Yet another ump taken to task.

[RandyTiger]

Story: MLB sides with Roy Oswalt over umpire in ejection

Astros ace Roy Oswalt didn't win Monday's game, but he apparently has won a fight with umpire Bill Hohn.

Is it me, or are the umps this season especially bad? Either I'm paying more attention to them for a change, or there's more blown calls than ever.

[Eckstein 4 Prez]

Nah, I think it's just that the handful of them who have horrible attitudes are getting called out a bit more this year. Country Joe West has been a terrible, terrible umpire with a terrible, terrible attitude for a long time. And any professional sports league that employs Angel Hernandez, C.V. Bucknor, and Doug Eddings is just asking for trouble.

[Jason]

Originally Posted by RandyTiger

Story: MLB sides with Roy Oswalt over umpire in ejection



Is it me, or are the umps this season especially bad? Either I'm paying more attention to them for a change, or there's more blown calls than ever.

Maybe MLB is finally going to raise the accountability bar for the umps. Admit they're not perfect and take more actions.

Or this is just a blip to get PR to ignore things like this for a few more years.

[swampdragon]

Originally Posted by Eckstein 4 Prez

Nah, I think it's just that the handful of them who have horrible attitudes are getting called out a bit more this year. Country Joe West has been a terrible, terrible umpire with a terrible, terrible attitude for a long time. And any professional sports league that employs Angel Hernandez, C.V. Bucknor, and Doug Eddings is just asking for trouble.

Agreed. These umpires want to be media personalities, and many of them seem to enjoy confrontations with players. I consider a good umpire to be one who is almost invisible and never initiates confrontations. MLB has gotten too far away from that model and needs to move back towards it.

[Green & Gold Heart]

Laz Diaz during Monday's game between the A's and Tigers in Detroit was another example. He made some horrible ball/strike calls (against both teams, but Detroit got screwed in more crucial situations) and seemed to be trying to get Leyland and Verlander fired up so he could throw them out.

[RchW]

Originally Posted by Eckstein 4 Prez

Nah, I think it's just that the handful of them who have horrible attitudes are getting called out a bit more this year. Country Joe West has been a terrible, terrible umpire with a terrible, terrible attitude for a long time. And any professional sports league that employs Angel Hernandez, C.V. Bucknor, and Doug Eddings is just asking for trouble.

Yeah, Angel Hernandez manged to insert himself into the 9th inning of the Jays Rays game last night. Amazingly he pissed off both teams while doing it.

[RandyTiger]

Originally Posted by Green & Gold Heart

Laz Diaz during Monday's game between the A's and Tigers in Detroit was another example. He made some horrible ball/strike calls (against both teams, but Detroit got screwed in more crucial situations) and seemed to be trying to get Leyland and Verlander fired up so he could throw them out.

I was watching that game, and that's the way it appeared to me too. The ball-tracker FoxSportsDetroit had up showed Diaz blowing call after call. No wonder both sides were barking at him, and that was definitely not one of Diaz's better days as a home plate ump.

Pity they haven't come up with a robotic ump that works.

But then players and coaches would have to learn how to swear in binary.

[canadiancreed]

Originally Posted by RandyTiger

Pity they haven't come up with a robotic ump that works.

Considering the challenge of hiring umpires that dont' have a broom handle up their ass, I'd be very concerned about their ability to do robotic umps.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by RchW

Yeah, Angel Hernandez manged to insert himself into the 9th inning of the Jays Rays game last night.

I'm more concerned with the lack of people showing up at Jays games. According to Baseball-Reference's numbers, the Jays attendance is down 31.5% this year, the biggest year-over-year percentage drop in the majors. They also have the second lowest per game average attendance in the majors (only Cleveland's is lower).

[Vinny P.]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

I'm more concerned with the lack of people showing up at Jays games. According to Baseball-Reference's numbers, the Jays attendance is down 31.5% this year, the biggest year-over-year percentage drop in the majors. They also have the second lowest per game average attendance in the majors (only Cleveland's is lower).

I always thought the Jays would go the way of the Expos. Sorry, but Canadian cities just can't really support MLB teams.

Anyway, sorry for going off-track here!

[actionjackson]

Originally Posted by Vinny P.

I always thought the Jays would go the way of the Expos. Sorry, but Canadian cities just can't really support MLB teams.

Anyway, sorry for going off-track here!

Sorry but I must also go off-track to respond to this jingoistic nonsense. The Jays haven't gone the way of the Expos. They are in a downturn at the moment yes, but to haul out the example of the Expos is a bit much and you're only doing it because of the fact that the two franchises have played in the same country, outside of America. I didn't expect to hear this kind of crap from you Vinny: you're usually very astute. Of course Toronto can support baseball. Is it a surprise that fans are turned off by the fact that their team is in a division with two behemoths and a franchise that finished just about dead last in the division ten years straight and are now brimming with prospects?

In my opinion we're just now catching up to the rest of the division since hiring Alex Anthopoulos and his 47,000 scouts/advisors. I challenge anyone to find a division where all the teams have GMs as good as Cashman, Epstein, Friedman, McPhail and now AA. You can't because there isn't one. The organization is either at rock bottom or close to it now and I think over the next 2-3 years we'll see them getting back on the upswing by making sound baseball decisions and not spending money like drunken sailors and then flushing said money down the toilet.

