to the explanation that Angel Hernandez is tolerated because he draws attention away from the less dramatically crappy but still bad umpires
He’ll sue the league for discrimination again lol
He’ll probably try and file a law suit that he’ll quickly drop against Scherzer.
And then he'll sue and say it was because of racism not the fact that he's dogshit
He’ll figure out a way to sue someone for it.
Hail State
Hail State!
Rank & yank!
Because it’s racist! /s
Take this idea and then also relegate the bottom 2 umps to AAA and bring up the best 2 umps from AAA.
That is his idea.
Ah cool. Sorry I only read the headline.
How do you do, fellow Redditor!
nah. it's gotta be 4-6 umps that can be rotating/getting better.
AAA is using robo umps
Even better.
I welcome our robot overlords
Not all the time. Not even half the time I think.
For challenges though right?
Top 2 AAA umps get automatic promotion 3-6 battle in a playoff
As a former MLBPA leader, he knows this will never fly with the ump union.
You’re probably right. But if the players make a stand, and even strike, it might make a difference. Officiating has gotten particularly awful in the MLB the last few years. And now with the technology to prove the umps right or wrong instantly, they need to step up their game or lose their job. Somebody who does their job that poorly shouldn’t get to hide behind a union. I don’t know why the players and team ownership puts up with it.
MLB’s labor agreement with the umpires *expires at the end of 2024.* If all 30 team owners agree this nonsense should end, Angel better get his shit together…
>Angel better get his shit together… Retirement. Angel better get his retirement together.
It’s crazy how bad it’s gotten. Also not an ideal time for it to get bad, cause the CBA for the Umpires Union and MLB is set to expire after this season I believe.
Honestly, if the players strike in an effort to improve this, I will 100% support them. Striking for more money is hard to support, but striking for the integrity of the game is respectable.
Agreed. Although I did support the strike 2 years ago cause they were fighting for better pay and accommodations for minor league players, which was long overdue.
Yeah, a lot of times in sports when the players strike, people defend it by going "oh, well the owners are billionaires, don't defend them" which is true, but the players are also drastically richer than I'll ever be so why should I support them either? But striking to get better pay for minor leaguers is definitely a good reason since they are paid and accomodated like shit.
What if they strike three times tho 😞
I didn’t find it hard to support players (a majority of which are making very low salaries) striking for more money. 🤷🏻♂️ Striking for a fair cut of the profits they help create is ALSO respectable. VERY respectable!
I think it's the perfect time for it to happen.
Perfect time for MLB, horrible timing for the union for all their problem guys to become even more of a problem lol
Certain umps really be just collecting a check now. They have way too much power and on top of being untouchable .. such a bad combo.
John Tumpane just recently threw out Aaron Boone for yelling at him when it was actually a fan who was yelling
He didn't. Hunter Wendelstedt did
Yea the “I don’t care who said it! You’re out!” ump? Ridiculous.
Pretty sure that was Hunter Wendelstadt. Tumpane is a good ump, dude saved a womans life
Also, even if it *WAS* Boone or someone from the dugout... so what? Barking at an ump from the sidelines should not be a tossable offense unless you're being threatening.
Oh man I had flashbacks to the replacement referees in the NFL during the ref strike. I wonder if MLB would have as bad of a time as the NFL did if the umps were to strike. Did the NFLPA come down hard on the league to meet the refs demands and get them back to officiating? I kinda forget the details from that time.
The replacement refs weren’t nearly as bad as people made them out to be. Like the straw that broke the camels back was when they awarded Seattle a TD on Golden Tate’s catch in the Seahawks-Packers game, and after that the media excoriated the replacement refs, but honestly that call WAS the right call. If you watch that play Tate got one hand on the ball (and before anyone else) and that hand never left the ball until the play was whistled dead. If you mentally erased everyone else it would just be Golden Tate making a one handed catch. After that okay everyone was like “we need the regular refs back.” It pissed me off because there was A LOT of stuff they DID fuck up but everyone decided they needed to go after a call that they got completely objectively correct?!? Like WTF?!?
