MLB Announces Replay Improvements, Hawk-Eye

MLB announced several improvements to Replay Review technology for the COVID-shortened 2020 season, including a relocation of MLBAM video headquarters to Manhattan, as well as formal introduction of Hawk-Eye to replace electronic ball/strikes vendor TrackMan.

Baseball's 4K camera networks will double from 12 to 24 isolated angles for the 2020 season, with a new replay operations center in Manhattan, across the street from Radio City Music Hall. From 2014-2019, MLB's replay HQ had been located at Chelsea Market at the old MLBAM offices.

MLB also announced as part of its second-generation Statcast system, that Hawk-Eye would replace TrackMan's Doppler radar system, with five cameras targeted for pitch tracking: four behind home plate and one in center field. Advertised frame rates will vary from 100 to 500 frames per second, at 4K resolution.

MLB claimed Hawk-Eye's error margin going forward is expected to approach 0.1 inches, down from anywhere from 1 to 2 inches in prior years, which recalls our observed silver lining of the weekend's protection/face covering discussion: with all the cards lined up to adopt some element of an automated balls/strikes system in 2020, baseball has been awfully quiet about the previously hyped robo-umpire concept.
Related Post: MLB Protective Gear, Masks for Umpires Stirs Debate (7/18/20).

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Injury Scout - Tony Randazzo Exits Early After Foul Ball

HP Umpire Tony Randazzo left Sunday's all-Chicago exhibition game after an early foul ball to the mask at Wrigley Field.

In the bottom of the 1st inning of the White Sox-Cubs pre-season contest, Cubs batter Javier Baez fouled a first-pitch 91.5-mph cutter from White Sox pitcher Drew Anderson into Randazzo's traditional-style facemask atop Randazzo's COVID surgical-style mask. Randazzo remained in the game through the first two innings of play and left the field thereafter; he had originally been scheduled to officiate between four and five innings.

The crew's 5th umpire, Ben May, entered the ballgame as a substitute home plate umpire to begin the 3rd inning, with Mark Carlson, Alex Tosi, and John Tumpane remaining on the bases.

Relevant Injury History: Randazzo was hit directly by a pitch in May 2017.
Related Post: Injury Scout - Hit in 5th & 8th, Randazzo Leaves in 14th (5/13/17).

Last Game: July 19 | Return to Play: 2021 | Time Absent: Rest of Season | Video as follows:

MLB Protective Gear, Masks for Umpires Stirs Debate

Major League Baseball has encouraged, but will not require, umpires to wear face coverings or masks, setting off a de facto personal preference debate of what to wear, if anything.

MLB will also develop face shields for the home plate umpire who works in proximity to catchers and batters. According to The Athletic, MLB is testing the shields to make sure they are shatterproof.

MLB's masks optional policy splits the difference between South Korea's KBO and Taiwan's CPBL, the former which requires umpires to wear masks and gloves while the latter carries no such mandate.

A majority of umpires in Spring Training 2.0 have worn various measures of protective equipment.

For instance, Carlos Torres was photographed in Atlanta wearing a face covering, as were the trio of Washington, DC assignees—David Rackley, Chris Segal, and Larry Vanover (though Vanover did not appear to wear a face covering during his plate job Saturday evening)—and New York officials Sean Barber and Roberto Ortiz at Yankee Stadium. At Dodger Stadium, Ryan Blakney wore a white face covering underneath his black-padded traditional facemask.

In San Francisco, the simple act of umpires wearing face coverings contributed to feelings of good will with the Giants ball club.

Giants Manager Gabe Kapler recently praised the two umpires assigned to train in San Francisco—Doug Eddings and MLBUA President Bill Miller—for donning face coverings when offered, perhaps offering a glimpse into a new subtle way to build rapport and improve game management in the age of coronavirus: "Bill and Doug, I give them a ton of credit because they're super humble and open, and so our training staff had a few extra very, very comfortable masks and those guys did a great job. They were open to giving these masks a try and I think everybody on the field was proud of that."

