MLB umpire Angel Hernandez's attempt to revive a lawsuit against the MLB commissioner's office was denied Tuesday by a federal appeals court in Manhattan.
Hernandez, a Cuban-born umpire, sued MLB for discrimination after the league passed over him for every World Series since 2005 and declined to assign him a crew chief role. The lawsuit was first filed in 2017.
The problem with that lawsuit, however, is that seniority is about all Hernandez has going for him in the claim. Ump Scorecards has Hernandez rated among the worst umpires in MLB in accuracy calling balls and strikes and dead last in accuracy above expected. It took Hernandez just two games behind home plate to get to those numbers after returning from a back injury.
Umpire Angel Hernandez missed 23 calls in the #Yankees #Astros game.
— Umpire Auditor (@UmpireAuditor) August 7, 2023
He now has the lowest correct call rate in the league. pic.twitter.com/jmHyBL677w
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Hernandez also tends to have a quick hook and no issues getting into players' faces, something MLB cited in its rebuttal against the lawsuit in 2022.
That rebuttal was a 58-page filing from last August, in which MLB pointed out a myriad of incorrect calls made by Hernandez while saying "Hernandez has not presented, and the record does not contain, a scintilla of evidence that MLB's actions were based on his race or national origin," per ESPN.
This particular appeal was thrown out was thrown out by a vote of 3-0 and followed a dismissal by U.S. District Judge Paul Oetken in 2021. Oetken claimed Hernandez did not sufficiently prove he was qualified for the assignments he is claiming he has been robbed of to the point discrimination is implied.
Why did Angel Hernandez sue MLB?
Hernandez's 2017 lawsuit against MLB originated from claims he had been unfairly passed over from umping the World Series since 2005 and crew chief opportunities.
Hernandez, who has been in the majors since 1993 when he was hired as a National League umpire, said discrimination was the reason he wasn't getting these marquee opportunities.
The much-maligned arbiter also said former MLB Chief Baseball Officer Joe Torre had a "history of animosity" from his managing days with the Yankees. Chris Marinak now holds that role.
Hernandez and Torre did in fact have a contentious relationship during Torre's tenure in the Bronx. Torre once claimed Hernandez "just wanted to be noticed" after a 2001 game in New York, per The Gazette.
Why was Angel Hernandez's lawsuit thrown out?
Oetken claimed Hernandez didn't provide sufficient evidence that he was any more qualified than umpires who did get premium assignments.
The judge in 2022 ruled Hernandez was reliant on sample sizes related to promotional data that were too small to be statistically significant, and white umpires with seniority had also been turned down from jobs.
“Hernandez’s handful of cherry-picked examples does not reliably establish any systematic effort on MLB’s part to artificially deflate Hernandez’s evaluations, much less an effort to do so in order to cover up discrimination,” Oetken wrote, per The Athletic.
Tuesday's appeal decision upheld Oetken's ruling.
“Hernandez has failed to show that the criteria Torre used in making crew chief promotion decisions caused the existing disparity between white and minority crew chiefs,” the panel wrote following the 3-0 vote, per The New York Post. “Hernandez has made no showing that Torre harbors a bias against racial minorities.”
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Why hasn't Angel Hernandez been fired?
One word: unions.
Even with Hernandez's track record of bad calls, the contentious attitude, and the lawsuit, the Major League Baseball Umpires Association is a famously strong union that makes it very difficult to terminate an MLB umpire.
That goes double for an umpire as tenured as Hernandez. When the lawsuit was first filed, the MLBUA affirmed its support of Hernandez.
The World Umpires Association stands behind Angel Hernandez!
— Major League Baseball Umpires Association (@MLBUA) August 17, 2017
A verbal attack on Angel Hernandez impugns the integrity of ALL umpires!
— Major League Baseball Umpires Association (@MLBUA) August 17, 2017
MLB has not hid its disdain for Hernandez throughout the proceedings. Its document detailing Hernandez's missed calls was scathing. It referenced three overturned calls in the 2018 ALDS (after the lawsuit was filed), and said if Hernandez had performed in that series he would have gotten an opportunity to call the 2018 World Series.
"Hernandez did not capitalize on that opportunity and did not rise to the occasion," MLB wrote, per ESPN. "This was the first time since the advent of expanded instant replay in 2014 that an umpire had three calls overturned in a postseason game. Based on his performance during that Division Series playoff game, Torre was not confident in Hernandez's ability to perform effectively on an even more intense stage, and for this reason did not select him for the World Series that season."
The document also mentioned several other missed calls from Hernandez, including a failure to overturn an Adam Rosales double for the Athletics in 2013 that should have been a home run. He then tossed then-Athletics manager Bob Melvin for arguing the result. Hernandez maintains it was the proper call.
This latest decision may be a death knell for Hernandez's lawsuit, whether he tries to continue to pursue it or not.