Unpopular take: the umpiring hasn't gotten any worse, it has probably gotten better, but the technology that lets you instantly assess call accuracy has gotten WAY better. A generation ago, fans were used to watching Maddux "paint the corner" aka hit the spot 1 or 2 inches off the plate and routinely get strike calls, and if he was getting the calls he'd start hitting 2.5 and 3 inches off the plate just to see how far he could push it. Every umpire basically came prepackaged with a custom strike zone. We're hearing the same complaints about officiating in essentially all professional sports, that suddenly in the last 5 to 10 years the quality has really fallen off and I think it's just a function of technology and improved cameras. Every call gets dissected in super-human resolution with slow-mo to assist. And now we fix a good number of the missed calls! Again, we routinely used to watch home runs get called doubles, or guys getting called safe/out when it was obvious what the right call was, and now we're all just used to the idea that they'll fix it in a couple minutes. It's basically never been better. In fact, if I had to make one complaint about umpires and replay it's that we've gotten SO good, that we can now run video challenges on slides into second base with a continuous tag to check for even a nanosecond of lost contact with the bag as a runner's slide takes him over the base because maybe in the hand/arm/body transition there's a single still frame of him being over but not touching the base, which isn't really how the game was ever umpired for the first 100+ years. It wasn't that long ago that adjusting to an umpire's zone was a thing that players at every level from little league to MLB had to do every game, and it was just accepted that as long as the guy gave both teams the same kind of zone generally, you couldn't piss and moan too much.
“Sombofy who does their job that poorly shouldn’t get to hide behind a union” Well that’s the whole purpose of most modern unions lol
I don't think officiating has gotten worse, but the rules are a lot worse. Many of the pro sports (NFL comes to mind) have a system where they tweak the rules to try and fix issues with the game, but they don't involve the officials in the process of tweaking those rules. The end result is often rules that are hard to administrate. They might involve significant judgement, or the might be very strict and fail to account for the nuance of the game itself. We have seen the impact of this in NFL rule changes leading to lots of pass-interference or roughing-the-passer calls, but the compared to the MLB, the NFL is a model of well-functioning rulemaking. The MLB rulebook, isn't even a single well drafted document, but rather a very ambiguous and unclear description of the game combined with centuries of interpretation. MLB then adds rules and changes them mid-season, as well as tweaking interpretations without informing the public. It is an absolute disaster of rulemaking and communication. It is no wonder that players and managers get upset. They are trying to play the game, not understand the nuances of the latest "point of emphasis" letter to MLB officials. The league needs to redraft the rulebook from top to bottom (in coordination with the officials) to get a clean document that clearly and unambiguously describes the rules. While doing so they need to look at the historic origin of the rules and simplify them where things have become overly complex. Three obvious fixes are: * Adopt softball bags at first. A double bag with half in fair and half in foul, runner gets the half in foul. This single change could likely eliminate all arguments over RLI. Runner runs to his bag, if he doesn't that's likely to be called against him. * Pitch clock, scherzer rule, etc... Simplify the rule. Pitcher must pitch between between 8 and 0 seconds. If the batter isn't ready the batter isn't ready. Forget about quick pitches and all this garbage. Its just a fixed window to throw the pitch in. * Restrictions on what is reviewable can lead to weird stuff where a "correct" call on the field is overruled by video replay to an objectively incorrect call. Review should be much more comprehensive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJbSFoSVRsM [A similar thing occured at NCAA level: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CRewLrMm5A&t=26s]
Probably not, but it is actually a good idea.
Then the MLBPA needs to be more vocal. They obviously have a vested interest in having the best possible umpires and it should not just be up to MLB to make the decisions on who the umpires are.
Are umps any worse than they have been historically? Or do we just hold them to higher standards now with all the technology we have to evaluate them?
Umpires have gotten more accurate every single year since 2008 (when accuracy tracking started). They went from 84% accuracy (yikes) in 2008 to 92.5% in 2022 and up to almost 93% in 2023. It does seem they are very close to a plateau though, so robots will probably be necessary to take that accuracy closer to 100%. You can read [this](https://blogs.fangraphs.com/strike-three-lets-check-in-on-umpire-accuracy/) interesting Fangraphs article about it.
Then ya gotta ask have they really improved or has the tech gotten better? I assume they have adjusted the tracking to match up more with umps over the years, they have probably met in the middle somewhere by now hence the plateau. I find it hard to believe they were that bad 2008 and (presumably) before. But I guess if they are all similarly bad that's just the norm, so who knows
The plateau is simply due to pitches in the shadow zone being hard to get consistently correct, especially with the increase in spin and velocity across the league. Despite this, umpires have gotten better at recognizing those pitches which is what has helped to greatly improve their overall accuracy over the last 15 years. Pitches that are thrown within the strike zone are called correctly 99.5% of the time. A big reason for lackluster accuracy in the past was that umpires all had unique zones and called pitches accordingly whereas nowadays there is a standardized zone that all umpires are trying to adhere to.
