Angel Hernandez is finally GONE!

Jimmy’s Three Things is a production of Dan Patrick Productions, Jomboy Media and Workhouse Media. This episode is available on YouTube HERE: https://youtu.be/F9dYq2byuh8

#mlb #baseball #umpire #pitching #hitting 

0:00 Intro
0:39 Angel Hernandez retires
8:35 Dave Roberts says Elly can get better
17:36 Are umpires helping Logan Webb?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today on Jimmy's Three Things, Angel Hernandez is retiring from
Major League Baseball. Dave Roberts gave Elie de la Cruz
some backhanded compliments about his base stealing abilities, and I
wanted to look into Logan web and umpires and his relationship,
his sinker's relationship with umpires, how much it helps and hurts.
Those are the three things. Jimmy's Three Things is a
production of Dan Patrick Productions, John Boy Media, and Workhouse Media.

(00:24):
You can find it on YouTube. If you don't watch
it on YouTube, but you want to watch it on YouTube,
you can go to the Talking Baseball YouTube channel. If
you want to watch listen to it just audio only,
you can go to the Jimmy Three Things podcast feed.
It's its own RSS feed. I'm gonna take a sip
of my coffee and then we're gonna go on two
three these things coming three three things, very darling, dee.

(00:44):
All right, So yeah, Angel Hernandez retired. He's retiring from
but he's called his last game, like effective immediately, he
has retired. Three he's out, So everyone's gonna be using
his name for clicks and all that. And obviously I've
I've done very well by him being in the league.
But I'm pretty happy he's not in the league anymore.
He's one of the rare umpires that everyone said was bad,

(01:11):
like no matter where they were. I think the only
people that ever stook up for him were fellow umpires,
and they don't really talk that much. But he's out.
I mean, this is an umpire that tried to sue
MLB for discrimination and then MLB had to go to
court and say, no, we're not discriminating against him. He's
just really bad at his job, so we haven't promoted him.

(01:35):
That's how bad of an umpire he is. The article
in USA Today kind of went over some of the
stuff from hernandez past, and it's just so silly that
this like happened. Bryce Harper, same thing over and over
and over again. That's what he's talking about. Angel harn Is.

(01:57):
I remember they have the quotes from CC sabbathom if
I can just can control fined ces. Sabathia, Yankee starting
pitcher in the next game, stopped his postgame press conference
to criticize Hernandez. He's absolutely terrible, Sabathia said. He was
terrible behind the plate today. He was terrible at first base.
It's amazing how he's getting jobs umpiring in these playoff games,

(02:19):
Like you don't have many other umpires being called out
by name. In that same game it was twenty eighteen.
Aldsh Pedro Martinez said on the TBS postgame show, Angel
was horrible. Major League Baseball needs to do something about Angel.
It doesn't matter how many times he sues Major League Baseball.
He's as bad as there is. That's the main reason

(02:40):
we're sitting here so late. Usually guys have problems with umpires,
but they don't feel like they can do this and
call them out by name afterwards. Angel was the exception.
Like okay, So, before Angel became the head of Terrible Umpires,
the face of bad umpiring, Joe West was the most

(03:02):
popular empire. But Cowboy Joe West. He was criticized for
making the game about himself, for thinking he was the entertainment,
taking his time making scenes out of stuff. He wasn't
actually criticized for being a bad umpire, and most players
would stand up and say, no, I actually like Joe West. No,

(03:23):
Joe's a good guy. Yeah, Joe. They liked his strike zone,
they liked you know, they would back him. So it
was always weird to me that Angel Hernandez was just
publicly criticized, and I wonder if that has anything to
do with the retirement. If MLB was like, Ugh, this
isn't good anymore. You know, stats have come out that

(03:44):
he was not the is not the worst ball in
shrike caller, for sure, But I think the problem with
Arel Hernas went way past that. It was just management
of situations, management of the game of humans, of like
having a feel for the It was always crazy. I
kind of want to go watch. I want to see
if they have twenty eighteen alds on YouTube Angel her Nanz,

(04:12):
do they have videos of that? Damn? My videos come
up noted bad umpire, Angel Hernandez blows a couple easy ones,
a breakdown. Yeah, that's tough. That's tough. So I don't know,
he just we tweeted out like a whole montage of hours.
But I wonder if this article is anymore because it is.

