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Bad players get relegated to the minors. How about bad umpires?

By Tim Josephs | Last updated 4/30/24

We’re a month into the MLB season and a few themes have emerged. The Los Angeles Dodgers are good, but not (yet) great, the Chicago White Sox could be historically bad and the New York Mets may not be as terrible as most thought they’d be.

One area that has gotten a lot of attention in the early going is umpiring — specifically, bad umpiring. Fans, players and coaches have always grumbled about questionable calls (especially if they go against their team), but the cacophony is particularly loud this year.

While the usual subjects, like Angel Hernandez, are often cited for dubious or even downright terrible calls, poor umpiring seems to be rampant throughout the league. And even with the assistance of replay, the guys in black sometimes have trouble getting things right:

So, what’s the answer? While the idea of robots calling games has been floated for years, pitcher Max Scherzer thinks he has something better: relegation. After a recent minor league rehab start, Scherzer told reporters about his proposed plan:

“We need to rank the umpires. Let the electronic strike zone rank the umpires. We need to have a conversation about the bottom, let’s call it 10 percent, whatever you want to declare the bottom is, and talk about relegating those umpires to the minor leagues.”

Scherzer’s solution seems to have a what’s-good-for-the-goose-is-good-for-the-gander sentiment. After all, bad MLBers get sent down to the minors and are generally only brought back up when they improve.

But, what about those aforementioned robo-umps? Scherzer isn’t a fan. “I want a human back there judging calls,” he said. “It seems too weird to have a robot calling the game.”

He also believes that players by and large agree with him, adding: “I think when you talk to enough guys, we want the human element in the game. Human element in the game is good. And we need to keep that in baseball.”

While eventually umpires may be completely replaced by machines, for the time being, everyone will just have to continue to deal with missed calls. And this occasionally may include the wrong guy getting tossed out of a game.

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