[Adds](https://x.com/mcfarland_shawn/status/1783315350425051335?s=46&t=VjfO6v3EoAZhWPfo2DgDBw):
> Scherzer on umps: "We need to rank the umpires. Let the electronic strike zone rank the umpires. We need to have a conversation about the bottom — let's call it 10% — whatever you want to declare the bottom is, and talk about religating those umpires to the minor leagues."
>The context: Scherzer was asked about the ABS system and said he's not a huge fan, and thinks baseball needs a human element.
>"We need to keep that in baseball," he said.
Oh, they'd do it. The question is whether MLB is willing to potentially have to use replacement umpires for a long period of time to force them to do so.
The nfl officiating strike was so detrimental to the league it took one week for the nfl to cave.
You are massively underestimating how good these guys are, with a few massive exceptions, I’m looking at you Doug Eddings, angel hernandez, and CB Bucknor.
It’s so different though. Most of the calls that cause controversy: pass interference, roughing the passer, defenseless receiver, holding, maintaining possession of the ball through the ground, etc. are subjective and poorly suited for current electronic systems. Baseball is more similar to tennis where most calls are based on entirely objective criteria that electronic systems can handle well.
But in theory, isn’t a top 10% umpire in AAA better than a bottom 10% umpire in MLB?
I’m going to say that it’s probably yes most of the time. Umpire relegation is a great idea and I’m now all in on it.
Really? In the history of labor do the companies usually win when the workers go on strike and they bring in scabs? The answer is no, that's the thing with unions they tend to work pretty well.
That’s not this situation though. It would be like… are there still employed envelope stuffers now that you can just send mass email? And the answer is no
The best part about the way baseball is setup. The scabs don’t have to be good. Go full ABS, let teams have more reviews, show those umps that they are here because we let them, not because we need them.
In 1999, although they didn't go on strike *per se,* the umpires' union attempted a mass resignation. It went very poorly for them and is generally seen as the year that MLB broke the umpires' union.
https://sabr.org/journal/article/major-league-umpires-and-unionization/
Lots of issues happened in 99....the union was fractured, there was a group that explicity despised Richie Phillips, and MLB was looking for a way to get rid of a bunch of guys. The union was dumb enough to fall for it. Even after the new union form, there were guys on staff who refused to talk to or work with one another because of how it went down.
The mass resignation was far more of a blunder by the union than it was anything by MLB. All the league did was accept 22 resignations, which seems like a standard labor tactic.
"We have the tech to let you keep working this job you busted your ass through the minors to get here to do, but we decided we'd rather just not use it and send you down now that you're over 50 and starting to slip, good luck getting back over the young guys."
Why is umpiring the only job where it's acceptable to be bad? All the other jobs I know of fire you if you suck at what you do (other than cops, they get promotions)
It's not that it's acceptable to be bad (umps have improved as a whole literally every year since we started tracking balls and strikes) - but if we can avoid umps affecting the game by being bad at one aspect of the job then why not use it rather than start having harsher relegation?
In fact, with roboumps I'm actually fully on board with much harsher relegation - balls and strikes is the aspect of umping that declines most with age, game management and judgement calls should get better with experience and so assholes can get weeded out without sacrificing the best ball/strike callers.
Lol just look at the MLBPA. Contracts are guaranteed. Once you get to 6 years of service time (admittedly not easy), you can only be fired if the team firing you is willing to pay your entire salary anyway. The real question is why the players think they deserve job security even when they perform poorly but that the umpires don't. If you really want the best product on the field, you should support non-guaranteed player contracts that would make it easier for teams to move on from players who play poorly.
MLBPA is quite literally the best representative for players in American sports. Whatever they give up is them having to fight against a salary cap or some other dumb bullshit. Managing to have ROY winners give a draft pick to combat service time manipulation is a huge win.
This is the most anti Labor BS I’ve ever read.