(04:34):
It was crazy how many times players would just oh
my god, I forgot he double ejected lanceln in spring training.
It was becoming too much of a thing. I think MLB,
I don't know, maybe Angel felt it as well like
he was. It was becoming way more about him and
how much players hated him than it was about the

(04:55):
call or getting it right or getting it wrong. And
the fans knew. I mean like that, Yeah, that game
in New York, people started call chanting Angel, f you
Angel or something about Angel, like man, I don't even
know if Joe West had people chanting his name like that. Uh,
that's crazy? Is this it? Where this is the pitch? Oh? Yeah,

(05:18):
well that was just he stepped off step back on Angel.
Didn't see it Rangers broadcast. You've got to be kidding me.
Oh yeah, I did the video on this about all
these pitches. Wow, this is just this year and even
umped that much this year, So some great breakdowns will
pass on that. But everyone always said, what are you

(05:40):
gonna do? Wh Joe West retires? Like the breakdowns are
gonna stop? No, Joe West was kind of fun, like
he was aware enough. I think if I had to
place my bets on which umpire now becomes the face
of bad umpiring, it would be And that's kind of
a mean thing to do that. I just realized, maybe
I shouldn't do this. It seems kind of rude. Seebe Buckner.

(06:02):
It's got to be. He's got a bad zone. His
arguments are very much of untitled and stubborn and about him.
He had that argument that I did where he was
yelling at mar Mal saying, you just got here, You
just got here, like you didn't even have a career.
So I would guess cebe Buckner becomes the face of
bad umpiring now that Angel is gone. But I don't

(06:22):
know if anyone's going to be what Angel was because
it was almost it was almost like there seemed to
be very little respect from the players in the umpire,
and there's usually is. Although they argue a lot, they

(06:43):
eject a lot, argue a lot, all that they're very respectful.
Like you know, Las Dias and Boone have gotten into
arguments a lot. When I was at spring training, Las
walked by and Boone said high and they joked and
they laughed and whatever. They're very good at carton pent
compartmentalizing it. But with Angel had talked to players and
I would talk to and they would just go like, yeah,
he's a different cat. He's a wild one. He looks

(07:05):
right past you. I don't know. It was weird. So
he's gone. He's done long career, tried to sue MLB
for discrimination and then ultimate backfire court records say no,
you're just not good. That's insane that that happened, that
it's on like record in a court of law that

(07:28):
he's not good at that, not good enough at the job.
That sucks. That sucks, all right, So that's goodbye, Angel Hernanez,
Thank you very much for all the entertainment. I do
think that baseball does enjoy the theater of umpires and ejections. Obviously,
if if they didn't enjoy it, they wouldn't promote them,

(07:48):
they wouldn't allow them to exist. It's almost like fighting
in hockey. People are like, this isn't part of the game.
It's the entertainment business it gets people into. So I
do think there is like a part of MLB that
knows this. Obviously they promote it, and we know it
because I make videos and people enjoy it. So it is,

(08:09):
you know, kind of a catch twenty two. I still
think there will there will be ejections and there will
be new rules that get confused, but Angel won't be
part of them. There'll be just we'll just move on.
It was it was becoming too much of a thing
where like, oh, Angel's got the game. Look out, guys,
something's gonna happen. And that's bad. That's not fun. Let's

(08:30):
move on to topic number two, which I actually very
much enjoyed looking into. So Ellie Daily Cruz stole like
five bases on the Dodgers. Maybe he got thrown out
once and so five bases and this. I saw this
quote from Dave Roberts. He had five stolen bases and
six attempts a onins the Dodgers. I saw this quote

(08:51):
from Dave Roberts. He said, he said speed, sheer speed.
It'll be scary if he can start to get at
her jumps, start to learn pitchers tendencies, but he just
outruns the baseball. I think there's a desire of fearlessness,
but just sheer speed. You've got to value it. It'll

(09:13):
be scary if someone it'll be scary if some base
stealer coach tutors him on kind of the little fine
tune things of base stealing. With the way he can run,
it'll be scary for opponents. So backhanded compliment saying sheer speed,
blistering speed, but also kind of knocking him as as

(09:34):
a base dealer about you know, the tendencies and the
little things, the nuances of stealing bases. And you know,
Dave Roberts steals some basses in his career. He feels
comfortable saying that backhanded compliments, but maybe he's got a point.
I wanted to dive into the footage and see what
I found, and it was actually really interesting. So here

(09:59):
is elliena of the Cruz. I got. This camera angle
is nice from center field, and so I had to
pull up steals of third base because I have a
camera angle of his jumps and his leads the entire
time if he's on second and stealing from third. So
I pulled up a lot of shots of him stealing
third base, and then I pulled up I looked up