In New York (Mets), HP Umpire Ryan Additon and base umpire CB Bucknor carried small bottles of hand sanitizer attached to their belts.

And when Clint Frazier hit his home run Saturday evening in Queens while wearing a face covering, home plate umpire Jose Navas was right behind him wearing his own fabric cover.

In all, most umpires throughout the league have worn some degree of protection during MLB's preseason restart.
Related Post: 2020 MLB Summer Camp (Spring) Roster (7/15/20).

Having questioned COVID case calculations while later clarifying his belief that the virus itself is very real even if case or death statistics may suffer from inflation, Joe West, along with fellow crew chief Mark Wegner in Tampa Bay, recently adopted the plastic face shield prototype MLB hopes to use throughout the 2020 season; West initially wore blue medical gloves and, like Wegner, wore a surgical-style mask underneath his facemask, but switched to the face shield Thursday after it arrived mid-game to Tropicana Field.

In Kansas City, Todd Tichenor, who wore a white face covering behind a catcher who also wore a mask, told Yahoo! Sports, "I want to make it work," explaining he'd do his best to mask up while admitting there might be times, perhaps out of habit, when he might inadvertently remove it: "Sometimes I let it slip from my nose. That was the tough part, was keeping the full mask on. I kinda just told myself, if I can do that 80 percent of the time, maybe I'm saving somebody 80 percent of the time."

In June, the World Baseball Softball Confederation shared a photograph of a catcher/umpire's mask with plastic shield. When umpiring legend Perry Barber asked why cover just the nose and mouth and leave the eyes exposed (as a mucous membrane, the eyes are susceptible to viral transmission [reception]), WBSC's response ("no screen in eye area here to avoid any interference with visibility due to reflection, lights, etc") portrayed the ultimate dilemma in a COVID restart: safety vs functionality.

Silver Lining: One hot-button issue not being discussed whatsoever? Switching to a computerized strike zone or automated ball/strike system that would remove an umpire from the field.

The extent to which baseball will go to arm its umpires with protective equipment should indicate, with all of baseball's chatter relative to robot umpires, the value of keeping human umpires involved and on the field.

Sidebar: Speaking of arming umpires, Rob Drake, in Oakland, was pictured Thursday not wearing a face covering on the bases while plate umpire Gabe Morales wore both a covering and blue gloves (as did Brian Knight the day before). MLB's face covering policy seems very much to rely on personal preference.

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Former Umpire Rick Reed Dies at the Age of 70

Rick Reed, the MLB umpire who survived two strokes during his umpiring career, died Thursday at the age of 70.

The Detroit native officiated his first American League game in 1979, later serving as a crew chief across Major League Baseball until his 2009 retirement. In May 2008, Reed suffered a stroke, followed by another in February 2009.

He would return to officiate 41 games in his final season before retiring after 3,392 regular season games and 31 years of big league service, which included three Division Series (1997, 2000, 01), three League Championship Series (1989, 95, 99), and the 1991 World Series, working as an umpire when Kirby Puckett hit a walk-off home run in Game 6 to win it for the Twins. Reed ejected a total of 71 players, coaches, and managers during his career.

After his retirement, Reed joined Major League Baseball as its Detroit umpire observer and evaluated umpires as they officiated games at Comerica Park. He also served as an observer for basketball referees in the NCAA Division I's Summit League Conference.

Prior to umpire school, Reed took a sports officiating class at Eastern Michigan University, explaining his 'A' grade helped pique his interest in the profession.

He appeared in the film For Love of the Game, where he played—what else—the home plate umpire, recalling in a 2010 interview that he was hit by a pitch in the mask 13 times during rehearsal so that catcher John C. Reilly's miss would look convincing.

2020 MLB Summer Camp (Spring) Roster

As summer's restart turns to intrasquad games at teams' home ballparks, MLB Spring Training 2.0 brings in umpires. The following is a list of umpires and locations/cities where they have appeared.

