Angel Hernandez has retired!!

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, Philip said:

If he wasn’t the worst, who is?

Either way, wish him peace. We’ll always have the video, but God be thanked there won’t be any more.

Per Ump Scorecard, this year CB Bucknor and Manny Gonzalez are either 1-2 or 2-1 worst, depending on whether you judge them by average accuracy, or by accuracy above/below expected accuracy.  Out of 85 umpires, Hernandez was 19th worst in the former and 9th worst in the latter.  https://umpscorecards.com/umpires/

[ShoelesJoe]

After watching Hernandez for years it became obvious that for most close calls he'd just flip a coin in his head and hope for the best. IMO the straw that broke the camel's back was the Mets / Tigers game where Angel ruled a pitch to Spencer Torkelson was a foul tip, which is reviewable. When the Tigers' manager came out to challenge the call Hernandez all of a sudden changed his call to a check swing, which isn't reviewable. Replays showed the pitch wasn't a foul ball and Torkelson never came close to swinging at it. It is reasonable to conclude that Angel Hernandez changed the original bad call to an even worse call just so he wouldn't be overruled by replay officials.

 

 

[Morgan423]

[waroriole]

9 hours ago, Malike said:

I find it hard to believe that statistically, by whatever metric they use he wasn't even the worst ump in the game.

There’s plenty of bad umpires. He just became the poster child, probably through the audacity of his lawsuit. 

[banks703]

6 hours ago, deward said:

This video makes a pretty strong case that Hernandez's reputation is largely undeserved. 

 

Undeserved?

[deward]

1 hour ago, banks703 said:

Undeserved?

It's worth a watch. They argue that, based on the info available, Hernandez has never been close to being the worst ump, and has even at times been above average (not so much in recent years though).

[ShoelesJoe]

Heard an interesting theory this morning: The Umpires' Union has offered up Angel Hernandez as a sacrificial lamb in order to get MLB to back off their plans to eventually go to an automated strike zone. If MLB all of a sudden finds lots of reasons to delay or cancel the roll out of robo-umps we'll know why. 

[Gurgi]

Seems MLB really thought that homerun call was intentional on his part to protest instant replay.  Then Angel said he did not get good angles to make the proper call and MLB was pissed and actually publically said they gave him lots of good angles.  

Then the heat was on.  He was not put into post season play which likely pisses Umps off because there is a very nice cash reward for being in post season play.  Losing out on money made him sue MLB and he used the normal crap of racism.  Which is funny when this clip shows tons of Latino players screaming about how bad he was.  This forced MLB to talk trash about him to win the racism case.  What a horrible situation.  

Likely Angel actually did call the homerun call wrong in protest of instant replay.....because that is the crap the umpires would do.  And it just snowballed.  And now he is old and likely MLB gave him a nice cash reward to walk away and take this story off the board.  

Edited May 28 by Gurgi

[Gurgi]

21 minutes ago, ShoelesJoe said:

Heard an interesting theory this morning: The Umpires' Union has offered up Angel Hernandez as a sacrificial lamb in order to get MLB to back off their plans to eventually go to an automated strike zone. If MLB all of a sudden finds lots of reasons to delay or cancel the roll out of robo-umps we'll know why. 

You speak with a forked tongue you devil!!!!   God I hope nothing can delay robo umps.  Hitting will get an instant boost because guys with extreme good eyes (like Soto and Adley) will not have to "protect the corner" and flail away with two strikes so an awful ump wont just ring a guy up.

[MCO'sFan]

11 hours ago, Malike said:

Bucknor, Wendelstedt, Diaz, Eddings, flip a coin.

I assume the union protects them but it is frustrating that guys like Diaz and Bucknor can be so consistently bad and nothing happens to them. I don't like to advocate for people to lose their jobs but if you suck at it you should be held accountable in some way. 

[Frobby]

26 minutes ago, ShoelesJoe said:

Heard an interesting theory this morning: The Umpires' Union has offered up Angel Hernandez as a sacrificial lamb in order to get MLB to back off their plans to eventually go to an automated strike zone. If MLB all of a sudden finds lots of reasons to delay or cancel the roll out of robo-umps we'll know why. 

That sounds like complete BS to me.   I don’t see how a union could offer that and I doubt MLB would find that an adequate trade-off.  There’s never been a timetable placed on robo-umps and I’m sure MLB wants a good long trial of it in AAA to get the right balance.  So, I won’t attribute anything about that to Angel Hernandez.  

[ShoelesJoe]

8 minutes ago, Frobby said:

That sounds like complete BS to me.   I don’t see how a union could offer that and I doubt MLB would find that an adequate trade-off.  There’s never been a timetable placed on robo-umps and I’m sure MLB wants a good long trial of it in AAA to get the right balance.  So, I won’t attribute anything about that to Angel Hernandez.  

They couldn't make such an offer officially, it would have to be a back room deal with AH getting a fat payoff to go away. And if you don't think management and Unions make those kinds of under the table agreements all the time then you don't know how big business and big Unions work. Whether MLB would find such a trade off to be equitable is in the eye of the beholder. But it's clear that in such a scenario both sides are getting something they want. MLB wants Hernandez gone because he's obviously terrible at his job and the longer he hung around the more impotent MLB appeared to be. The Unions gets a delay or even postponement of an automated strike zone system that would make their members less influential to the game. 

Is it possible? Absolutely. Is it probable?  Who knows?

[Frobby]

8 minutes ago, ShoelesJoe said:

And if you don't think management and Unions make those kinds of under the table agreements all the time then you don't know how big business and big Unions work. 

Please tell me what background you have that speaks to how big business and big unions work.  

[24fps]

The beach at Conspiracy Land is fun to play on, just don’t go in the water. 

[Malike]

15 minutes ago, ShoelesJoe said:

They couldn't make such an offer officially, it would have to be a back room deal with AH getting a fat payoff to go away. And if you don't think management and Unions make those kinds of under the table agreements all the time then you don't know how big business and big Unions work. Whether MLB would find such a trade off to be equitable is in the eye of the beholder. But it's clear that in such a scenario both sides are getting something they want. MLB wants Hernandez gone because he's obviously terrible at his job and the longer he hung around the more impotent MLB appeared to be. The Unions gets a delay or even postponement of an automated strike zone system that would make their members less influential to the game. 

Is it possible? Absolutely. Is it probable?  Who knows?

By their own grading metrics, he wasn't even the worst ump they had by the numbers. The fans hated him, but I doubt he'd take a hush deal when he could show that he's not even the worst ump in the sport by their grading systems.