2011 UEFL Awards: Worst Umpire of the Year: Hunter Wendelstedt (21)
Hunter Wendelstedt is the Umpire Ejection Fantasy League's 2011 worst umpire of the year. In his 13th Major League Baseball umpiring season, Wendelstedt finished the 2011 season with eight ejections, tied with Bob Davidson (2010's Worst Umpire of the Year), and one ejection short of league leader Rob Drake. Wendelstedt spent the first half of the 2011 season without any ejections, accumulating all eight of his ejections after the All-Star Break. Wendelstedt had three multiple ejection games in 2011, including
his first two ejections for Throwing At. As one UEFL'er remarked at the time, "Bout time he got a call right. He's the worst umpire in the bigs," though some complimented his handling of the situation, "he handled the whole situation great."
Wendelstedt was accused by some UEFL'ers of having a fast trigger during two other multiple ejection games (
3,4: ATL-FL and
5,6: BAL-MIN), while conversely praised for a patient trigger when
ejecting Jim Tracy in August. Nevertheless, Wendelstedt received more votes than the next three candidates combined and thus, is the UEFL's 2011 Worst Umpire of the Year.
Hunter Wendelstedt now has 18 points in the Umpire Ejection Fantasy League (21 Previous + -3 Award = 18).
The next postseason award, Most Improved Umpire, will be released tomorrow.
24 comments :
Good call!
I will disagree... Balking Bob is worst, and C.B is worse than both of them.
Guess Bob stayed out of trouble this year. I think if Wendelstedt doesn't get all eight ejections in half of the season, Bob wins again.
Come on man, CB Bucknor is the 2nd best umpire in the game.
CB has been improving, he's not out making those headscratching calls every five minutes like he used to.
at the all-star break, hunter had a chance at most improved in my books...too bad hold habits came back in the second half. better luck next season!
it's a shame to see him win this award. because he seemed like a nice guy when I met him.
This is the one award that is unfortunate. I am glad you guys got rid of the Most Declining Umpire award. I don't like the idea of Worst, but I understand why it exists. Everyone is accountable.
MLB has 68 full time umps. One must be the best, and like it or not, one must be the worst. I guess it was Hunter this year after Balkin' Bob being the worst umpire in the league last year.
I'm not sure if I'd put Hunter in this category, but as people have said, someone has to "win" it.
I was all over CB like many of you in recent years, but I have to say this year he was much better. Not sure if that was a result of being on a new crew (Dale Scott) or what, but his strike zone was much better and it didn't seem like he was screwing calls up left and right.
Like many I to do not think this is fair / Hunter does a solid job and has for years. But like your idea that we ignore rule 9 in the official rules because of computers, this too is off base.
I think any fair minded person (please note this does not include everyone on this site)would accept that Hunter has become a major league umpire due to one reason. He does not deserve the position he has. He is very lucky to be in the spot he is.
I can speak from personal experience that he like all of us has flaws.
Does any of this make him a bad guy? No.. some of us have great stories about him while others have not so great stories about him. He is a powerful man in umpiring circles.
There are several great umpires who never made it to the big leagues some worked big league games and were never offered a contract some got released from the minors due to ONE mistake and others never made it out of school.
Hunter is a major league umpire that does not mean he is above critism. And it is nice that we can all have this debate and one thing will not change: Hunter aint going anywhere!!
Wow
If we worry about ejections making a bad umpire. Seems like more than 5 gets everyone to agree that umpire sux, then poor old Bill Klem would only have 10 world series rather than 18. 22 ej's in one year that he had the WS.
Wow-Al Barlick had 12 in 51 when he did the WS.
Harry had 8 in 95 when he worked the WS and 8 was his most ever(twice).
West had 11 in his LCS year 2003.
The difference is Hunter rarely works the Playoffs to begin with. He is not the best Umpire in the league. What puts me off is his crappy aattitude. He acts like he has a stick up his ass and would rather be anywhere else than where he is. There is no excuse for having 8 ejections in 2 months. That is just being a little too sensitive. This award is not meant to compromise how good of a guy an umpire is, Bob Davidson won this award last year and despite public's perception of him he really is a good guy who loves his job.
I think its nonsense that he didn't receive any assignments. Granted, he did have 8 since the all-star break, but what was his QoC? I'm almost certain it was 7/8.
