I gotta say, it's pretty interesting that most random, sort of competent umpires retire without a peep, but it's thread worthy national news when this guy does. I guess this just goes to prove that there's no such thing as bad publicity.
Angel Hernandez to retire
- Thread starter soxhop411
- Start date
And it shouldn’t have mattered because the pitcher stepped off the rubber mid-windup:
https://www.sportingnews.com/us/mlb/new-york-yankees/news/mlb-angel-hernandez-gleyber-torres-yankees-terrible-call-strikeout/6a8f0bf3e9bec6867de79213
Getting big, obvious calls wrong — and doing it fairly frequently — is what makes an umpire “one of the worst”. Being super defensive and confrontational about those calls, then makes you “the worst”.
Good riddance Angel. The game was worse for him, despite his accomplishments from a DE&I lens, which says a whole helluva lot, to me.
Good riddance Angel. The game was worse for him, despite his accomplishments from a DE&I lens, which says a whole helluva lot, to me.
Right, and he was a stand up guy who took full responsibility for his mistake. Show me Angel doing that even once.
This…this is a really good post. I don’t know how much of what’s laid out here actually applies to seven-year-old Angel, which is to say that I’m not sure how much he intuited as a child the kind of power that he would someday hold over rich and famous athletes, but I think this post pretty well captures how and why he very quickly developed a taste for it.
That’s the thing about Angel. I’d propose that you could have worse ‘counting stats’ of total calls wrong and still be a better umpire than Angel. I’d rather have an umpire make consistent bad calls. At least then a good player can adjust. Angel’s shit was all over the place. He was pure chaos.
I've been perusing umpscorecards a bit.
Among 116 umpires who have had 30 or more games behind home plate since 2015, Hernandez ranked:
87th in accuracy.
103rd in consistency
96th in favor
However, since 2023, he was 4th worst in accuracy, 3rd worst in consistency, and worst in favor, so maybe the noise from teams to MLB finally got too loud.
As a side note, John Hirschbeck and Jim Joyce who were anecdotally at least, well respected umpires were 115th and 112th worst respectively in accuracy, and Hirschbeck was dead last in consistency.
Among 116 umpires who have had 30 or more games behind home plate since 2015, Hernandez ranked:
87th in accuracy.
103rd in consistency
96th in favor
However, since 2023, he was 4th worst in accuracy, 3rd worst in consistency, and worst in favor, so maybe the noise from teams to MLB finally got too loud.
As a side note, John Hirschbeck and Jim Joyce who were anecdotally at least, well respected umpires were 115th and 112th worst respectively in accuracy, and Hirschbeck was dead last in consistency.
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I can think of at least one other completely inexplicable blown call from Jim Joyce that was (or should be considered, by this group) more memorable.
Edit: Also, T&P for Angel.
I do love that someone had to come into this thread and do the ye olde "well actually, he was pretty good, when you think about it" thing. If you can't stick up for a shitty umpire who was also an asshole, what kind of human being are you?
Meanwhile, he was ranked near the bottom in all the stats and he was a raging asshole about it, too.
Well actually, he did suck and he did make it about himself and good riddance.
Meanwhile, he was ranked near the bottom in all the stats and he was a raging asshole about it, too.
Well actually, he did suck and he did make it about himself and good riddance.
I don't even care about the ball-strike accuracy beyond some of those foot off the plate calls that made incompetence highlight reels. Angel's problem was he screwed up real big too often, escalated situations that he caused, and made himself the focus of far too many games. He was straight trash at his job.
This is strong work. We should all be so lucky, I suppose.
Cross-posting from the V&N humor thread:
View: https://twitter.com/bravesamerica/status/1795439785273934336
Even fan graphs is getting in on it, from the top of their main page the latest article is titled:
Umpiring Is About To Get Better
No, we're not talking about Ángel Hernández. Why would you even think that?
https://www.fangraphs.com/
Umpiring Is About To Get Better
No, we're not talking about Ángel Hernández. Why would you even think that?
https://www.fangraphs.com/
Somewhat optimistic take on this, heralding the end of an era:
With Ángel Hernández’s retirement, Major League Baseball’s Ump Show era can go away
With Ángel Hernández’s retirement, Major League Baseball’s Ump Show era can go away
Oh, the Bellhorn HR and the Buchholz/ARod slap are seared into the deepest recesses of my brain, but with thanks to all that is right and holy with the world and for the sake of my sanity and blood pressure, neither of those were blown calls.
Now, Country Joe West may get more of the credit for overturning the initial calls, and Joyce initially shook his head at Francona when he came out to contest the Bellhorn HR, but miraculously in an era before replay both fall squarely in the "No harm, no foul" category for me.
I completely get it, but my point was that he blew that call (even as replays show him hustling to left field for the perfect view) so badly that the other umps wouldn’t allow it to stand in an era where there was no formal mechanism to correct the mistake.
The big difference between Joyce and Hernandez is that Joyce could admit he was wrong.
Oh, I see what you mean. Yes, agreed: one of many reasons Angel was the worst.
Beyond confrontational: he brought a frivolous discrimination action claiming he didn't get selected to the playoffs because of his status. Seems like that invigorated the anti-DEI crowd.
As you say, its one thing to suck, another to resort to the worst excuses.
