Baseball, It's Time to Face Your REAL Umpire Problem

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Script written and researched by Mac Douglass

[untexan]

It’s a vicious cycle. The worst umps turn into the most egotistical umps because they know the union has their back and no one’s going to take their job away no matter how much they deserve it. Probably some Dunning-Kruger mixed in there too.

[stevestolarczyk]

I think it's also worth pointing out how often instant replay shows that they got the (incredibly difficult) calls right. Thank you for addressing this subject so fairly.

[TheIcecreamtaco]

The kind of farm system they have for umpires is actually insane. It just proves that they actually don’t have to fold to the union. If I was getting paid 2k per month and someone offered me 200k per year to abandon all loyalty to the union, I wouldn’t hesitate for a single second

[monkmoore]

One out of 76 positions opening up isn’t sustainable. Unless we end up with 95 year old umpires at the major league level! Now that would really be a problem, haha!

[joewhip]

I would like to see automated balls and strikes. That would mean the strike zone is uniform each game. The pitchers and batters will know what the strike zone is. Imagine if in tennis, the lines moved depending who the officials are. The home plate umpire should be there for calls at the plate and giving new balls to the catcher.

[Bigandrewm]

Unions serve a hugely important role in our society, but anything can go too far, and this issue of unions preventing accountability happens outside of baseball. Think police unions that make it hard to get rid of bad cops, teachers unions protecting bad teachers, etc. - I think this happens more often when a union has membership in an organization that doesn't have a good competitor if the organization fails. Think monopolies (like MLB) and government institutions (like police departments).

[Downsouthroots]

Unless you've put on a Umpire mask, called balls and strikes, or had "Bang Bang" play at first base, people will never understand just how hard it is to umpire baseball, regardless of what level..

[zzotto]

Fantastic video!

I have another solution:

If MLB Umpires impact players financially, because of bad calls, the players should sue the umpire personally. Although I am an attorney, I do think society is way to litigious, however, sometimes the only way to right a wrong is to address the issue in court. And usually, when money is involved, and in this case, the MLB and players, we are talking millions of dollars in contracts for players and stats are everything.

So maybe if MLB umpires start getting personally sued for their “malpractice, ” like any other professional who makes mistakes, maybe the system will change.

[stormy]

There seems to be a some trends with unions that applies to the umpire problem pretty well.
1) Positions of authority and power do not need unions. The entire point of a union is to level bargaining power.
2) Positions of authority and power are best-equipped to form a union by the fact that the position is authoritative and powerful.
3) Unions for positions of authority and power are the most publicly accepted unions because people are far more willing to give benefit of the doubt or outright deference to authority and power.
4) Unions for positions of authority and power erode accountability and degrade quality because no union for such position can serve the intended purpose of a union.

Which is why
A) supporting unions in general is not incompatible with opposing unions for certain people or positions
B) the Umpire's union is far stronger than the Player's union
C) the Umpire's union isn't going away

[Pee-Pad]

One of the better videos on the topic.

[tbdrummer]

I've said the only way to remedy this is to hit them in the wallet. If an ump makes an obvious bad call, the end result is usually an argument with the manager, who then gets thrown out. If managers then either refuse to leave, or forfeit the game and take their team into the locker room, fans will demand their money back. That would force MLB to take a look at the situation and maybe make changes.

[JustaGuy_Gaming]

It goes beyond bad calls too. Umpires, the enforcer of the rules, don't even have to know the rules half the time. They can pick and choose what rules to enforce at whim. They can nit pick the most obscure rule, ones that let them affect the game. Or blatantly ignore a violation if they want. Umpires are human yes, and at times that is a problem as they let emotions decide how they enforce rules.

I am not usually one for AI or robots taking over human jobs, but I think Robo Umpires will massively help Baseball. As long as the people don't the programing keep it fair.

[shawnheidingsfelder]

Simple system, but they'll never go for it: If, by whatever grading system the umps want to use (MLBs, or their own, or a third party), if you finish in the bottom ten percent of the grading, you don't get fired, but you get demoted down to AAA, and the requisite number of the best umps in AAA get promoted for the next season. This would apply throughout the system. Bottom get sent down to the next lowest level, best get called up a level. Refuse to be demoted, you get suspended (since Unions don't like firing anyone). If that demoted ump performs good enough at the lower level to be promoted again, then go ahead and send them back up. Maybe they've worked on their craft and learned how to be more accurate. If they can have a system that grades their umpires enough to decide who gets to work postseason games, they can expand the privileges to working on the MLB level at all. The best performing umps, even at the bottom levels of the minor league, are guaranteed to move up and get their shot to move up again or stay at the higher level if they can stay out of "relegation." Unions will make themselves obsolete if they continue to shelter their poorest performing members (and this goes for all unions, not just sports) at the expense of making their product better by getting better people in the system. We're looking at robotic strike zones because umpire unions refuse to change themselves or insist on excellence from their own ranks. They tolerate the Angel Hernandez's of the world, but that doesn't mean MLB has to.

[salg]

The attitude and unprofessionalism needs to be addressed as well. They are human and will make mistakes but when they instigate or are confrontational or basically act like a spoiled child.
They forget the game isn't about them.

[My_profile]

What about introducing relegation for umpires?

Bottom 7 get dropped to AAA each year and you bring up some fresh meat with younger eye balls

Oh yeah…unions

[UncleVatred]

You're probably too young to remember the Umpire Strikes of 79 and 99 but the replacement umps we got for those seasons were so awful it makes guys like Hernandez and CB Bucknor looks good. Hence why the Umpire's union has the power it does. Maybe with MLB itself doing the invitation only Umpire's school we could see more consistent officiating.

[davidvasquez]

This is the subject that is the second reason why I have not attended a professional Baseball game. The other is the cost per person of everything in the game.

[chaost]

Baseball is the only sport where umps have an outside personality. For some reason it always disturbed me when local sports radio guys interviewed umps like Joe West hocking his next music album that nobody will buy. I wouldn't have a problem with horrible calls if the people behind those calls didn't have egos who think they're beyond the game.

Modern technology is only confirming what boomer fans have witnessed for decades. I'm glad we now have real ways to measure how bad MLB umpires have always been.

[SiriusMined]

Angel Hernandez is right! The MLB is discriminating against the incompetent!! 😁

[Ian.Ressler]

Biggest issue of modern umps: arrogance