Angel Hernandez makes MLB's worst call in four years

0:00 Intro
1:32 Worst calls

21:10 Minor leagues

26:49 Twin pitches

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome to Jimmy's Three Things. Today on the show,
we're gonna see how far back in time we have
to go to find a call worse than the one
Angel Hernandez made in the Astros Rangers game. We have
an interesting, kind of odd update from an athletic article
about the minor league system and what's going on over there.
All the minor leagues are being bought up by one company.

(00:21):
And then a little insight into my hobby, which is
finding twin pitches. I found a good one the other
day in a session where I was searching for twin pitches.
I'm gonna take a sip of my coffee and then
we will start, all right. Thank you very much for joining.
As I said, it's Jimmy's Three Things and we are

(00:42):
with the Dan Patrick Network now, so if you're tuning
in on that new RSS feed, iHeart podcast. Thank you
very much for joining. My name is Jimmy. This is
a Talking Baseball episode. There's a series that I run
on the Talking Baseball YouTube channel, so if you want
any of the visuals, you can head there where you
can listen on the podcast once a week. Deep Dives

(01:03):
or Shallow Dives whatever. I want to do three topics
that I think I'm interested in, and I want to
spend some time. I fiddle around on my computer so
you can see my screen, you can see my searching,
and then I talk out loud and it's kind of
just like you guys were all here together, a little
intimate session. I'm very bad at math, that's something you
need to know. And sometimes I talk fast and I

(01:24):
mess up my words. I'm not a professional. I'm not
conan on hot ones. That was incredible what he did. Anyway,
let's get into it the first one. So over the
weekend we had these three missed calls by Angel Hernandez
in the Texas and Astros game that were incredible, just
absolutely incredible missed calls, three in a row and one

(01:46):
at bat outside righty pitcher, righty batter outside pitch with break.
Got the first call, gets the second call, says I
guess I'll just stay out there. Boom. He gets the
third and that third one is incredibly outside. Actually, thanks

(02:07):
to umpire Auditor, we know that it was six point
seven eight inches outside, which is the largest miss in
umpire auditor history. Unbelievable. Shout out to Maddy Mass who
does the morning show with me someone or I'll shout
them out. Adam Samuel said, I need someone to overlay
Anthony Rizzo in the batter's box for that last pitch

(02:28):
because I'm convinced that last pitch would have hit him.
And Angel called it a strike and Maddy Mass producer here,
was more than a producer. He reproduces the morning show
and does a lot for us. Made the edit on
Twitter and it was close might have hit him. I
think Rizzo stood closer to that at times and gotten

(02:49):
hit by a pitch gave the framber at bat maybe
me that's when he took. But uh so, just a
bad call. So I wanted to go to Baseball Savant
and see if that's the worst call on a ball
on that side of the plate that far off the
plate this season. So first I tried to find if
we have the coordinates for plate X and plate Z

(03:12):
that's what they use, and someone on Reddit, Jay Remsky,
three years ago, said what are the plate coordinates for
the strike zone? And then he says, I sampled data
from stat Cast only included pitches in the zone and
found the coordinates to be the following. So he has
If the pitch is more than negative point eight and

(03:33):
less than point eight, that's off the zone left and right.
So I guess that means from the dead center of
the plate, we're going an eighth of a I don't know,
point eight away both sides. So I did that. So
what I did was I went to Baseball Savant, okay,

(03:53):
which I use a lot, and I searched for all
called strikes in the season twenty twenty four on pitches
that were greater than or equal to zero point eight three.
And what I did was I just took one pitcher
at first to make sure I was on the right path,
and I typed in Marcus Stroman, so he has one

(04:15):
hundred and eleven pitches. And then if I pitch chart it,
because it's less data, so the pitch chart will populate quicker.
You can see in the pitch chart that yes, okay,
we have the line. We're looking at all all pitches
off the plate. If you're a righty batter, it's away
from you. So now I'm going to cancel it and
not make it so it can be any pitcher at

