Ten MLB umpires, including seven crew chiefs, are set to retire at the end of the month, making it the largest turnover at that job since 1999, sources familiar with the situation told ESPN.
Some of the retirements are due to nagging injuries while others are coincidental, as a group of the umpires entered the league around the same time—after a labor dispute saw 22 former umps resign at the end of last century.
Well-respected crew chiefs Ted Barrett, Greg Gibson, Tom Hallion, Sam Holbrook, Jerry Meals, Jim Reynolds and Bill Welke are among the group to hang up their chest protectors, while Marty Foster, Paul Nauert and Tim Timmons will join them in retirement.
“I’m so grateful to have the career that I did and to be a part of baseball history,” Barrett said in a phone interview. “I’m incredibly proud of the crews that I worked with and everything baseball provided for me. For all of us.”
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1. Jose is an Absurd Sultan Posted: December 29, 2022 at 03:46 PM (#6111207)I also dont remember him ever being bad, which is also a plus.
Of the 10 umpires that are retiring this year, seven of them called balls and strikes in 2022. All seven were among the 12 worst umpires in the league either by consistency or by accuracy.
I am too lazy to do an actual stats calculation here, but this seems unlikely to be mere coincidence. Is it possible that MLB "nudged" them out a bit? I am also too lazy to look up the collective bargaining between MLB and the umpires union, but does it provide MLB enough leverage to say something like "Look, you are not getting the job done and, at your age it is unlikely that will you greatly improve. If you keep working, you will stop getting plum assignments, will be barred from the playoffs, might be stripped of crew chief privileges, etc. so why not just retire now and take your pension rather than continue to flounder and end up in a spot that will be embarrassing to you?"?
Where would you put nobody-could-possibly-be-certain-at-live-speed pitches, the ball-and-strike equivalent of came off the base for 0.15 seconds.?
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