Of Major League Baseball's 76 full-time umpires, approximately 11 have opted out due to their classification as high-risk for complications from coronavirus or for other personal reasons. The remaining umpires, along with a handful of Minor League and fill-in umpires, having completed MLB's safety protocols, join teams at cities near home.

Umpires during the season will be assigned regionally, to one of MLB's three 2020 divisions (West, Midwest, or East).

UEFL'er RC2004 has provided the following and maintains a spreadsheet of assignments. As this is a working list, please comment below with any additions or changes and we'll update the table! Crew Chiefs are listed in bold. Opt-outs are italicized.

MLB Summer Camp/Spring Training 2.0 Umpires' Roster

Umpire (MLB)	Team	Umpire (MLB)	Team	Umpire (MLB/MiLB)	Team
Baker, Jordan	TEX	Gorman, Brian	Out	Reynolds, Jim	ARI
Barksdale, Lance	TEX	Guccione, Chris	COL	Ripperger, Mark	SD
Barrett, Lance	TEX	Hallion, Tom	Out	Schurwater, Stu	TOR
Barrett, Ted	ARI	Hamari, Adam	COL	Segal, Chris	WAS
Barry, Scott	Out	Hernandez, Angel	MIA	Tichenor, Todd	KC
Bellino, Dan	MIL	Hickox, Ed	CLE	Timmons, Tim	CLE
Blakney, Ryan	LAD	Hoberg, Pat	KC	Torres, Carlos	ATL
Blaser, Cory	COL	Holbrook, Sam	Out	Tumpane, John	CHC
Bucknor, CB	NYM	Hoye, James	TB	Vanover, Larry^	WAS
Carapazza, Vic	MIL	Hudson, Marvin	ATL	^Wegner, Mark	TB
Carlson, Mark	CWS	Iassogna, Dan	ATL	Welke, Bill	DET
Conroy, Chris	PHI	Johnson, Adrian	HOU	Wendelstedt, Hunter	HOU
Culbreth, Fieldin	Out	Knight, Brian	OAK	West, Joe	TB
Cuzzi, Phil	Out	Kulpa, Ron	STL	Whitson, Chad	CIN
Danley, Kerwin	Out	Layne, Jerry	Out	Winters, Mike	Out
Davis, Gerry	Out	Lentz, Nic	CWS	Wolcott, Quinn	SEA
De Jesus, Ramon	BAL	Little, Will	CIN	Wolf, Jim	ARI
Diaz, Laz	Delay	Marquez, Alfonso	ARI	(Additon, Ryan)	NYM
Drake, Rob	OAK	Meals, Jerry	PIT	(Bacon, John)	CLE
Dreckman, Bruce	Out	Miller, Bill	SF	(Barber, Sean)	NYY
Eddings, Doug	SF	Morales, Gabe	OAK	(Libka, John)	DET
Emmel, Paul	Injured	Muchlinski, Mike	SEA	(Livensparger, Shane)	BOS
Estabrook, Mike	MIA	Nauert, Paul	ATL	(Mahrley, Nick)	SD
Fairchild, Chad	MIA	Nelson, Jeff	MIN	(May, Ben)	CHC
Fletcher, Andy	STL	O'Nora, Brian	Out	(Miller, Brennan)	BAL
Foster, Marty	MIL	Porter, Alan	PHI	(Ortiz, Roberto)	NYY
Gibson, Greg	Injured	Rackley, David	WAS	(Rehak, Jeremie)	BOS
Gibson, Tripp	SEA	Randazzo, Tony	CHC	(Tosi, Alex)	CWS
Gonzalez, Manny	HOU	Reyburn, DJ	STL	(Woodring, Tom)	LAA

Other MLB full-time staff:
^Visconti, Jansen: PIT

Other MiLB (umpires not previously on MLB's call-up list)
Bacchus, Erich: MIN
Beck, Adam: BOS
Ceja, Nestor: LAD
Clemons, Paul: KC
Merzel, Dan: MIN
Moore, Malachi: LAA
Moscoso, Edwin: HOU
Navas, Jose: NYM
Valentine, Junior: NYM
Wills, Ryan: PHI

Joe West Wins Defamation Lawsuit Against Paul Lo Duca

Umpire Joe West won his defamation lawsuit against former MLB player Paul Lo Duca, a New York court ruling via default judgment that the ex-Mets catcher and Barstool Sports personality's comments during a podcast episode constituted enough proof for the court to determine a viable cause of action exists, namely that Lo Duca allegedly slandered West.