(04:36):
all and search and we're gonna change the included stats
of the search to include plate X, so we can
toggle it by that, and then we're going to group
the results by player and event. Someone in the comments
last week let me know that that's how you do it,
so they don't take the average. So when we find
the highest and lowest hit ball, when we come back

(04:57):
to that, I know a better way to do it. Now.
Thanks that person in the comments, I forget who you were.
So this is populating all of them. And because I
changed the parameters, it took away the plate X, so
let me put that back in here. And I that
umpire auditor says that that's the most outside pitch called
a strike, and here it is JP France, the pitcher,

(05:25):
and it was this has as one point four, so
I don't know. I don't know what one point four is.
I don't know what that measurement is, but yeah, there
it is. That's the Angel her with especially with the
banks and loaded one out faces loaded one out. So
that's the that's the most this season by a good amount.
The next is, oh, look, this is the same game,

(05:47):
So the second one comes from a different game, but
then the third and the fourth come from the same game.
That Angel Hernandez made all those calls, but a different
at bats because Dane Dunning, the pitcher for the Rangers,
saw what Angel was doing and what is like, I'll
do that so in the bottom Oh, actually he got

(06:09):
one first in the third inning. So here's Angel again
in the same game to al two A. This wasn't
that viral bat. This at bat, this is a different one. Oh,
and we're toggling and we're waiting and it's loading. I'll
just loaded another one. Well here and then this was
the fifth inning. Here's a LTV with a one Oak down. Oh,

(06:30):
it's going to have you back in the booth. I
know you watch every game. So Angel has I want
to know the county yin or DF. So Angel has
won three of the top four this season off the
plate that way. And then here's one Ronald Blanco also

(06:51):
Texas Houston series. So someone also, why Lane isn't that
the JP Frantz one? Is? Why at Langford? Okay, that's interesting?
So same stadium or no? Was this did they play
like a home and away like two games, three innings

(07:14):
tonight nine innings? Yeah, this is different stadium, different stadium,
but same two teams, same batter. Though I do wonder
if there's any of him reacting. I did a whole
breakdown on this. I'm like some batters, some umps call
it on not the pitch, just all the surroundings, like
the old school lumps, and like he throws his hands

(07:36):
at it. Now, I don't know, you know what it is.
I did a whole breakdown on this, Like if we
click on any of these, let's see who this one is. One.
This is Boston Cole Irvin on the bump. I'm gonna
guess they're all righty pitchers, righty batters. Oh, lefty pitcher, wrong,

(07:56):
instantly wrong. Pablo Reyes second base tonight, hitting out a
sixth spot, hitting one. I mean that's you'll understand a
righty pitcher, because the ball has to come across at
least from the body. This one's just never even there.
I don't know what that helm's doing. Uh okay, So
let's so it's one point one four. Let's go back

(08:20):
and include Now I'm gonna change this to greater than
one point Angel Hernon has got three of the top
four and the third one is one point two to five.
So I'm gonna go one point two four. I'm gonna
see how many years. Do we have to go back
where he gets beat? If I include twenty twenty three

(08:43):
in the search and up it just so it has to,
it gives us less info. Is Angel still the leader
sort by played x Angel? No, well, he could be
the ump in any of these games, so a lot
last year, which obviously is a bigger data size. Now
what I'm interested in is when I click these videos,

(09:06):
the majority I would guess are righty picture, righty batter
and the umpire is his head is set up way
on the inside corner, giving himself a weird angle. And
I'm wrong already the first three or lefty pictures, So
just I've been wrong every time I've said that. But
let's see the umpire thing. See where the umpire's head is,

(09:27):
because that's what starting pictures have to figure out, these
older umpires, and it's for safety, so you can't knock
it too much. They were taught to put their head
on the inside edge, no matter where the glove is.
Oh man, that's so off off the plate. Let's see

(09:48):
another one. But anyway, Angels is still the worst. The
one point four still beats that one. Let's see if
it beats the next two from last year. So how
many years do we have to go back? Because I'm
otitor said in its history, so is it gonna be
every year? It's the worst in the last ten years
of collecting video of these instances. Is that what we're saying? No?

