Baseball Gets A Little Bit Better
Angel Hernandez is outta here.
As a Boston Red Sox fan, I have predictable likes and dislikes. Fenway Park? I like! The New York Yankees? No like! Mookie Betts? I like! The Fenway Sports Group acting like cheapskates? I really do not like!
It is unsurprising that many of the things I like in baseball are things that fans of other teams dislike, and vice versa. Every once in a while, however, there is an event so momentous, so joyous, that it unites baseball fans of all stripes. And yesterday a piece of news from USA Today’s Bob Nightengale came across the transom and did that very thing:
Ángel Hernández, the polarizing veteran umpire who has drawn the wrath and exasperation from players, managers and fans alike over three decades, is retiring from Major League Baseball, a high-ranking baseball official told USA TODAY Sports.
MLB and Hernández had spent the past two weeks negotiating a financial settlement before reaching a resolution over the weekend.
The longtime umpire confirmed his retirement in a statement to USA TODAY Sports on Monday night:
"Starting with my first major league game in 1991, I have had the very good experience of living out my childhood dream of umpiring in the major leagues. I treasured the camaraderie of my colleagues and the friendships I have made along the way.
"I have decided that I want to spend more time with my family."
Now there is a lot going on in those few paragraphs. The first, obvious point is that umpires usually do not retire two months into the season. According to Nightengale’s story, Hernández umped his last game on May 9th, and he was replaced on that umpiring crew. In other words, it seems that MLB wanted Hernández out and, and they were wiling to negotiate a settlement to send him packing.
I also want to highlight the degree to which Nightengale’s language perfectly mirrors the argot of the national political press, right down to the “I want to spend more time with my family” excuse that is a staple of disgraced politicians.
Even better: Ángel Hernández is polarizing? With all due respect, I don’t think that word means what Nightengale thinks it means. “Polarizing” implies that Hernández inspires passionate defenders and critics. That requires that the existence of people at least vaguely familiar with baseball and not related to Hernández who earnestly want to defend him. Google’s search engine might be breaking down but to the best of my knowledge no one fits that description. The best I could find are those willing to argue that Hernández is not as bad as many think — below average rather than the absolute worst.1
On the other side of the ledger, there are plenty of folks, myself included, who have been hoping and praying for Hernández to retire for years. In the 24 hours since his announcement, consider the following mainstream media stories about him:
Matt Bonestel, “‘He’s a bad umpire’: Ángel Hernández’s greatest misses,” Washington Post.
Mike Axisa, “Ángel Hernández retires: Eight of the controversial MLB umpire's worst calls, including disastrous 2018 ALDS,” CBS Sports.
Mike Greenberg, “I don’t think there has ever been a universally disrespected or unrespected umpire in baseball history than Ángel Hernández,” ESPN.
Matt Ehalt, “Angel Hernandez’s worst calls flood social media after umpire’s retirement,” New York Post.
Rich Eisen, “The definition of incompetence,” The Rich Eisen Show.
The Athletic’s Sam Bum and Cody Stavenhagen, in an article that tries to kinda sorta defend Hernández, offers this roundup of quotes from former players and managers:
He has brought much of it on himself over his long career. Like the time he threw the hat of then-Dodgers first base coach Mariano Duncan into the stands following an argument in 2006. Or, in 2001, when he stared down ex-Chicago Bears football player Steve McMichael at a Cubs game after McMichael used the seventh-inning stretch pulpit to criticize Hernandez.
On their own, these avoidable incidents would be forgotten like the thousands of other ejections or calls that have come and gone. But together, they paint a portrait of an umpire who’s played a major role in establishing his own villainous reputation.
“I think he’s stuck in, like, a time warp, you know,” Mets broadcaster and former pitcher Ron Darling told The New York Times last year. “He’s stuck being authoritarian in a game that rarely demands it anymore.”
“Angel is bad,” said then-Rangers manager Ron Washington in 2011. “That’s all there is to it. … I’m gonna get fined for what I told Angel. And they might add to it because of what I said about Angel. But, hey, the truth is the truth.”
“I don’t understand why he’s doing these games,” former Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia said in 2018 after Hernandez had three calls overturned in one postseason game “…He’s always bad. He’s a bad umpire.”
“He needs to find another job,” four-time All-Star Ian Kinsler said in August of 2017, “he really does.”
Is this overkill? Hell no, let’s go to some videotape!
Trust me when I say that these videos barely scratch the surface of Hernández’s incompetence.
I am enough of a social scientist to acknowledge that there might very well be worse umpires in MLB on a per call basis. But Axisa explained perfectly why Hernández stands out so brightly in this area:
To say Hernández was unpopular with fans and players would be an understatement. He has long been regarded publicly as baseball's worst umpire even though the data shows he's merely below average rather than the worst in the game. Hernández did tend to be combative, however, and escalate things when his job was to deescalate. The man liked to wield his authority.
Although the data says he wasn't the worst umpire, Hernández had a knack for egregiously bad calls. It wasn't that he made more bad calls than other umpires. It's that the bad calls he did make were very, very bad. Look at these called strikes against Rangers rookie Wyatt Langford on April 13. This is as bad as it gets.
The best umpires call balls and strikes and never try to make themselves part of the story. The honest umpires will acknowledge to players that they have screwed up. Hernández stood out as an umpire who ignored both of these tenets. He always behaved as though he was the most important person on the baseball diamond, when he was merely the most incompetent.
In a federal lawsuit filed by Hernández against Major League Baseball alleging discrimination against him, MLB proffered a similar critique: “Hernandez has been quick to eject managers, which inflames on-field tensions, rather than issue warnings that potentially could defuse those situations. Hernandez has also failed to communicate with other umpires on his crew, which has resulted in confusion on the field and unnecessary game delays.” It should be noted that the district court judge in that case judge agreed and granted a summary judgment for MLB.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, the state of umpiring has improved over the past decade. With the departure of Ángel Hernández, that trendline can only go up. Baseball is better now.
The 2023 data suggests that, albeit in a limited sample, Hernández was in point of fact the absolute worst.
What's the employment relationship here? Isn't employment at will the norm in the US? Do umpires have tenure, or union protection? Even if that's the case, it seems as if MLB could have dismissed him for cause long ago, rather than paying him to leave.
They should just have the machine call it. But can a machine see a ball that falls thru the strike zone and is caught well outside?