In October 2019, West filed suit against Lo Duca, alleging he and podcast producer The Action Network defamed West during a podcast by falsely claiming as fact that West accepted a bribe in exchange for favorable calls during a Mets game featuring pitcher Billy Wagner, and falsely portraying as fact that West ejected Lo Duca "eight or nine" times during his career.
Related Post: Joe West Sues Paul LoDuca Over Bribery Claim (10/22/19).

Following a Close Call Sports Fact Check to the same effect, West's team argued that both claims were defamatory and demonstrably false, citing statistics and box scores indicating West never served as home plate umpire during a game in which Billy Wagner pitched and Lo Duca caught, and that West ejected LoDuca just once during his MLB career—not eight or nine times.

In March 2020, West settled with defendant The Action Network and accused Lo Duca of ignoring the lawsuit. The present court order of July 2020 accordingly removes The Action Network from the lawsuit's caption and finds, via default judgment, that Lo Duca did ignore the suit, which itself was/is viable.
Related Post: Pants on Fire - Paul Lo Duca's Joe West Accusation (5/10/19).
Related Post: Joe West Settles with Action Network, Accuses Paul Lo Duca of Ignoring Lawsuit (3/24/20).

In concluding his remarks and awarding West his victory, New York Supreme Court (County of New York) Judge John J. Kelley wrote ordered the following:
> Default judgment against Lo Duca on the issue of liability.
> Remove The Action Network from the caption (e.g., dismiss in light of settlement).
> Set inquest to assess damages at a later date.

LoDuca's Twitter profile lists his e-mail.

Shortly after the order's issuance, West lawyer Nicholas J. Zaita (who also represents Angel Hernandez in the latter's discrimination suit against Major League Baseball) filed an affidavit of service with the court, attesting that he served Lo Duca with the Decision and Order via e-mail to LoDuca's Loduca@barstoolsports.com e-mail address.

Earlier in the case, West's team tried serving Lo Duca several times at his various residences, to no avail, and the court ultimately granted permission to serve Lo Duca at his Barstoolsports.com e-mail address, as reflected on Lo Duca's verified Twitter profile.

The newly titled case of Joseph H. West v Paul Lo Duca will next appear before the court on September 15, 2020, at 9:30am.

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Umpires Emerge At MLB Summer Camp 2020

We officially have umpires at MLB ballparks as the first MiLB call-ups and full-time big leaguers alike took to the field across baseball for the first time since Spring Training's March 2020 cancellation.

Judging by sleeve numbers alone, Sean Barber and Roberto Ortiz (both Florida residents) officiated Sunday's Yankees intrasquad game in New York while Chad Whitson (Ohio) visited Cincinnati.

Cubs Manager David Ross said Sunday that Chicago native Tony Randazzo and crew will work Cubs scrimmages.

Notably, umpires in New York did not appear to wear face coverings or masks during the Yankees' scrimmage (as opposed to interim-ump and retired player Jason Varitek, who donned a black face covering in Boston, or KBO umpires overseas, who stepped onto the field for their season wearing the covers).

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MLBUA Downplays West as Joe Adds New COVID Claims

With Joe West adding fuel to the fire with new claims about COVID-19, the Major League Baseball Umpires Association (@MLBUA) issued a statement downplaying West's comments, as fellow senior umpire Gerry Davis explained his reason for opting out of the 2020 season.

Recent public comments about the Coronavirus pandemic do not in any way reflect the position of the Major League Baseball Umpires Association.

So what happened?