(10:12):
Fucking oh? This is this? Is this the same mump
as the Red Sox series? I think it is? Look
where his head is? No way that got called a
strike in a two run game in the bottom of
the eighth inning. Who's this umpire? Let's go twenty twenty three,
May twenty second Miami Colorado reference. This homeplate umpire is

(10:43):
Bruce Dreckman. I haven't heard that name, which means he's
maybe not that bad. Oh, here's the guy. Here's C. B. Buckner.
He is maybe the worst at this, just awful. Look
at his head is no work close. He doesn't even
like try to tilt his head to track the ball,
to get on the same angle as the ball, to

(11:04):
move with the catcher. I did it a video on
Was it Tom Paine or was it Hoburg who had
a perfect game in the World Series. He moves his
head with the catcher so we can see the path
of the ball where it's coming from This is a
breaking ball from a lefty, so it the closest it
is to the strike zone is at the very end,

(11:24):
and it's still not over the plate and it looks
like bucker, you're not even looking at it. That's disappointing,
all right, So if I go to last year JP France,
the pitch is still the longest. Let's just toggle this
to one point thirty nine, so it's only going to
give us and in the stat cast er, so I'm

(11:45):
going back to twenty fifteen, pitches called that we're across
the plate at one point three to nine or higher
and we're called to strike. We'll see if this pitch
by Angel Hennes is truly according to Savant, the worst
in the last whatever years, doesn't. Okay, so there's been
oh there's been away Do these have video or these wrong?

(12:07):
This one says four point four or five. I'm gonna
guess this is early hit tracks and not true a
game from twenty sixteen and we have video. Stephen Piscatti,
this has to be a blip. Yeah, he's going to
ask you tip. So like hit traction just didn't pick
that up. It was kind of right down the middle. Now,

(12:28):
this next one is one eight four? Could that really
be that far off the plate? One? I've givens first
and second, nobody out seventh in it goes after the
first pitch up played umpire in the check. Yeah, he
might have called that on the check swing. So I
don't count that all right, Luis Severino twenty sixteen. Let's
see this one Hankees two. Sandy had four RBIs Friday

(12:54):
at Dodger Stadium. So I think where you can't count
twenty six maybe we can count twenty seventeen. All the
twenty sixteen ones are like this. The stat cast is wrong.
It's it's clearly not picking it up right. Twenty seventeen,
Julio Tehran. Let's see what he's got. How bad was

(13:15):
this call? But dating back to that second game in
New York where the braze one right down the middle.
Twenty twenty one, this is my last hope, and I'm
getting out of here because all these are just they're
just wrong numbers. They should probably change that on Baseball
savon or something. Although who else is doing this exercise

(13:37):
besides not sure about the advanced stats there with Earl Weaver.
Oh no way, no way, Okay, this is the worst
one we've had. That is incredible. So who is this?
This is Trey Mancini is at the plate. Buck Farmer
is the pitcher. It's a five to one game in
the eighth with two on and this pitch no way

(14:04):
look at the UMP's head. You can't even see it.
He's so far off the plate on the right side.
Oh that's crazy. What umpire is? This is he still
lumping Baltimore and Detroit Baltimore Detroit reference head umpire ramon
de jesus, he's still umpiring? Oh that is That is

(14:27):
worse than angels by far. That's worse than angels. How
does that happen? Good for you angel? He was worse
twenty twenty. This might have accurate tracking because I believe
they switched all them to Eagle Eye at some point
in twenty twenty or some point they switched all the

(14:48):
data tracking stuff in the stadiums. This is our guy
Bralt pitching. I don't know. Two oz pitch so old school,
and players are gonna expand the zone there a little bit.
That's just not a strike, you know. I was watching
last night. I'm gonna find out who the umpire is