(10:22):
some other bas dealers. So Terrang stole third base a
lot Bryce Terrang in Milwaukee, and s Juary Ruiz stole
a bajillion bases last year. So I tried to find
similar venues and camera angles so I could compare some
some of the techniques and the jumps and all of that.
And I'm gonna start by showing you some of the

(10:43):
other guys. So here's Ruiz and the jump he gets,
and if you've watched a ton of baseball, you're gonna
just kind of be like, yeah, that's normal, kind of
that shuffle step shuffle step boom, go turn and go
shuffle step shuffle step, turn and go that base runners
do shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, pict lifts his leg up and
then he's off, so kind of just like you know,

(11:03):
crab shuffle, crab shuffle, and then you know secondary lead
or first lead, and then you turn and go that's Chisholm.
This is Doyle and the Rockies. McGuire does it. Here's
Terrang doing it. Shuffle shuffle, boom, goes reading the picture,
timing him and as he's timing him getting some momentum,
and that's all normal if you've seen that. Now, look

(11:23):
how Elie de la Cruz does it, no shuffle at all,
just kind of shot out of a cannon from standstill
and then boom, no shuffle, and the arms go up
and he runs kind of like Jack Sparrow, just the
arms go crazy and he's off just standing there, standing
there boom, gohos. So you can see what Roberts is

(11:45):
talking about. Like that one's kind of funny, almost like
he's getting scared, and then just hope I'm out see
you later. No shuffle, no anticipatory or reading the pictures,
just as soon as the lake comes up, just going
boom goes. It does look different. The hands come up,
he gets tall. Usually guys turn they get lower the

(12:07):
first couple steps, and the hands are kind of like
within their body. His arms come up flailing about and
he is off, So that was different. I brought up
some overlays, so here is Terrang and De la Cruz.
This is both at Minute Made Park, so there's not
that many venues where they overlayd where I could where

(12:28):
I could do an overlay with the same thing. And
the jump difference here is kind of wild. So I
sink this up from the first movement of the picture,
which is right there. You can see the picture's knee
coming up, which is what they're reading. And you can
see that in this shot Ellie is kind of shuffling
a little bit, but he shuffles and then comes to

(12:49):
a standstill while Terrang is just waiting. And then Terrang's
off as soon as it happens, and Ellie doesn't use
the momentum of the shuffle. He stands still, and Terrang's
got about five feet on him jump wise, like all, yeah,
maybe five feet maybe more. Ellie's like, you know, six

(13:12):
feet plus some And if you put him lying down
hers lying down, that's there's like maybe ten feet difference
in this jump between Terrang and Cruz. And then what
I did is I found uh Estuary Ruiz also in Houston,
so it's the same venue, so I have the same
camerang like an overlay, and it makes sense, and Ruiz

(13:37):
is getting his movement. They're actually moving at the same time.
But Ruiz pairs it right. He never really stops. He's shuffling.
He's shuffling, and the shuffles get smaller as he's waiting,
and he goes where Ellie right there is kind of
flat footed, all of his weight is on his right foot,
where Estuary Ruiz never puts all of his weight on
his right foot until he goes. And that's the difference

(13:57):
of maybe two three feet, which can be a huge
difference in base stealing when they're throwing a third. So
you can see what Roberts is saying, Yeah, like he
doesn't do the natural base dealing shuffle and run. Here's
all three at the same time, and you can see
he has the worst jump out of the three of them,
and it's because his momentum stops and then he kind

(14:19):
of goes and like throws himself into it where you
can see their arms get smaller in front of them
and his arms get wide and big. So I'm guessing
from Robert's vision as just a baseball guy and seeing it,
that's what he's talking about. But I found something interesting,
and maybe this is a conclusion to this. Ellie Day

(14:42):
of the Cruz has been picked off three times, and
every time he gets picked off, he's doing the shuffle right.
The hands cracked me up. You just gotta if you're
not watching on YouTube, just listening, you just got it.
Like look at this one. I don't know what time
standpoint both hands above his head. He does never really
seen it go whoop, But he got picked off there.
And then he also gets picked off with an inside

(15:04):
move by Rogers and the Giants there, and he's doing
this shuffle, so as soon as he moves, then he's
got to go back. And then here this is the Tigers,
he shuffle shuffles and then turn around move and he
gets picked off. So I wonder if if Elliot of
the Cruz is saying, yeah, I don't do the shuffle

(15:26):
and go because I don't need to because I'm fast
as hell and my chances of getting picked off are
way less if I just stay still and the picture
doesn't think I'm going and I just boom. I have
no idea, but it could be what's going on. And
he's like, yeah, I am so fast, I make up
ground with my sheer speed that I don't need to
do it because when I do do it, I tip it.