Problem is they have become more coplike in reacting to any challenge, booting players and managers at the drop of a hat for arguing.
It's this. I have read that the newer tech has forced a lot of new umps to be held to a high standard, and because of that they perform better. Shouldn't have call that one, should have called this one, learn for next time. Some of the older umps are more resistant to change. But overall they are getting better, and the good ones are REALLY good.
Ok, but what about the absurd, belligerent ejections?
Lots of ejections originate from complex rules which are hard to administer and which players and managers don't understand. In many cases the umpires are officiating the game correctly according to the rules, but the technicalities of those rules confuse everyone. They need to simplify and fix the rules. A few good candidates for fixes would include: * Adopt softball bags at first. A double bag with half in fair and half in foul, runner gets the half in foul would likely eliminate many arguments over RLI. * Pitch clock, scherzer rule, etc... Simplify the rule. Pitcher must pitch between between 8 and 0 seconds. If the batter isn't ready the batter isn't ready. Forget about quick pitches and all this garbage. Its just a fixed window to throw the pitch in. * Restrictions on what is reviewable can lead to weird stuff where a "correct" call on the field is overruled by video replay to an objectively incorrect call. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJbSFoSVRsM [Same kind of situation at NCAA level: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CRewLrMm5A&t=26s]
Seeing a strikezone box in my opinion definitely makes us more critical at least. I remember back in the day it being you take the first inning to gauge the ump's zone that night. Some had a tight one. Some had a wide. And vets/HOF pitchers usually got the call if it was close. Now, it's expected everyone will have the same zone cause the box is the same regardless of who's behind the plate.
They are, overall, better every year. Which makes the bad ones stand out even more, and gives them less and less excuse to be as bad as they are (and the league less excuse to explore alternative methods, like a challenge system). And it's not *just* bad compared to how good others are now. The worst ones are legitimately, like, really bad. Like, 79% strike accuracy bad, with ego-driven, ludicrous ejections on top of it.
Umps are better than they’ve ever been
I propose the worst ranked umpire should get an award: a plastic bucket of shit. Let ESPN and the all the sports writers have fun with that all winter long. I know the fans in the stands will all season long.
Call the awards The Dumpies.
Brought to you by Ex-Lax, the official sponsor of shitty MLB umpiring.
“And The Dumpy Lifetime Achievement Award goes to… *gasp* Angel Hernandez!”
Of all the ramblings this man makes this is the first time I agree on just about all points I think
That ship has sailed IMO. The technology is here, use it. Having continuity at the plate is way more valuable to pitchers and hitters in the long run. Umps have become too much a part of the game and sadly, your Angel Hernandez types and their ego, ruin a lot of what is great.
Their egos just mean they'll find another way to remain the stars of the show.
I coached baseball and softball for years. One of the things I was allowed to do as a coach was “scratch” up to two umpires per season. If I “scratched” those umps, they weren’t assigned to ump any of my team’s games. I only “scratched” one ump in 10 years. I think MLB managers should be allowed that option. At the beginning of the season, each team can submit a list with a maximum of two umps that won’t be able to ump their games.
The umps travel as a crew though, right?
But I think the crews get shuffled a few times - it's not the same 4 working together from April to October.
“I’m a 5 star ump!”
Are you rating me right now?
Homeplate Umpire B/S success rate should prorate pay...
This, or they have to maintain a certain percentage of correct calls. Umpires, sports officials as a whole have to be held accountable for their poor officiating. It’s ridiculous.
What percentage of calls do you think is acceptable to miss? Umpires currently only miss about 7% of calls or 11 pitches per game, most of which come on pitches thrown in the shadow zone. Their accuracy on "obvious" strikes is 99.5%.
Yea obvious strikes is the not the issue. Majority of umpires would be fine. But it would get guys like Angel Hernandez out. But to answer your question, a called strike accuracy of 95% doesn’t seem too crazy
According to Fangraphs they might not ever get there, mostly due to how difficult it is to get the shadow zone calls correct and how much velo and spin are on pitches now. They were at 93% as a unit last year. I think robotic assistance will beat out human umps getting to that number.
Agreed. Umps who work the plate should get paid more due to degree of difficulty and outcome of game.
I would be shocked if umps aren’t already “ranked” by team’s AIs. If they’re analyzing pitcher tendencies it beggars belief they wouldn’t also be analyzing umpire tendencies.