(15:09):
Pitt in case. I was watching the quad box last night.
MLB TV has their MLB I don't even know what
they call it, but it's like red Zone where you
can watch four games at once. This umpire in this
game was ed Hiccock. So the the bad news is
we're not running into just one name. I think it
would be better for just one name. But I was watching

(15:33):
the four games at a time last night on the
MLB Extra Innings or whatever the hell it's called, and
at one point Corbyn Carrol's up and they call a
strike just way high and they call it a strike,
and Tory levels and dug out like this, and then
in the bottom right the pitch at the same time
in the they met. It might have been the A's game,
sunning Gravers pitching against the A's. He gets a call

(15:54):
that's below and they call it a strike. And it
was like two out of the four games they were showing,
the two pitches at the same time were called in correctly,
and they were getting frustrated, and I was thinking, this
is push is gonna come to shove here? I know
a triple A. They're practicing the automatic ball system, and
players like the system. Where they get to challenge it. First.

(16:15):
There's a video of Paul Skins challenging it. If I
can find that Skins challenge pitch is not gonna come up,
and yeah, here it is. So he he's a two
to two count with two outs and two on and
the ump calls out a ball and he taps his
head immediately, So the umpire taps his head and then

(16:38):
they go to challenge it, and in like four seconds
it comes up on the big screen and Yep, he
got the corner. It's a strike. It's strike three. The
inning's over. Simple as that. That's a good system. I
like that system. My only concern is you gotta graduate

(16:58):
a ton of bumps from triple A that and using
the system and understand that strike zone because the umpires
that have been in the league for so long, they're
calling a different strike zone. So if they change to
this system and have the you know, the automatic ball
tracking system, and the umpires call it and then but
for agreed, just one is the pitcher and catcher they

(17:19):
have like two seconds to challenge it. It's gonna be
so sloppy because so many of these umps call a
different strike zone and just quite frankly like a bad
strike zone because of their head placement on the inside corner.
The outside is just an absolute mess and you'll see it.
Watch cbe Buckner up, watch Angel ump Their heads just
aren't in the right place to make the call, which

(17:41):
I think is a safety concern. Let's end this segment
real quick by just finding the worst on the other
side of the plate. This season, So plate X and
plate Z, I'm gonna say, and then we're gonna say
called strike, but we're going to clear this. So it's
just this season and I want to find the worst.
So we know that Angel Hernandez, the JP France pitch

(18:03):
to White Langford is the worst on the first base
side of the plate, way outside. What's the worst on
the other side. Is it a lefty batter where the
umpire has his head on that side of the plate.
That would be my guess. This pitch by Kyle Hendricks
on April fifth versus the Dodgers, and this was minus

(18:24):
one point two three to Gavin looks excuse my history
or hitters trying to do off of him. Read that
and just focus on the fundamentals. Oh, that doesn't look
as egregious. I guess it's not one point four. I
think it's off, but it does have a late break
to it. Yeah, it's pretty off, but it because the

(18:49):
movement goes that way. It's not as egregious in my
humble opinion. Okay, let's see if we can toggle the
highest pitch called a shrike this season just gonna be
the highest or the lowest. This is the lowest pitch
called to strike this season. Tristan McKenzie threw it. Now,
this also depends on the batter, right, So the batter
is ty France. I was expecting someone not I was

(19:13):
like short, short, you know. Lowest pitch called a strike, Wow,
I don't think that's called on a swing either. The
announcer just goes, wow, I wonder where that crosses the plate.
They're they're no wordy to really nice wow. And the

(19:38):
highest pitch called a strike on April seventh, Daniel Palencia
is the pitcher and James Outman damn Dodgers. Both sides
of this one is that the same game. No, this
was the same game as the pitch off the plate
to Lux that's at the elbow seems pretty high. Who's

(20:02):
this umpire? Because he has two so I feel like
that's bad. He has the most off the plate. Uh no,
but this crew does. Who is this Dodger Chicago Cubs.
So it's two umpires in this crew have the two worst,
which isn't good. And this umpire crew behind home plate