(15:49):
Because he definitely doesn't tip when he's going, like look
at these, he's not tipping. He's just standing still. And
then he's just trying to time it with that knee.
The hands crack me up when the left hand like
goes all the way back. It's kind of bizarre. Is
this his pose? Is this what we should make his pose?
I don't know if he's like proud of it or not,

(16:11):
you know, should I I'm gonna screenshat a bunch of these.
That's it's every time. Yeah, I'm just gonna grab a
bunch of pictures. So maybe, uh, maybe Roberts is right,
and maybe Cruz is right. Maybe he's like, yeah, I

(16:31):
don't do all that stuff because I don't need to.
And maybe Roberts is right that like if he did
do it, he could get better, and if his speed
slows down a little bit, then he'll do it. I
have no idea, but I thought it was interesting and
I enjoyed my deep dive into what I found. He's
almost dabbing. Yeah, that's what it is. It's almost like
the right arm comes to the fore and the left

(16:52):
arm goes out. So he's cool hip, a little behind
the times five years or so, but that is uh,
Ellie Daily Cruz who's stealing a ton of bases. I mean,
if we want to go look at his game log,
it's it's incredible. I mean, look how many games he
has with multiple stolen bases. He has eight games where
he's stolen more than one base, and then against the

(17:16):
Dodgers he had five attempts in that In that case,
it's so stupid. I think they finally threw him out
later on silly thirty one steals already, So that's fun.
The last thing that I looked at the third topic

(17:37):
today is I I had a feeling and just because
I've watched some logan web games because I love Logan Web.
And then I saw some ump report cards about how
it was like the most missed calls or something like that,
and I wanted to see how much Logan Web getting

(17:59):
called off the plate helps his games. I don't know, actually,
like what the official question is here, But Logan Webb
throws that sinker off the plate, and if he gets
an umpire, that's gonna give him the call. Over there,
I think he's unstoppable. And if he gets an umpire
that doesn't give him the call. I wanted to see
if that hurt how much that hurts him. I don't

(18:21):
think it hurts him that much. But here's the game
against the Padres. Oh that's actually on the inside. Ooh,
do I have this wrong? Let me see. Oh I
think I have the I have the locations wrong in
my search. He's getting the outside there. Oh yeah, okay, well,
actually that makes sense because I wanted the other side,

(18:43):
so I want yeah, I want uh, let's say I'm
looking at the strike zone here, I want thirteen sixteen
and nineteen, So I want pitches that are in the
shadow zone thirteen sixteen, nineteen, and then they maybe they're
very off the plate. Twenty three, every twenty six, twenty nine.
These are the zones when you search on Baseball Savant,

(19:06):
and then I want them to be so that they're
kind of outside there, but I want them to be
called strikes. So how many is he getting off the plate?
I guess I could keep Oh my goodness, eleven in
this game. Eleven pitches that were not strikes called strikes.

(19:26):
That's a lot of pitches. Oh so they're saying that
those could be okay, So pitches out of the zone
and then on that side of the plate, boom. That's
what I want to look at because I feel like
Logan Web, his stuff moves so late and so horizontal

(19:52):
that if you get an ump that's tricked by it,
you know, like a C. B. Buckner type who sets
his head inside to a rity, you could probably just
dominate that guy. So we have eight pitches, So like,
let's see these pitches in this game. It was against
the Dodgers on April second, and this umpire I don't

(20:16):
know who the ump was, but he was given him
the uh inside the lefties on that two sinker two seamer,
and there's Gavin Lux being like, what the hell man?
Come on? And let's see here's Will Smith. So that's

(20:36):
the slider but still outside. That's tough. This is kind
of Stroman's been doing this with the Yankees too. Slider outside,
sinker outside to righty's. If you are given that line,
you're gonna have a big day. That one. They say
it doesn't come back in. Umpire said it did come
back in. Damn. This Helm's giving him everything. Who is this?

(21:01):
Is this Cuzzy or something? Oh? I think it is
Phil Cuzzy logan Web Baseball Reference game log. What date
was this? This was April twentieth, No, it was April second. Wow,

(21:22):
he actually didn't have a good game. It's his worst game.
Three point two innings, pitch, five earned runs. Is that
the same game we're looking at? Yeah? Oh shit, So
he got a ton of calls by Phil Cuzy and
he had a bad game. It goes my whole thesis.

