Don’t blame Angel Hernandez. Really. It isn’t his fault.
The No. 1 whipping boy of fans and media among major league umpires isn’t even the lowest ranked umpire, so this isn’t close to his doing.
But it’s becoming clear now that umpires — not just Hernandez — need help on balls and strikes.
It’s not any of their faults.
They are the best in the world at what they do. If you’ve watched college or Little League games on TV, you know major league umpires don’t get where they are by happenstance. However, the job is getting too difficult.
With an average fastball up to the mid-90s, and more drastic spin and break on splitters, sliders and curves, not to mention new pitches being introduced into arsenals (the sweeper, anyone?), the job of calling balls and strikes is becoming much too hard for most mortals.
Yep, it’s finally time for the so-called Robo Umps, also called ABS for Automated Ball-Strike System. (And by the way, there’s a chance a modified version of Robo Umps will be introduced to the majors as early as next year. More on that below.)
There are two very good reasons the time has come.
The most obvious is that Robo Umps bat 1.000, which means they have a much greater chance of being right than even the best humans. That is most MLB umpires; some estimate that 70 percent or more of MLB umps are still quite capable, with the younger ones generally thought (and ranked) better than the older ones.
The second reason — and this is no small thing — is that Robo Umps lack emotion, feeling, disappointment, anger or anything that could possibly trigger them to eject from the game undeserving players/personnel. Which is happening far too often.
Aaron Boone, who earns his share of ejections — often while defending his players (aka the “savages in the box”) — was incorrectly fingered two weeks ago by home-plate umpire Hunter Wendelstedt on the second pitch of a game. We all saw it was really a fan behind the dugout who should have gotten the heave-ho. But Wendelstedt was too mad to notice.
Then, on Saturday, came a bigger issue — really a problem — when home-plate umpire Ryan Blakney got so upset about something Yankees superstar Aaron Judge said that he ejected Judge. In a hasty judgment (sorry — couldn’t resist), Judge while walking away “said something [he] shouldn’t have said,” according to crew chief Alan Porter, who was speaking on behalf of the umpire/culprit.
The paying fans — who didn’t come to see Blakney — still don’t know why Judge was iced the final couple innings. They only suspect an injustice was done, and they’d be right about that.
Even if Judge uttered the compound word that begins with “bull,” as lip readers surmise, and even if he adorned it with a spicy adjective, as is alleged, Judge should not be thrown out for a quick utterance while walking back to the dugout. Judge declined afterward to say what he said, but you can understand why he prefers to reserve colorful language for the field of battle.
I almost get Boone getting the thumb. But there’s no good reason to eject Judge, who 1) was walking away when he said whatever he said, 2) has received more bad strike calls than anyone in MLB since 2018 (he leads with 444; Mookie Betts is second with 441) and 3) is a big reason why fans come to games.
The reason it was Judge’s first ever ejection is obvious. He rarely protests.
It’s quite an injustice that he has an ejection on his ledger while previous Yankee captain Derek Jeter — who routinely showed displeasure with strike calls — was never ejected.
Fans are getting testier, the whole country is.
Anyway, it’s time to remove the emotion from the equation.
MLB is said to be “testing the hell” out of the technology. They have been using Robo Umps in Triple-A in select parks since 2022 and everywhere starting last year. They rely strictly on Robo Umps three games a week and use Robo Umps for a challenge system the other three games.
I’ll take either method.
Robo Umps call perfect games, so that’s the ultimate.
But I get why MLB seems to like the challenge system — for one it’s more likely to receive the necessary approval from both players and umpires — and word is that’s the system that has a chance to be implemented as early as next season.
The way they do it is this. Teams get three wrong challenges a game. So theoretically, if you have an umpire who keeps making wrong calls, you can keep challenging.
An informal, unscientific clubhouse poll Tuesday found players split, but much more support for the challenge system (anonymity was promised so as not to trigger retribution). A few don’t want any change — not that surprising since they are all very successful the way it is. But some smart ones see the inevitability of it. Said one, “That’s probably the way it’s going.”
I say, it’s time we get the calls right since we can.
Credit: Source link
