On Sunday, earlier than an enormous common season finale between the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays, the Yankees Fansided website complained about their assigned behind-the-plate umpire: Angel Hernandez.
“The Yanks and Rays have been gifted with the grasp of chaos,” Adam Weinrib wrote.
New York gained that recreation 1-0, and all’s properly that ends properly. However the level stays that Hernandez will not be significantly popular with baseball followers — and it sounds just like the San Francisco Giants are about to see a complete bunch extra of him.
On Tuesday, the NLDS umpire assignments have been introduced, and Hernandez is among the many chosen crew. The total roster is Ted Barrett, who’ll be the crew chief, plus Hernandez, Doug Eddings, Pat Hoberg, Gabe Morales and Carlos Torres.
As a common rule of thumb, one of the best umpires are those you have by no means heard of. Hernandez, then again, has a whole “incidents” part on his Wikipedia web page. Giants fans on Twitter have been less than pleased when his identify was invoked.
However is Hernandez actually that dangerous based on the numbers? Ump Rating Playing cards diligently tallies balls and strikes calls all through the season and has concluded that sure, in truth, Hernandez is fairly dangerous. Out of the 90 umpires who referred to as no less than 10 video games in 2021, he tied for the Twelfth-worst accuracy proportion, 92.5%. He is additionally vulnerable to the occasional dud amongst duds: His worst efficiency this yr was when he solely appropriately nailed 86.3% of referred to as pitches, sixth-worst amongst his friends.
Curiously, although, Hernandez has some steep competitors amongst his NLDS crew. Eddings matched Hernandez’s poor accuracy, and Barrett wasn’t too far behind (92.7%). A 2019 Boston College research additionally recognized Barrett as a bottom-10 umpire in 2018.
In the meantime, Hoberg was the tied for second-best in all of baseball (95% accuracy), based on Ump Rating Playing cards, Morales was borderline elite (94.6% accuracy) and Torres was above-average (94%).
The precise behind-the-plate assignments are troublesome to parse, however plainly Hernandez will get a shot sooner or later, seemingly for Recreation 2. He, Barrett and Eddings are nearly equally as dangerous. Which, in concept, would not simply harm the Giants — it additionally impacts their opponent, whether or not that is the Dodgers or Cardinals. Just a few extra chaos to what already guarantees to be an intense collection.