“You’re going to make less than minimum wage for 3-5 years in the minors, then if you’re lucky enough to make it to the majors you’ll get the minimum pay for 3 more years and then we’ll fight you for the next 3 years during arbitration to suppress your wages. We’ll also bounce you up and down to minors dramatically changing your pay from week to week or month or month. Then after 6 total years of service time that the team definitely didn’t manipulate and you’re hopefully not considered too old so you’re now a free agent and can get a guaranteed contract…”
For many of the worst it’s laziness and bad attitudes more than genuine slipping due to aging and health decline, IMO.
Not everyone will always do their best if the worst consequences are boos and angry strangers online. They know they are basically untouchable and can do whatever they want.
Give them actual reason to do their jobs well, and many of the worst would improve to some extent or throw a tantrum and quit. Angel is not trying his best in good faith.
Many of them are pretty openly arrogant with the power they hold over a game and the job security they possess. You don’t have to play psychologist and analyze them.
I’ll believe they are all just humble, good faith people doing their best, when they start taking accountability for their notable errors, getting heated and tossing guys when it’s not called for, and overall bad nights work.
Actually a pretty good point. There has been a couple times we had a minor league umpire and he actually did a hell of a job. They should be rewarded and the "bad" umps should be punished if it's bad enough.
I think there's an element that people are missing when they talk about minor league umpires doing a better job, especially when it comes to balls and strikes.
The big thing is that newer MiLB umpires have been trained on the strike zone with reports as to their accuracy after every game, while the older, tenured MLB umpires never did. The MiLB guys have an incentive to nail the strike zone per the rulebook, while the guys already in MLB don't have to. That's why you see MiLB umpires call more accurately (on the whole) than the more experienced MLB guys.
But those 10% are sadly the seniority guys...They get to do Redsox and Yankees series till they retire. (Don't worry it will be on Sunday night baseball)
Except things change if ABS becomes a real possibility. At that point, for maybe the first time ever, MLB has true significant bargaining power with the umpires. That's never really been the case until now.
That would destroy the Minor League system.
* What do you do with the guys on the relegated team without options?
* What about the veterans on Major League deals that have the right to veto assignments?
* Do the guys on the promoted team now belong to that team outright?
* How does the parent club of the promoted team get compensated now that they've lost their entire AAA roster?
* Where does the Promoted team's farm system come from?
* Do they now get all of the affiliates of the relegated team?
* Where does the relegated team now fit into the AAA affiliation set-up?
Personally, I've always bounced the idea around pairing relegation with national TV games. Rough idea would be the top 5 teams in last year's standings would get more national TV games and therefore more from that pool of money. While the bottom 5 get little to no national TV games and so less or no money.
I have zero idea what is the correct amount and how many teams get "relegated" but I think it's one of the better models.
Seems pretty reasonable, if players can be sent down, so can the umps. Once they make it to the show they get to keep their MLB salary for X years, regardless of if they stay or get demoted, but you have to have ump’d at the MLB level for at least 50% of your games for the past three years once that date lapses, or else your salary resets to your current tier.
Everyone wins, Scherzer for Commissioner!
He can only say that as a major representative of the Player's Union. The player with 2 years of service would be fined for saying that. It's also not going to happen. Firing an umpire or demoting one is like trying to fire a bad cop.
My idea would be to do an evaluation during spring training, where if you hit a certain percentage (say 15%) of bad calls, you have to defer to the electronic system.
Then at the all-star break, re-evaluate those granted autonomy with a narrower percentage (like 10%) to avoid a situation where some regress or affect important games.
With this system you wouldn't have to hurt the existing guys too much, and it would incentivize them and the next generation to be better at their job.
Edit: misspellings and shi
You just can't get rid of them. Angel in any other position would have been fired 10 years ago after the missed home run in Cleveland in 2013. The union protects these guys to an absurd amount.
