The Athletic: Umpire Angel Hernandez alleges MLB manipulated reviews to make minorities look bad [$}

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Hernandez claimed MLB has a history of discriminating against minority umpires, pointing out that as of the filing of his lawsuit, there had only been one minority crew chief in the league’s 150 years (Richie Garcia) — though that number has grown in the years since. There are 19 umpiring crews, each with four umpires, one of whom is a crew chief. In the appeal brief filed this week, seeking an overrule of the lower court judge’s dismissal, he also raised the argument that MLB not only looked the other way on its lack of diversity, but it altered the season-ending umpiring reports to justify this behavior.

“The District Court also failed to give appropriate weight to evidence of MLB’s disparate treatment of Mr. Hernandez, including evidence that MLB was manipulating the performance of Mr. Hernandez and other minority umpires to make their performances look worse,” the umpire argued in the court filing.

MLB during the time period covered in the complaint, 2011-16, performed midseason reviews of umpires called umpire evaluation reports (UER), and followed with year-end reviews. Hernandez said his UERs were glowing, but when it came time for his year-end review, the results did not reflect the previous positive assessments.

“[A] review of Mr. Hernandez’s Year-End Evaluations and his UERs for the years 2011-2016 reveals that MLB manipulated Mr. Hernandez’s year-end evaluations in order to make his job performance appear worse than it actually was,” he argued. “Mr. Hernandez’s Year-End Evaluations for the 2011-2016 seasons do not even come close to accurately summarizing Mr. Hernandez’s actual performance in those seasons.”

Kyle Schwarber ejected from Philadelphia Phillies’ 1-0 loss after large strike zone ‘just got to me’

Schwarber struck out looking in the final frame, turned around from home plate umpire Angel Hernandez, slammed his bat to the batter’s box ground and tossed his helmet, ultimately ending up confronting Hernandez as the latter was ejecting the veteran slugger.

Phillies manager Joe Girardi eventually took over the argument—albeit in a more subdued manner—as an irate Schwarber walked back to the dugout.

Schwarber then took a few steps out from the dugout to scream “All night!” to the umpire, and “Both sides!,” essentially saying that neither the Phillies nor the Brewers were getting a fair shake of the calls.

“I’m not here to bury anyone, but it wasn’t very good,” Schwarber said in his postgame availability. “You wish ... I don’t know how to really say it. It just wasn’t very good. Guys were doing a really good job tonight of not saying much. It just got to me to where I was going to stick up for some other guys.”

In a 1-run game in the 9th, Kyle Schwarber struck out on a 3-2 pitch looking, and proceeded to share his thoughts with Ángel Hernández and his strike zone.

(via @PitchingNinja) pic.twitter.com/y9pzbeYnuC

— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) April 25, 2022