Sometimes the game of baseball puts you in those situations (i.e. The Angels throwing incident with Detroit). Hunter had no control over that; but it resulted in 2 ejections.
Bad decision by UEFL - sorry guys
But 4 of his next 6 ejections were complete overreactions by him. His attitude sucks as well as strike-zone. He didn't recieve a playoff assignment because he didn't deserve one. Someone with the strike-zone he has is just not playoff caliber.
"Wendelstedt received more votes than the next three candidates combined and thus, is the UEFL's 2011 Worst Umpire of the Year."
I think that says it all. People voted for Wendelstedt so overwhelmingly, how can he not get the award?
tmac said...
I think any fair minded person (please note this does not include everyone on this site)would accept that Hunter has become a major league umpire due to one reason. He does not deserve the position he has. He is very lucky to be in the spot he is.
++++++++++
Here's the old daddy got him the job reason again. For the whiner's any person from an umpires family would get this comment. I guess no family member can try for this job, because if they make it they are doomed to the daddy excuse.
They said the same about Crawford and Paul Runge when they got the job. I guess that means no son's in private sector can go to school and have the same profession as their fathers since they would only get in because of daddy.
Now if you want to say he got in because of the strike, one will never know about that either. Some would have made it anyway, and some would not, no one knows.
Blame the people who recommended Hunter, not Hunter. Management picks and chooses who they please. The minor league umpire's themselves have no say in the matter. They either get chosen or not by someone else, just like playoff assignements.
I haven't heard one negative word about Brian Gorman, yet his father was an NL umpire... Only poor umpires receive the family ties criticism.
The family ties criticism is not a fir one IMO. I did vote Hunter for worst ump because of his attitude and short fuse, not because his dad was an ump. His dad has nothing to do with him winning this award. For all the criticsm on Hunter recieving this award, he handily recieved the most votes for it and thus won fair and square.
I have never said a bad word about gorman (my CC of the year btw) Paul or Brian Runge (though i could about the latter) Crawford or Dimuro.
I think people on this site know me well enough that i'm pretty fair when it comes to umpires. Hunter's ability does NOT = that of a major league umpire. His inability to handle himself has always been a problem. Let's take another umpire who gets bashed on this site: Phil Cuzzi.
Many have complained about his calls. Does he handle himself with class and dignity? Show me the times he throws gasoline on the fire.
To me the combination of getting calls wrong and treating people poorly is who Hunter Wendlestedt is an umpire.
Tmac, I have seen you enought this year to know you are not here bashing umpires. I agree that Hunter just does not handle situations well at all and his attitude is far worse from even Bob Davidson's. I believe Davidson genuinely enjoys his job. If so many people were against voting him for worst umpire, than why did he win the award so easily? No one needs to have 8 ejections in 2 months, it is just not how MLB wants you to proceed ablut business, trust me on this one.
There is a reason Hunter has only recieved 3 playoff assignments in 12 years, he isn't that good of an umpire. Not every one will be. You guys just need to wrap your head around the fact that with 68 umpires, some people have to be on the bottom.
I am not taking anything away from his umping ability in general, I just think he is a little below MLB standards. If he was working little league or high school ball that you guys work, he wouyld be the best umpire in the league hands down! bUt as far as MLB is concerned, he is at the bottom of the totem pole.
My $0.02
Ah yes, the controversial Worst Umpire of the Year. Look, MLB has 68 full time guys. Of those 68, I agree that Hunter Wendelstedt and Bob Davidson are near the bottom.
Last year, I had Hunter and Bob as the bottom two. Looks like they just switched places from 2010 to 2011.
What was that quote from Moneyball? There's the Yankees and Red Sox types up here, all the other teams way down here, 50 feet of crap, and then there's us? I guess Hunter and Bob are the Oakland A's then. Still, the A's got to the postseason two consecutive years at the time..
I would like to remind everyone on this site, that just because you have ejections doesn't make you a bad umpire. It shows that you don't have enough respect to end an argument. The manager does not believe you, whether you get it right or wrong. That's not a good reputation to have. On the flip side, you have umpires that routinely miss calls but don't eject because they don't want to bring attention to themselves, thus ending up on this site for people to debate. In my opinion I would rather see the umpire eject then turn the other cheek.
Major league baseball hired Hunter when there were plenty of others to choose from, and Hunter is not the only umpire by a long shot who has only worked 3 playoff assignments in their last 12 years of umpiring.
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