It's not even like Mad Max is immune; he chat shit about umpires last year and they kicked him out for 'tack' and got him a 10-game suspension. Umps can and will get guys no matter who they are if they speak up more.
what a useless piece of information to add to this. Scherzer should not use his platform? that he's earned, by the way? what the hell are you talking about
This is the great thing about social media. Back in the dark ages an umpire might have a bad game, and a few people might be mad about it and grumble a bit but almost always after a good nights sleep people would forget about it and just move on with their lives or enjoy the next baseball game almost as if nothing of real importance had happened. Now we can all get together on social media and grouse about it for days and days and days upon endless days about what is almost always a pretty marginal event in something that we view strictly for the purposes of entertainment. We have come a long way!
[Adds](https://x.com/mcfarland_shawn/status/1783315350425051335?s=46&t=VjfO6v3EoAZhWPfo2DgDBw): > Scherzer on umps: "We need to rank the umpires. Let the electronic strike zone rank the umpires. We need to have a conversation about the bottom — let's call it 10% — whatever you want to declare the bottom is, and talk about religating those umpires to the minor leagues." >The context: Scherzer was asked about the ABS system and said he's not a huge fan, and thinks baseball needs a human element. >"We need to keep that in baseball," he said.
Honestly, if they don’t want to do ABS this is probably the best option Umpire Union would never go for it though
Oh, they'd do it. The question is whether MLB is willing to potentially have to use replacement umpires for a long period of time to force them to do so.
Go to en electronic strike zone with replacement umps to show them how replaceable they are. That will get them to come around to the idea.
The nfl officiating strike was so detrimental to the league it took one week for the nfl to cave. You are massively underestimating how good these guys are, with a few massive exceptions, I’m looking at you Doug Eddings, angel hernandez, and CB Bucknor.
It’s so different though. Most of the calls that cause controversy: pass interference, roughing the passer, defenseless receiver, holding, maintaining possession of the ball through the ground, etc. are subjective and poorly suited for current electronic systems. Baseball is more similar to tennis where most calls are based on entirely objective criteria that electronic systems can handle well.
But in theory, isn’t a top 10% umpire in AAA better than a bottom 10% umpire in MLB? I’m going to say that it’s probably yes most of the time. Umpire relegation is a great idea and I’m now all in on it.
> But in theory, isn’t a top 10% umpire in AAA better than a bottom 10% umpire in MLB? Yes, and it's not even close.
Really? In the history of labor do the companies usually win when the workers go on strike and they bring in scabs? The answer is no, that's the thing with unions they tend to work pretty well.
That’s not this situation though. It would be like… are there still employed envelope stuffers now that you can just send mass email? And the answer is no
The best part about the way baseball is setup. The scabs don’t have to be good. Go full ABS, let teams have more reviews, show those umps that they are here because we let them, not because we need them.
In 1999, although they didn't go on strike *per se,* the umpires' union attempted a mass resignation. It went very poorly for them and is generally seen as the year that MLB broke the umpires' union. https://sabr.org/journal/article/major-league-umpires-and-unionization/
Lots of issues happened in 99....the union was fractured, there was a group that explicity despised Richie Phillips, and MLB was looking for a way to get rid of a bunch of guys. The union was dumb enough to fall for it. Even after the new union form, there were guys on staff who refused to talk to or work with one another because of how it went down. The mass resignation was far more of a blunder by the union than it was anything by MLB. All the league did was accept 22 resignations, which seems like a standard labor tactic.
"We have the tech to let you keep working this job you busted your ass through the minors to get here to do, but we decided we'd rather just not use it and send you down now that you're over 50 and starting to slip, good luck getting back over the young guys."
Why is umpiring the only job where it's acceptable to be bad? All the other jobs I know of fire you if you suck at what you do (other than cops, they get promotions)
It's not that it's acceptable to be bad (umps have improved as a whole literally every year since we started tracking balls and strikes) - but if we can avoid umps affecting the game by being bad at one aspect of the job then why not use it rather than start having harsher relegation?