(20:26):
Eric bachis, Tom Hannon, Laz Diaz so and Esterbrook So
that crew all right? All right, So there you go.
That's topic number one. Angel Hernandez has the worst call
since twenty twenty, I believe if we were checking the
actual data and it was really bad. And umpires, I'm
worried about them when the new system comes in, which

(20:46):
I'm excited for, but I think you got to graduate
a ton of umps or like retrain some of these
ums to understand the difference of the strike zone. Because
if the umps and Triple A are probably adjusting their
zone so they don't miss and get publicly called out
by everyone, and the lum sudden major league level haven't
been doing that. So when they do transition the spring
training where they do that is going to be an

(21:07):
absolute mess. All right. Moving on, there was this article
on The Athletic that I'll just briefly touch on because
I found it interesting and I don't really understand it
because the article by Chad Jennings Evangelic and Sam Blum
on the Athletic dot Com, So go there if you
want to read the whole thing. But there's this new
group that's buying all the minor league teams. So when

(21:31):
COVID happened, they revamped the minor league teams. They cut
them in half basically, which I know sucked because it
put a lot of people out of jobs and it
downsized it. But in the end, I do kind of
think it was good because they were paying and treating
these players nothing and treating them like shit and feeding
them a pipe dream that they were going to be
big leaguers. When there was too many of them, it

(21:52):
was impossible. So with the consolidated minor leagues, at least
in my positive thought process, they can pay them better,
which they're unionized now they're getting better pay. They can
treat them better because there's less and there's less being
sold the pipe dream, because you know, the joke was
you would sign one dude from the Divinikan that you
thought was gonna be a major leaguer, and then you
would sign ten guys for him to play against and

(22:15):
sell them all the same dream. Anyway, there's this there's
this group called Diamond Baseball Holdings, and they are aggressively
buying like every minor league team. They now own thirty
two of the one hundred and twenty affiliates, and they're
aggressively in acquisition mode. To me, that's just scary because

(22:37):
we're like monopolizing it, or it's becoming a corporation and
like franchising all the teams, so they're all gonna look
the same and feel the same when it's supposed to
be such a local thing. But the article does go
on to say that they keep all the local staff,
they keep all the gms, they change some town names,
they change some team names from like the affiliate club

(23:00):
to actually something that serves that town and that city,
and they understand small towns. And like some other owners
that own clubs said, they know, it's been pretty good.
They they pay fair prices. They're actually helping out and
doing better things for the stadiums and the ball club.
So I'm not trying to sit here and say it's bad,

(23:23):
because the article gave to both sides of it, the
good and then like the possibly bad. I just thought
it was kind of fascinating that this is happening. I
didn't know this was happening. And the map is kind
of interesting. So this map in the last four years
shows all the teams they've bought. They have all four
A's affiliates, all four of them, and I believe they

(23:44):
have all three of the Red Sox affiliates. It was
a very mom and pop business and now it's not.
So they really went to the South first. It looks
like they started with a lot of the minor leagues
in the South and the Yankees, and then they're just
continuing to go. In twenty twenty three, they bought all

(24:07):
over Midwest Arizona, California. So yeah, I mean, you can
read the article and make up your own mind on it.
I don't know. I don't know how I feel about it,
because I don't know if I'm smart enough to fully
understand what it could mean down the future and what
it can't. Apparently they're very close to Manfred and this

(24:30):
there was one line about Little League where it kind
of scared me, where it said Commissioner Rob Manfred's one
Baseball Initiative seeks to put every aspect of the game
under one umbrella that of the major league team owners
from Yankee Stadium to Little League World Series and all
things in between. That's not good. That's not good. There

(24:50):
needs to be some separation there. MLB can't own baseball
as it is, like, that's not good. You know, it's
already weird that they own Rawlings, the company that makes
their balls. I don't like that because we've seen what
happened twenty nineteen. Twenty nineteen kind of ruined baseball because