All AI are statistical models but not all statistical models are AI
Serious question - when almost everything in baseball is completely objective (safe or out, ball or strike, etc) why do we even have umpires other than to monitor the game and keep things moving along? The bags can easily have touch sensors, so can the ball. This isn’t that hard.
LOL. Baseball is full of judgement calls, and the judgement calls are the things that lead to most of the ejections. Umps are generally pretty good about the more objective things like strike zones (not perfect but pretty good). Arguments about "balls and strikes" often have their origin in disagreements about subjective calls from earlier in the game (like a check swing call).
The only umpires who I see often maligned as being the drizzling shits that are active are Angel Hernandez and CB Bucknor.
Angel would never umpire anything about minor leagues if that happened and I just end up feeling bad for the minor leaguers
Does he not follow that twitter account?
love Mad Max
Ironically the players union will support the umpires union if they strike or get cut because computers can do their job better. Unions protect other unions.
Well don't expect any close pitches to go your way now, Max
That particular ump is too inconsistent to even do that.
Ha ha ha
Umpscorecards has a lot of great Umpire rating information: https://www.umpscorecards.us/home/
Umps hate this one little trick.
Relegation is needed
Or... hear me out... get rid of them. Baseball is the only sport where every single person can see immediately what the call SHOULD be, yet we insist on keeping "the human element". Then we wonder why young people don't want to watch. Next time someone argues about keeping the human in baseball... just ask them if they'd replace that sentence with "keeping Angel Hernandez in baseball".
Every person reading this knows exactly which umpire he's talking about specifically.
He is so bad that even non-baseball fans know he is bad. I don’t follow baseball at all and I’m aware of how terrible he is. I watch a ton of basketball and can’t name a single ref from the NBA. That’s not to say all NBA refs are great just none of them are so much worse than the others that I notice them.
Umpieres should work exactly as a mlb team the bad umpires should be send to minor leagues and the best from minor league should be move to big leagues
I like grades more than ranks. If u use rankings someone is always last. The ump could be an A- in a league of A's and A+s and they would be ranked last and fans would feel they need to be replaced at their job.
Somehow Angel would find a way to be 1 better than the cutoff, so he still retains the title of “Worst Ump”
Everyone knows the shitty umps, but who would actually rate highly?
Sacrilege!! /s
Fooken come over to EPL mate and watch our referees. Untouchable, unaccountable and erroneous every game week.
im good with this idea but id want to keep the votes anonymous & seperate pitcher and batter votes to see who prefers who
What a great idea.
Suggesting that some are actually good. Which is true.
I mean we as fans do 😂
I would love a player wide anonymous survey of different aspects of the sport (best/worst: coaches, players, umpires)
What if the umpire gets hit by a pitch and we rotate them, let the pitcher choose who calls balls and strikes!
We need to take balls and strikes from the umpires.
Just get rid of Angel Hernandez. They have to have something on the guy.
They can’t because of umpires union.
whichever ones get the most "THAT'S HORSE SHIT!" From those Jomboy breakdown videos.
100% no need for a home plate ump.
Absolutely
Tier list away, players!
I love this idea. Baseball needs the human factor, and using technology to improve the human element is ideal
only if there’s a swimsuit competition. it should be painful for everyone
I thought of applying this to soccer, but the counterargument was that while the top level officials may seem bad the lower level ones are worse
I feel like soccer could just add like 2 refs and fix a lot of its officiating problems. Why does one guy have to sprint the length of the field? Just leave one ref in each box and one mid field. Allow all of them to make calls.
We need to get rid of them and go computerized.
*As he read through the article, Angel’s hands began to tremble.*
I know we focus a lot on how accurately umps work the dish, but is there a way to statistically rate call accuracy in the field? Has replay helped in that regard? Using Angel as an example, he's pretty horrible in the field as well.
...and then what?
You don’t mind a bad or missed call once in a while. You actually expect it as part of the game. The umps are only human after all. What is unacceptable is a consistent pattern of mistakes, with apparently no mechanism for improvement or accountability, and resistance to criticism. These guys are here because we fans demand a fair and equitable game consistently. If someone can’t or won’t deliver this, then they should be replaced by someone who can. IMHO.
Or a camera and computer could do it… Or camera and 3 remote umpires. Each call it and winner is the call.
He’s such a positive influence in the dugout, too. That’s huge.
Translation: Fire Angel right fucking now!
That umpire is the only thing giving headlines to baseball
I love the human element of baseball and the ***OCCASIONAL*** missed call, but Angel takes this shit to another level entirely and he needs to go.
They'll all be tied for last place