Monday, November 29, 2021

2021 UEFL Award for Disappointing Season - Doug Eddings

The Umpire Ejection Fantasy League's 2021 Postseason Award recipient for Most Disappointing Season is Doug Eddings (88) [2020 Winner: Rob Drake]).
Voting Results (Top 3): Eddings (13.1%), Angel Hernandez (12.5%), Hunter Wendelstedt (6.9%).

The UEFL Awards as defined in Rule 4-4 begin with Most Disappointing Season, below, and continue with Most Improved, Fill-In, Crew Chief, Honorable, Promising, Ejection(s) of the Year and concluding with Umpire of the Year. 209 total ballots were cast during this year's nominations process.

Doug Eddings receives 2021's Most Disappointing Season Award.

Eddings, it should be noted, received a postseason assignment in the form of Game 5 HP Umpire for the Dodgers-Giants NL Division Series, in which Eddings called a respectable 97.7%, the second-highest score of that NLDS (Pat Hoberg Gm 4 was highest [97.9%]).

Yet, as JD wrote in nominating Eddings for this award, "I'll be straightforward, this was an awful year in all optics for him...his body language out there at times made it seem like he wasn't enjoying himself or the profession." NoahYingling noted recency bias may have played a role, as Eddings' first half appeared stronger than the second half.

Eddings concluded 2021 with eight ejections and featured prominently in Crew Chief Bill Miller's late September ejection of Cardinals manager Mike Schildt following an infield fly rule/changed out/safe/"Time" play in which both Miller and 3B Umpire Gabe Morales signaled an infield fly on a batter's R1-R2, one-out fair pop fly in front of third base, but 2B Umpire Eddings nonetheless ruled R1 out on a (non-existent) force play when the defense tagged second base.

During that ejection, commenter John noted that due to the ejection's very-late-season occurrence, "I'm not sure that we can assume that Eddings won't get any playoff games. While this call is BAD it's already been mentioned that the playoff list for the WC and divisional series has already gone out to the selected umpires."

UEFL Awards History, Doug Eddings
Most Improved Umpire of the Year - 2019

The next postseason award, Most Improved Umpire of the Year, will be released next.

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