Will Angel Hernandez Retirement Help Fix MLB Ump Problem

Angel Hernandez has announced that he is retiring from the game of baseball. Any fan of Major League Baseball knows Angel Hernandez. He has been one of the main causes of screaming fans for decades. Either in person at the ballpark or at their TV screens.

Even though Angel Hernandez is, and has been, a thorn in the side of MLB umpires, he is not the only problem. MLB umpires’ performance has steadily declined over the past decade. They have declined to the point where automatic ball and strike robots are close to being implemented in the MLB.

I’m not going to litter this article with stats showing just how bad Angel Hernandez was behind the plate. Or how many terrible calls he got wrong around the bases. I’m looking at the impact that the Angel Hernandez retirement will have on baseball as a whole.

The History of Angel Hernandez

Angel Hernandez was born in Havana, Cuba on August 26, 1961 (currently 62 years old). Shortly after his 1st birthday, his family moved to Hialeah, Florida. He started playing and umpiring baseball there as a teenager.

According to Wikipedia, Hernandez started umpiring in the Florida State League in 1981, then moved to the Carolina League in 1984. In 1986, he was promoted to the Southern League where he umpired until 1988. After that, he worked for the highest level of Minor League Baseball in the American Association.

In May 1991, Angel Hernandez was first called-up as a substitute to the Major Leagues as a full-time umpire. He worked in the National League from 1991 to 1999 and worked throughout Major League Baseball from 2000 until his recent retirement.

Some of his umpiring career highlights include:

• 2002 and 2005 World Series
• Eight League Championship Series
• Three MLB All-Star Games
• 2023 World Baseball Classic

Hernandez filed an unsuccessful federal lawsuit against MLB in July 2017, alleging that racial discrimination kept him from promotions. He claims racism stopped him from being promoted to crew chief and from umpiring more World Series games. We all know it was his horrible calls prohibiting him.

Years of Incompetent Calls From Angel Hernandez

Negative press is not a new thing for Angel Hernandez. It has literally been going on for 3 decades. Which brings us to the question we have all been asking … why has Angel been behind a Major League plate all these years? This question is directly related to the title: Will the retirement of Angel Hernandez help fix the MLB umpire problem?

All the way back to 1999, Hernandez ranked 31st out of 36 umpires in the Major League Baseball Players Association survey. Even though he was bottom 15%, he was retained for the 2000 season ahead of 13 other National League umps. The records show that the Philadelphia Inquirer dubbed this one of the “surprises” of the 1999 purge.

In a Sports Illustrated player poll conducted between 2006 and 2011, Angel Hernandez was listed as the third-worst baseball umpire. 22% of major league ballplayers asked in a 2010 ESPN survey identified Hernandez as the worst umpire in the major leagues. More than any other ump.

During the 2016, 2017, and 2018 seasons, Hernandez’s calls at first base were overturned in 14 out of 18 video reviews, for a 78% overturn rate. At the time, there was a 60% overturn rate for all first-base calls by all umpires during that time period.

With the evolution of social media, accounts like Jomboy and Umpire Auditor, to name a couple, have laid out the ineptness of MLB umpires. Whether they are detailing on-field conversations through lip reading or on a pitch-by-pitch basis, it has been harder and harder for MLB to run away from fan’s questions about the ability of some umpires to do their job correctly. Imagine being an MLB ballplayer and the ump is calling strikes at an 80% accuracy, as laid out in the tweet below?

Why Did Angel Hernandez Retire?

Angel Hernandez umpired his last MLB game on May 9th, 2024, however he did not officially retire until May 27th. As previously stated, Hernandez filed an unsuccessful federal lawsuit against MLB in July 2017.

Word on the street is that MLB and Hernandez spent the past two weeks negotiating a financial settlement before reaching a resolution over the weekend. The truth is, we’ll most likely never get the full truth on why Angel is no longer an MLB ump. The MLB Umpires Association has to be one of the strongest unions in the country.

In his full statement, this is what Hernandez said when announcing his retirement himself:

“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,” Hernandez’s statement read. “There is nothing better than working at a profession that you enjoy. I treasured the camaraderie of my colleagues and the friendships I have made along the way, including our locker room attendants in all the various cities.

“I have decided that I want to spend more time with my family. Needless to say, there have been many positive changes in the game of baseball since I first entered the profession. This includes the expansion and promotion of minorities. I am proud that I was able to be an active participant in that goal while being a Major League umpire.”

Umpire Correct Call Rates on the Decline

Baseball has been a passion of mine for many years. Last year (2023), in my opinion, MLB umps were the worst I have ever seen. Not only were there daily brutal games from umps behind the plate, there were also hundreds of terrible calls from field umpires. It has NOT gotten any better in 2024.