(21:42):
Oh my goodness, I thought it was gonna be the opposite.
That was only calls on that side of the plate.
I'm gonna make it calls on every side of the plate.
I just added one more. That's crazy. I thought it
would have helped him. It didn't help him at all.
So my hypothesis is bad. So Phil Cuzzy's bad at that.

(22:04):
So this umpire Scorecards has the ability let me just
make sure that was Phil Cuzzy April second baseball game
log umpire home plate phil Cuzzy. So Umpire Scorecards has
the ability for you to search. So I'm gonna say
filter all games played between March third, twentieth and September
twenty ninth, where Phil Cuzzy was the umpire pire analyze

(22:27):
each team's home and away games played at any venue.
This is give me how do I use I've never
used this feature before. It's umpirescorecards dot com. And this
is gonna be every Phil Cuzzy umped game. And then
who he's helped out the most? So he's helped out

(22:49):
San Francisco Giants, the second most? That must have been.
That must have been the logan web game. How do
I find out the date of these games? Does any
do I click this? Does it give me the scorecard?

(23:10):
If I click the team? Now? Does this website work?
I want to find out the picture? What the shit?
What the hell's going on? I want to find out
the picture that he also humped for? What the what
is going on? Does anyone understand what's happening on this

(23:32):
website that I'm on right now? I don't. Oh my goodness,
just a fumbling, bumbling idiot right now. Okay, let's find out.

(23:57):
I want to find out. I don't even know what
what's happening. I want to find out Phil Couzy's fucking tendencies.
They're alphabetical by first name. That's bizarre. Okay, Phil Cuzzy,
Now if I click him, what happens? Okay, Saint Louis? Okay,

(24:22):
it was? It was four nineteen Cardinals game. We're gonna
we're gonna figure this out for sure. We are team

(24:43):
Cardinals pitcher? Uh what David? Did I say? It was?
Nobody knows? Oh my goodness, four nineteen. I feel panicky
for some reason, just because this website just just give
me a heart attack. Four nineteen Cardinals picture pitches out

(25:05):
of the zone, pictures all called strike. Apparently this picture
also Kyle Gibson sinkers. Here we go. Okay, So what

(25:26):
I'm trying to figure out? I want to I want
to know if by the playoffs we can choose starting
pitchers based on umpire, because there's certain pitches and certain
umpires that I feel like you can, Like, if you
want to ride the outside edge, then you need Phil Cuzzy.

(25:49):
If you have a Sinker two steam combo and you
want pitches outside variety strikes, then you need Phil Cuzzy.
On the bump cebe Buckner two and I'm watching footage
here that's on the other side. He just wide zone McGee,

(26:10):
big old knob on Bryce Terring's bat, So it just outside.
So if you just want to attack guys outside. So
now for my beloved Yankees baseball reference Stroman, I'm gonna
go splits, career splits. But Logan Web didn't even have

(26:31):
a good game. That's what's ruining the whole thing. When
he got all the help in the world. Phil Cuzy,
how many games is he up to Stroman? One game,
six strikeouts. It was in twenty nineteen. He was in

(26:54):
twenty nineteen and he went six innings pitched. Come on now,
five hits, zero and runs, one walk, six strikeouts. All right,
So Phil Couzy's umpiring a playoff game in the series

(27:16):
the Yankees. You know what, by the end of the year,
I'm gonna have every umpires tendencies down. So this is
probably not gonna happen, but when you get to the postseason,
there's certain pictures and certain umpires that match up better.
Who cares about the batter? Give me the strikes cause
he's ump in Game two? Well, Stroman's are Game two pitcher.

(27:38):
That's I bet that's happening or has happened in cases before.
I wonder if you can like pinpoint it and happen
and you know, because in all totally stumbled on that
in a perfect world. So what I was trying to say,
you shouldn't care about the umpire because everyone should be

(27:59):
calling the same. But that's not how it works. So
let's figure out which starting pitchers match best with which
umpires and make those happen in the postseason for the
teams you like. Give me the analytics on it. I'll
learn how to use that website better and we'll figure
it out. Thanks for tuning in to Jimmy's Three Things Today,
a show where you listen to me stumble and rumble

(28:22):
and ramble on. But sometimes we find some cool stuff.
The only day of the crew stuff is interesting. And
I wonder if he's not doing shuffles because he doesn't
need to, or because he doesn't have the fine tune
tendencies of a base dealer. Yet, you guys let me
know what you think in the comments, and I appreciate that,
and I appreciate that you watch and you enjoy, and

(28:43):
you can subscribe to the channel if it so pleases you.
It would please me. Goodbye, see you