When you improve the decision making process, better transactions are made and the results start to come, maybe not right away, but they will come and when they do the fans will come back. They've got nine picks in the first three rounds this year and the message has gotten through to the upper level muckety mucks that upping the spending drastically on the amateur side, while avoiding free agents for now until the Front Office feels they're one or two pieces away is the only way to compete in this division. The last two regimes have been somewhat split personalityish. One move to contend, the next two to rebuild, the next two to contend and so on, but this one seems to have a plan so far. The word "plan" may have been used previously, but I didn't see any semblance of one, whereas this regime definitely has one.

Back to the Expos: where's the parallel for what happened in 1994-1995? They were the best team in baseball in 1994, the lockout happened and the sell-off began. Even then they still lasted another 10 years in Montreal and they never had the stable type of making money hand over fist in other areas corporate ownership to back them up, so I think you're getting waaayyy ahead of yourself. Their ownership was constantly changing hands and they couldn't get an acceptable downtown stadium. Their demise was a confluence of ridiculously bad luck/timing and the fans felt justifiably angry with MLB and it showed in the empty echoes that reverberated around the Big Owe in its sad final days.

The Jays screwed themselves over this year by calling it a "building" year and then jacking up the ticket prices. Paul Beeston was reacting to the amount of giveaways and near giveaways to pad attendance that happened under the previous regime and demonstrating that that wasn't going to happen on his watch. He probably went too far and the fans reacted and unfortunately have not returned despite an entertaining start to the season. It's possible they're making more money this year, despite the low attendance, because of the price adjustment. Let's wait and see what happens in the summer before we decide this is a complete write-off OK? Better yet, let's see where things are by 2013 or 2014 before we go relocating the franchise back to America where you seem to be implying it belongs.

[Skipaway]

What happened was that MLB signed a new labor deal with the umpires at the end of last year. During the labor negotiation, the issue of poor umpiring was raised.

Since the 1999 mass resignation of umpires backfired on the umpires, causing a mass layoff of umpires, the umpire union has not been as powerful as it was. I am sure they probably lost some ground in terms of how the league can investigate and punish them for bad umpiring in the latest labor deal.

[actionjackson]

It is good to see MLB starting to at least appear to rein these guys in because some of them appear to bait players/managers and then pounce on the opportunity for a cheap, needless ejection particularly in the situation of a starting pitcher because that screws up bullpen workloads and I would say has the most effect on pennant races. Usually the ejection all comes back to bad, and at times baffling calls by the umpire in question but you can't throw the ump out of the game. Although didn't Carlos Zambrano try that last year when a call at the plate didn't go his way? It's really bad for the game. I would put it slightly below the level of gambling in the raising doubts as to the integrity of the game category and it's time to put a lid on it.

[RandyTiger]

Isn't there some kind of review process to grade umpires by the head office? If there isn't, there should be.

[Skipaway]

Umpire union in general is against review measures. They fought against QuesTec very hard for that reason. This kind of thing is an essential piece for them in labor talks, and the QuesTec issue was finally resolved in the 2004 bargaining agreement after years of fights. Nowadays umpires don't really have personal strikezones anymore, thanks to that.

Overall, as I said big changes can only be introduced through the labor agreements, and some of the recent trends might be a result from the 2009 CBA.

[Goody]

The Mariners get a lot of extra attendance from north of the border at their home games when the Jays are in town.

[RandyTiger]

Originally Posted by Goody

The Mariners get a lot of extra attendance from north of the border at their home games when the Jays are in town.

On the off-topic tangent, how's the attendance at the minor league clubs in Canada, does anyone know? How do the numbers stack up against the average MiLB club? That should answer the Canadian baseball question, if you look at averages.

Back on-topic, if you watch ESPN's gamecast or MLB's gameday, you can see how a lot of umps misjudge the strikezone or miss calls entirely.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by RandyTiger

On the off-topic tangent, how's the attendance at the minor league clubs in Canada, does anyone know? How do the numbers stack up against the average MiLB club? That should answer the Canadian baseball question, if you look at averages.

The affiliated minor league clubs departed long ago. In 1999 there were Class AAA affiliates in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, and Ottawa, along with a Short Season A affiliate in St. Catharines and a Rookie club in Medicine Hat.

Now, all of those are gone save for Vancouver, which is now in the short season Northwest League.

Last year, there were independent league clubs in Calgary, Edmonton, Victoria, Winnipeg, and Quebec City. The latter two draw reasonably well for independent league clubs.

[RandyTiger]

Didn't know the one in Ottawa didn't exist anymore - a friend spoke just a few months ago of it, he must have been mistaken.

I knew the Vancouver Canadians still existed. Thanks for the info, LGO.

[Jordan]

I can't wait to see what they have to say about the ump that just blew a call to prevent Galaragga from a perfect game. Routine groundout where he was out by about 1.5 steps and he somehow gets called safe. Shame