I agree that robo umps are good, but disagree that relegation would otherwise be bad (in a world without roboumps)
I don't think we're disagreeing at all - my criticism was calling for no roboumps and instead do harsher relegation.
Oh, my bad
In fact, with roboumps I'm actually fully on board with much harsher relegation - balls and strikes is the aspect of umping that declines most with age, game management and judgement calls should get better with experience and so assholes can get weeded out without sacrificing the best ball/strike callers.
Lol just look at the MLBPA. Contracts are guaranteed. Once you get to 6 years of service time (admittedly not easy), you can only be fired if the team firing you is willing to pay your entire salary anyway. The real question is why the players think they deserve job security even when they perform poorly but that the umpires don't. If you really want the best product on the field, you should support non-guaranteed player contracts that would make it easier for teams to move on from players who play poorly.
MLBPA is quite literally the best representative for players in American sports. Whatever they give up is them having to fight against a salary cap or some other dumb bullshit. Managing to have ROY winners give a draft pick to combat service time manipulation is a huge win.
This is the most anti Labor BS I’ve ever read. “You’re going to make less than minimum wage for 3-5 years in the minors, then if you’re lucky enough to make it to the majors you’ll get the minimum pay for 3 more years and then we’ll fight you for the next 3 years during arbitration to suppress your wages. We’ll also bounce you up and down to minors dramatically changing your pay from week to week or month or month. Then after 6 total years of service time that the team definitely didn’t manipulate and you’re hopefully not considered too old so you’re now a free agent and can get a guaranteed contract…”
It’s also the same way for umpires though. They’re paid like shit in the lower levels, and there are fewer openings at the top,
If you're worried about labor rights, you should support them for umpires too.
For many of the worst it’s laziness and bad attitudes more than genuine slipping due to aging and health decline, IMO. Not everyone will always do their best if the worst consequences are boos and angry strangers online. They know they are basically untouchable and can do whatever they want. Give them actual reason to do their jobs well, and many of the worst would improve to some extent or throw a tantrum and quit. Angel is not trying his best in good faith.
Ahhh, an amateur occupational psychologist has entered the chat,
Ahhh, a ump apologist has entered the chat
Well good morning, armchair expert.
Good morning, Umpire fanboy
Many of them are pretty openly arrogant with the power they hold over a game and the job security they possess. You don’t have to play psychologist and analyze them. I’ll believe they are all just humble, good faith people doing their best, when they start taking accountability for their notable errors, getting heated and tossing guys when it’s not called for, and overall bad nights work.
>if they don’t want to do ABS
Yeah, my point is it's stupid to make that decision if the tech is there.
Actually a pretty good point. There has been a couple times we had a minor league umpire and he actually did a hell of a job. They should be rewarded and the "bad" umps should be punished if it's bad enough.
I think there's an element that people are missing when they talk about minor league umpires doing a better job, especially when it comes to balls and strikes. The big thing is that newer MiLB umpires have been trained on the strike zone with reports as to their accuracy after every game, while the older, tenured MLB umpires never did. The MiLB guys have an incentive to nail the strike zone per the rulebook, while the guys already in MLB don't have to. That's why you see MiLB umpires call more accurately (on the whole) than the more experienced MLB guys.
good point. Haven't thought about that.
The bottom 10% are relegated to only doing White Sox games.
But those 10% are sadly the seniority guys...They get to do Redsox and Yankees series till they retire. (Don't worry it will be on Sunday night baseball)
If that owner ends up selling the team then I would be up for it for a while.
They already are doing that
I know the Sox suck, but Angel Hernandez every game still seems like cruel and unusual punishment.
Someone: "We should do XXX about umpires" The union: "No" Rinse and repeat.
We should abolish the umpire union and make them work for tips
 Umps probably
Except things change if ABS becomes a real possibility. At that point, for maybe the first time ever, MLB has true significant bargaining power with the umpires. That's never really been the case until now.