In 2023, ball boys and ball girls started to get evaluated by MLB, grading them on their efficiency. How can Major League Baseball look us in the eye and tell us that evaluating ball boys/girls is more important than closely evaluating their umpires?

As written last week in the Athletic, commissioner Manfred admitted it was a convoluted process. Here is an excerpt written at ESPN:

Commissioner Rob Manfred at last week’s owner’s meetings stood up for the league’s work with umpires.

“There is, in fact, a really detailed evaluation system,” Manfred said, according to The Athletic. “They get evaluated twice a year, in mid-season, and at the end of the season. There are monetary ramifications to those evaluations in terms of what they get in terms of postseason assignments, which is a big part of — a big increment to what they earn. And there are, in fact, mandatory remedial activities that are more frequently than people realize imposed on umpires.

“Having said that, I think that the management of umpires is … a physically demanding job. It goes beyond just the evaluation, training and discipline. It also goes to things like thinking about their career path, how long should they be out there? And that implicates things like your retirement program. I mean, there’s a lot to the management of it that I don’t think everybody fully appreciates.“

Will Angel Hernandez Retirement Help Fix MLB Ump Problem?

Now we circle around to the original question. Will the retirement of Angel Hernandez help fix the MLB umpire problem?

Unfortunately, I don’t think so.

The MLB umpire’s union is too strong. Maybe it’s the decades of helping determine game results. Perhaps MLB truly values their umpires more than the players. I don’t know, it all seems so crazy I suspect the reason is beyond most fan’s comprehension.

There is no denying that MLB umpires are smug, arrogant pricks. Go search up some Angel Hernandez videos. Try looking up CB Bucknor vs. Oliver Marmol. Bucknor kept yelling to Marmol, “you just got here [Major Leagues], you just got here”.

Essentially, Bucknor was telling St. Louis Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol that he didn’t have enough clout to argue with him because he just got the Majors. Like most other big league managers, Marmol obviously put his time in, affording him the opportunity to manage a Major League ball team.

Too Many Personal Problems Over the Years

Here’s a video of an interview with former MLB player Will Clark. He tells a story how he saw Angel Hernandez out having a few beers after ringing him up that night on two terribly called strikes.

Clark told the waitress he wanted to pay for Hernandez’s drinks. On the way out, Clark says to Angel, “See ya at the park tomorrow.” Angel says, “Is that all you’re going to say to me?” Clark says, “Yes, see ya tomorrow”. After that day, Clark said Angel Hernandez shrunk his strikezone to the size of a baseball.

I am willing to bet that personal vendettas between hitters/pitchers and umpires account for a lot of the bad calls. These MLB umpires do not like to get called out. They do not like being talked down to. Today’s umps are some of the biggest divas on the field, who must think some fans paid just to come see them.

The Times They Are A-Changin’

Baseball now is all about 100 mile an hour fastballs and exit velocity. Pitchers are seeing more movement on their pitches than ever before, and that’s with the crackdown on “sticky substances”.

There seems to be a good average age when it comes to MLB umpires. However, some of them are old as dirt. Are we really expecting these 60-something men behind the plate with all that gear on to get every pitch and call correct? If we are, I think you need to re-evaluate your thought process.

There’s an average of 150 pitches thrown in a MLB game. Some pitchers are throwing 6-7 different pitches, with almost 100% of starters throwing 3 or more. Baseball is played in the summer, sweat is bound to get into your eyes at some point.

Maybe they spotted an old friend in the stands and took their concentration away for a few seconds. What about if the ump got fooled? Do you think it’s easy to follow a 94 MPH slider with over a foot of movement?

The automatic ball/strike caller seems like the next logical step in this world of video replay. It seems our society has adapted an ever-growing need for perfection. Nobody and no one is perfect. The same can be said for MLB umpires.

Bye Angel Hernandez: Take CB, Diaz, Wendelstedt, Eddings With Ya

By no means am I condoning Angel Hernandez and his terrible decades of calling ball at its highest level. But before we start letting robots call balls and strikes, let’s remember that MLB umpires are human too.

Like anything else, there are always a few bad apples that ruin it for everyone. It’s good to see these social media sites that shit all over terrible games from umps also give props for great performances too. It’s always the bad calls we remember, not the plays umps get right – I mean, they’re just doing their job, right?

I personally remember watching games where CB Bucknor, Laz Diaz, Hunter Wendelstedt and Doug Eddings all made multiple terrible calls. Here’s to hoping the retirement of Angel Hernandez opens their eyes to the fact that the game does not revolve around them.

Fans are watching to see a fairly called game for both sides, letting their play determine the outcome. Let’s hope anyways, for baseball, it’s players, umpires and it’s fans, that we come to an outcome that just gets the call right.