(25:11):
everyone just believed in three true outcome. Then it is good,
you can hit homers and then thankfully we're back to
a better state of play in my opinion right now.
So I don't know if you guys have thoughts on
this or just give me some more insight and info,
Like maybe it's good. Maybe they're helping and there they're
cleaning it up and not letting bad owners run it
because they are caring. But it just seems weird that

(25:32):
one group would own all the minor league teams, you know,
isn't Isn't that what people are scared about the news
when like every newscast are saying the same shit just
because like it's just like a I don't know, so
I read the article, I'll read comments and all that.
Read more, but I don't know. Kind of weirded me out,

(25:53):
all right. A quick aside before we go to the
third topic from our book, Tales from the Dugout by
Tim Haggerty. Flip to a random page. We're gonna do
page number one twenty right here, and this is an
uplifting tail. Tall Jersey City first baseman George Merritt lifted

(26:14):
short Newark base runner Jim Cockman on July fourth, nineteen
oh seven, and dropped him in the baseline between first
and second during a Class A Eastern League game. Merritt
then got the ball and tagged Cockman before he could
get back to the base. The umpire missed Merrit's move
and called Cockman out. That's some schoolyard shit. So the

(26:36):
first baseman just picked him up off the bag and
threw him on the ground and then tagged him. You're
off the bag. Take that, Cochman. Merritt got you, all right.
The third thing twin pitches. I've tweeted about this a lot,
but I don't think some of you might not know.
I do this hunt when I'm bored on baseball. Reference.

(26:57):
It's kind of like when I, like, you know, editing
is my hobby and Baseball Deep Dive into stats is
my hobby, but I can't. I need to take a
break because it's also my job now. So like I've
had to find other avenues that are like, this is
my hobby time and this is my job time. So
no one, this isn't a sponsored segment and I rarely

(27:18):
share it, but I hunt for twin pitches that are
called something different on Baseball Salon. So the release point
has to be the same, the plate x has to
be the same, the break on the pitch has to
be the same, and then I need them to have
been thrown in the same venue, so the camera angles
the same and not put in place, so we get

(27:39):
to see the full flight of the pitch, a lot
of things going on, and then I need them to
be called something different. So right here you have Mitch
Keller's cutter and Lambert's Lambert's slider, same pitch. One's eighty nine,
one's ninety. So I do allow some wiggle room on

(27:59):
all those don't be exact, but you know, same release points,
So the pitchers have to be similar heights or their
release point is the same, same ball, flight and break.
But that is Mitch Keller's cutter and Lambert's slider. And
I've always found this interesting. Some I've done change ups
and fastballs, sliders and curves. This is Lambert's slider and

(28:24):
birds cutter. So Lampert has a lot of twin pitchers
just the same pitch. You know, look at that. I mean,
that's a really good one, huh. I got the overlay here.
It's the same pitch. They call them different things could
be in their head, could be in their grip, could
be in their release. It could be just what they

(28:45):
have to tell themselves. Here's Bauman's slider and Darvish's cutter,
same pitch. This is Deskofani's slider and Anderson's cutter. Little

(29:07):
different release on these ones. One's a little lower, so
it wasn't exact. But yeah, they call them different names.
So that's just a little thing into my twin pitches
that I search every now and then. If I find more,
i'll do it. I just usually hone in on like
one height and then break. But I'll find some change
ups and fastballs, change ups and two seams that are
the same exact thing. But called different. Change up makes

(29:27):
sense because it's in relation to other pitches, the cutter, slider,
they're all the same. We're confusing people out here. Thank
you for tuning into Jimmy's Three Things. If you enjoyed this,
subscribe to the channel, leave a comment on if you
have a deep dive you want me to go into.
If there's a player on your team or something you're like,
is this happening more to my team than other teams?
Please suggest away. Thank you very much, Thank you Dan
Patrick Show. Thank you. iHeart podcasts. See you later, goodbye, farewell,

(29:51):
I'll leader say and see you