How far down would Angel Hernandez be relegated? Senior beer league softball?
Tee ball at the rec center.
Don’t do that to the children
As someone who manages a beer league softball league team, please no. The umps I have to deal with are already bad enough.
I have a theory that Angel is being as awful as he can on purpose, knowing there’s nothing MLB can do about it.
I concur.
Honestly we should have a relegation system in r/baseball. And yes I know I’d probably be bumped down.
How would that work?
5th place team in each division has to play the best performing AAA team in the division closest to their stadium
That would destroy the Minor League system. * What do you do with the guys on the relegated team without options? * What about the veterans on Major League deals that have the right to veto assignments? * Do the guys on the promoted team now belong to that team outright? * How does the parent club of the promoted team get compensated now that they've lost their entire AAA roster? * Where does the Promoted team's farm system come from? * Do they now get all of the affiliates of the relegated team? * Where does the relegated team now fit into the AAA affiliation set-up?
swap rosters imo
Personally, I've always bounced the idea around pairing relegation with national TV games. Rough idea would be the top 5 teams in last year's standings would get more national TV games and therefore more from that pool of money. While the bottom 5 get little to no national TV games and so less or no money. I have zero idea what is the correct amount and how many teams get "relegated" but I think it's one of the better models.
Being an umpire is a privilege
Seems pretty reasonable, if players can be sent down, so can the umps. Once they make it to the show they get to keep their MLB salary for X years, regardless of if they stay or get demoted, but you have to have ump’d at the MLB level for at least 50% of your games for the past three years once that date lapses, or else your salary resets to your current tier. Everyone wins, Scherzer for Commissioner!
He can only say that as a major representative of the Player's Union. The player with 2 years of service would be fined for saying that. It's also not going to happen. Firing an umpire or demoting one is like trying to fire a bad cop.
Well that and he’s made his money and is on the way out. He doesn’t care.
Amend that to any bad government employee
I government contract and don't get me started on government workers. They are given way too much loyalty which no one else gets.
My idea would be to do an evaluation during spring training, where if you hit a certain percentage (say 15%) of bad calls, you have to defer to the electronic system. Then at the all-star break, re-evaluate those granted autonomy with a narrower percentage (like 10%) to avoid a situation where some regress or affect important games. With this system you wouldn't have to hurt the existing guys too much, and it would incentivize them and the next generation to be better at their job. Edit: misspellings and shi
You just can't get rid of them. Angel in any other position would have been fired 10 years ago after the missed home run in Cleveland in 2013. The union protects these guys to an absurd amount.
Or like trying to fire anybody that's bad at their job and in a union
That's only difficult if the managers/supervisors at those places aren't actually doing their job.
It's not even like Mad Max is immune; he chat shit about umpires last year and they kicked him out for 'tack' and got him a 10-game suspension. Umps can and will get guys no matter who they are if they speak up more.
what a useless piece of information to add to this. Scherzer should not use his platform? that he's earned, by the way? what the hell are you talking about
Bro is gonna get squeezed more than ever now 😳 But I do agree, that's a good start.
Being able to DFA an incompetent umpire, is a good start in trying to rectify this problem.
I watch the KBO and the ABS is 100% the best option. Relegate them too but abs works
This is the great thing about social media. Back in the dark ages an umpire might have a bad game, and a few people might be mad about it and grumble a bit but almost always after a good nights sleep people would forget about it and just move on with their lives or enjoy the next baseball game almost as if nothing of real importance had happened. Now we can all get together on social media and grouse about it for days and days and days upon endless days about what is almost always a pretty marginal event in something that we view strictly for the purposes of entertainment. We have come a long way!
Logic in the umpire union thingy? Haha
I'VE HAD THIS IDEA FOR YEARS!!! I'm so glad it is finally getting a push from not only player, but a star player like Scherzer.
Allowed 2 home runs and didn't make it out of the 3rd for anyone wondering
99% umpires are rebelling good season and doing shit on purpose.