Last night Phillies fans, as well as a national television audience, got a full dose of what has been among the longest running punchlines on baseball Twitter: umpire Angel Hernandez’s work behind home plate.
Kyle Schwarber summed up the opinions of players on both teams after he was called out on strikes in the ninth inning of the Phillies' 1-0 loss to the Brewers.
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Upon further review, it was just as bad as it looked on TV, and maybe worse.
The website umpirescorecards.com takes a close look at umpires calling balls and strikes for every major league baseball game. According to the site, the overall accuracy for umpires calling pitches is about 94 percent. Hernandez’s accuracy was 88 percent. He called 76 of 81 pitches out of the strike zone for balls, good for 94 percent.
But his strikes? Yeesh. Eleven of his 48 called strikes were outside the strike zone, or 77 percent. The league average is 88 percent.
Humans aren’t perfect, but if this is your chosen craft, and this is the very top of the profession, the figures should be better.
MLB
Umpirescorecards.com also keeps a database of all home plate umpires going back to the start of the 2015 season. We went back to the start of last season, sorting all umpires that have worked at least 30 games over that span.
Of the 60 umpires that fit that criteria, Hernandez ranks 52nd in accuracy, at 92.6%. In fairness, the difference between where Hernandez sits and the midpoint is miniscule (1.1%).
But the fact remains that the Angel Hernandez jokes aren’t exactly without merit.
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