Ángel Hernández was one of MLB's most controversial umpires — but was he really the worst?
Some stats show umpire, who retired this year, improved between 2008 and 2021
Baseball columnist Mike Wilner has nothing positive to say about umpire Ángel Hernández — other than his retirement is good for baseball.
"He was consistently one of, if not the, worst umpires in the game for his entire career," said the former Toronto Blue Jays announcer.
Hernández closed the curtains on an MLB career that spanned over three decades in late May. The 62-year-old's announcement came after he reached a financial settlement with the league to retire.
"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," he said in a statement through MLB, adding that he plans on spending more time with his family.
Through 33 years at the plate, Hernández umpired some of baseball's biggest events, including the 2023 World Baseball Classic, and the 2002 and 2005 World Series.
But he also made a name for himself as one of the sport's most controversial umpires, due to a lawsuit he laid against the MLB, and frequent missed calls and quick ejections.
Some of these came in high-profile games, such as a 2022 Sunday Night Baseball game on ESPN in which Hernández missed 19 calls, prompting Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Kyle Schwarber to throw a tantrum on the field.
"I think the most succinct way to describe Ángel Hernández's career is just not good," Wilner told Day 6. "He was the epitome of everything that you do not want an official to be."
CBC asked MLB for a statement about Hernández's retirement but did not hear back before publication time.
Wilner says he knew something peculiar would happen any time Hernández had the plate, like a weird obstruction call or an unexpected balk call — calling out a pitcher for making an illegal, deceitful motion to a runner.
But do some bad calls — even infamously bad calls — mean he's the definitive worst umpire? Not necessarily, according to one researcher.
"I certainly would not call any umpire the worst umpire in the league," said Brian Mills, who researches sports analytics and managerial sports economics.
"These guys are excellent at what they do, and they're also humans trying their best," said the associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
Check the stats
Mills has been tracking data around umpire accuracy since 2008, when MLB made ball-strike data readily available.
He uses a model where he enters the data into a big, simple strike zone — the same size for each player. He then compares where that pitch hit the strike zone in contrast to each umpire's call of ball or strike.
"So the simplest way to look at this is … how often do they make the correct call, relative to what the rulebook says that it should be?" Mills said.
"If it crossed through that rulebook strike zone and the umpire calls it a strike, then we might count that as a correct strike call. If it passes outside the strike zone and they call it a ball, then we would say that's a correct ball call."
According to Mills' data, Hernández improved between 2008 and 2021, the latest year in Mills' system. He went from 86.5 per cent accurate ball-strike calls in 2008 — above that year's league average of 85.4 per cent — to 90.9 per cent in 2021.
While Hernández started as an above-average umpire, Mills' model shows he fell behind as the years went on.
By 2021, his successful call rate was closer to the league's lowest rate — about 89.8 per cent — than the highest which was about 93.6 per cent.
Mills said Hernández's decline could be due to several factors, such as the 62-year-old's age and the influx of younger, more tech-savvy umpires entering the league.
"If you've been doing this your whole career, you're familiar with it and you've gotten that feedback early on, it's a lot easier to adjust and change the way that you call the game as you're developing than it is when you've been doing it for 20 or 30 years," Mills said.
Although Hernández was near the bottom echelon of MLB umpires, Mills is hesitant to call him the definitive worst from a stats perspective.
"He's certainly in the bottom 10 per cent, at least as of 2021, but ... a lot of these numbers are so close together," he said.
"You're talking about [a] one-inch-a-game difference between some of the better and some of the worst umpires in baseball. These are really, really small."
A class of their own
Former amateur umpire Jon Oko says Hernández is still a top-level official because, during his career, he was one of just a handful of umpires to be in the MLB's system.
"Throughout North America, there's tens of thousands of umpires," he said. "MLB, give or take, at any given time … there's around 100 umpires, with full-time umpires and those in the minor leagues."
"Angel is one of 100. So Angel is in the top 0.01 per cent of all officials," said the committee chair of the Baseball Canada Umpire Development Committee.
For 20 years, Oko has umpired in the Canadian Baseball League, the Northern League and the Pacific Coast League. He was recognized by Baseball Canada with the Dick Willis Umpire of the Year award in 2012.
Although he never umpired an MLB game, Oko said the road to the show is a difficult path that could take a decade, from umpire school to the major leagues. Even then, you might not be guaranteed a job.
"If there is [an opening], there's maybe one or two a year — and you might be competing with 20 other umpires," he said.
And when you get to the majors, umpiring is a hard job. Oko says the average MLB umpire sees about 300 pitches per game, averaging speeds of around 90 miles per hour (145 kilometres per hour). But unlike viewers at home, umpires do not have the benefit of a TV strike zone or replays with multiple camera angles to inform their decision.
"Maybe it's 0.002 inches high, above the top of the strike zone, and they're like, 'Oh my God, this umpire's horrible.' Well, you try calling that in real life," he said.
That's not to say Hernández is perfect — no umpire is, says Oko. But just like how the players playing in MLB are of the highest calibre, Oko says the officials are too.
"Umpires have one angle, one replay — being live. So you've got to recognize that," he said.
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With files from the Associated Press. Produced by Laurie Allan
