Report: MLB gives controversial umpire 96% grade for a bad call that led to Philadelphia Phillies All-Star's outburst

It seems that MLB umpire Angel Hernandez just can't stay out of the news. In an interview with the Parker and Spiegel show (courtesy of Audacy), veteran umpire Joe West noted a major discrepancy between the metrics evaluating Hernandez's performance in last Sunday's Phillies-Rockies game.

According to public opinion, Hernandez was off all night. Umpscorecards.com graded him at 88% with the MLB average being 94% accuracy. This yielded 0.77 runs in the Brewers favor in a game that saw the Brew Crew defeat the Phillies by a score of 1-0. However, according to Joe West, Hernandez was graded at 96% accuracy by MLB.

There is a major disparity between regularly available grades and MLB grades for Angel Hernandez's performance

The straw that broke the camel's back was a called third strike on Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber on a pitch that was clearly off the plate. Schwarber exploded, slamming his helmet and gesturing wildly to explain to Hernandez his frustration with the calls from that night, earning him an ejection from the game. Hernandez has been notoriously hated by players, managers, and fans alike for his propensity to blow seemingly easy calls. And in the age of Twitter and readily available video outrage has grown dramatically.

MLB umpire Angel Hernandez has cemented himself as one of the league's most hated officials in the game. His performance in the Sunday night matchup between the Phillies and Brewers strengthens his standing among MLB's worst umpires

The metrics that West has cited raised skepticism across the league. The league has not disclosed many details about their metrics in terms of measuring umpire performance.

"this doesn't tell us much, unfortunately. What's the distribution of grades? Is 96 good? average? bad? Also they play a funny game with the denominator (in the past, there are calls excluded from grading for a few reasons, not sure how much that happens these days)."-@Buster_ESPN

This information is going to sow a great deal of mistrust between baseball and its fans. The league is dealing with enough issues already as it has dealt with cheating scandals from teams, doctoring baseballs to increase offense all while coming out of a lockout that many deemed unneccesary. Now, they want to tell fans that an umpire who everyone clearly sees as inferior is actually a high performer? Who are they trying to fool?