Ump Claims MLB Is Racist For Not Allowing Him To Officiate In World Series

Ángel Hernández has a reputation for being a horrendously bad umpire  — which he is — but he thinks Major League Baseball is not allowing him to officiate in big situations because the league is racist.

Hernández and his lawyers are renewing a lawsuit they lost in 2021 against the MLB that alleges the league was racially discriminating against him because he had not been chosen to officiate a World Series since 2005, and had been passed over on several chances to be a crew chief (other than the 2020 season, when 12 umpires sat out because of the pandemic). 

The umpire’s attorneys stated that the “MLB manipulated Mr. Hernandez’s year-end evaluations in order to make his job performance appear worse than it actually was. Mr. Hernández’s year-end evaluations for the 2011-2016 seasons do not even come close to accurately summarizing Mr. Hernández’s actual performance in those seasons.”

Unfortunately for Hernández’s camp, the idea that the MLB somehow exaggerated how bad he performed is a load of nonsense.

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While it is very easy to say that a certain referee, umpire, or official is the worst within their sport, baseball players, writers, managers, and talking heads alike all agree that Hernández is objectively the worst official in the game.

According to Umpire Scorecards, Hernández ranks in the 25th percentile for call accuracy and in the 14th percentile for call consistency over the past seven years, which included the date range the lawsuit focused on. For a guy that has been calling games since 1993 and that thinks he’s worthy of the duty of officiating a World Series (where consistency and accuracy on calls are never more important), those are not great numbers. 

Let’s take for example the game April 24 between the Philadelphia Phillies & the Milwaukee Brewers. It is an excellent one-game illustration of how terrible this guy can get. According to Umpire Scoring Cards’ Twitter page, Hernández missed 16 balls and strikes calls. It is bad enough. However, when you examine the extremely insightful data from that game only, you will see that Hernandez did more damage that those numbers suggest.

Umpire: Angel Hernandez
Final: Phillies 0, Brewers 1#ThisIsMyCrew // #RingTheBell#MILvsPHI // #PHIvsMIL pic.twitter.com/x38zUGrU5E

— Umpire Scorecards (@UmpScorecards) April 25, 2022

In the bottom of ninth, Phillies outfielder Kyle Schwarber struck out looking at a pitch that was too low. This was the last horrible call in the game. It was a terrible decision that summarised how everybody felt about the officiating.

Angel Hernandez, umpire, was the least rated on the day. He missed 19 calls to get an accurate percentage of 85.3%.

Jean Segura called him a strike when he called 6 batters out of the zone.#Brewers #Phillies pic.twitter.com/pmmt1ELJJ6

— Umpire Auditor (@UmpireAuditor) April 25, 2022

To put the final nail in the coffin of Hernández’s case, U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken highlighted that the MLB picked Alfonso Márquez, who is Mexican, to officiate the 2011 and 2015 World Series, again within the date range the lawsuit chose to focus on. Oetken noted that this was “a promotion that seemingly would not have been made were MLB discriminating on the basis of race or national identity.”

Sounds like Hernández made yet another bad call.

If you’re still not convinced that all of this is enough to prove that Hernández is a bad official, watch this video and all your doubts will be stilled.