Speaking with USA Today's Bob Nightengale on Wednesday, West added to Tuesday's comments to The Athletic with the following claims about the novel coronavirus: "statistics aren't accurate, I don't care who's counting them...our system is so messed up they have emptied hospitals because there's no elective surgery. The government has been giving these hospitals extra money if someone dies of the coronavirus. So everybody that dies is because of coronavirus. I don't care if you get hit by a car, it's coronavirus."
Related Post: Joe West Opts In, Several Crew Chiefs Out for 2020 (7/7/20).

COVID-19 payments were to cover costs.

Sidebar: We often receive similar criticism regarding the accuracy of statistics when pointing out that umpires are 97.5%+ accurate behind home plate and 99.5%+ overall.

The New England Journal of Medicine wrote in June that hospitals have been kept largely empty and cancelled elective procedures in anticipation of and to make room for COVID-19 patients and admission surges.

As for payments to hospitals—a 20% add-on for Medicare COVID-19 patients as authorized by the federal CARES Act—a USA Today fact check, first published in April, indicated the following: "We rate the claim that hospitals get paid more if patients are listed as COVID-19 and on ventilators as TRUE," but also found, "there have been no public reports that hospitals are exaggerating COVID-19 numbers to receive higher Medicare payments" and that the Medicare add-on was meant to "cover the cost of care and loss of business resulting from a shift in focus to treat [more expensive] COVID-19 cases."

With recent hospitalization spikes in Arizona, Florida, and other states, many medical facilities have recently reported a shortage of beds: on Wednesday, 56 hospitals in Florida reported their ICUs were at capacity.

Tara has asked for a stop to the fake news.

Nonetheless, West, speaking from his home in Florida referenced a famous death to support his claim that coronavirus deaths were overblown, "When country music [singer] Joe Diffie died, they said he died of the coronavirus. He had Stage 4 lung cancer. The coronavirus may have accelerated his death, but let's be realistic."

After Diffie passed away in April, his widow Tara spoke out about rumors he had cancer: "My husband Joe Diffie did NOT HAVE LUNG CANCER. his father passed, same name, November 2018 to stage IV lung cancer. STOP STARTING FAKE NEWS. I’ve seen multiple posts and it’s upsetting to all of us."

West, for the record, did previously have cancer, which led to a most unusual friendship with Hawk Harrelson dating back to 2013. The Moffitt Cancer Center writes, "While cancer survivors may not be at higher risk for COVID-19, emerging research does show if they develop the disease they are more likely to have complications and have to be hospitalized than those who have never had cancer."
Related Post: Harrelson's Ballad of Cowboy Joe West and The Hawk (1/7/17).

By Thursday, the umpires' union, MLBUA, released a statement seeking to put some distance from West's comments (West is a former president of MLBUA): "Recent public comments about the Coronavirus pandemic do not in any way reflect the position of the Major League Baseball Umpires Association...Regardless of any umpire's personal views, when we report for a resumed spring training and 2020 season, we will conduct ourselves as professionals and in accordance with the health and safety protocols."

Gerry Davis opted out: "I couldn't risk [it]."

Meanwhile, MLB's other senior-most umpire Gerry Davis, who like West is 67 years old, took a decidedly different approach than West and explained his decision to opt-out: "It was really not that tough of a decision for me...I can’t beat on my chest and say nothing is going to happen to me. My doctors told me I don’t have a higher risk of catching it, but higher implications from catching it. Eight of 10 people who have died from it have been over 65 or had pre-existing conditions."

Davis, who disclosed he has high blood pressure, also known as hypertension, brought the conversation back to his personal life and the deciding factor that made his opting out an easy call: "We have three young grandchildren. I couldn’t risk taking anything back to my family."

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Joe West Opts In, Several Crew Chiefs Out for 2020

MLB's senior-most umpire Joe West has opted in for the 2020 season while at least 10 other umpires have taken MLB's opt-out package, West explaining he feels that COVID-19 is not a threat to his health, despite the League's assessment that West is "high-risk." West also noted he plans to return in 2021 to surpass Bill Klem for the most regular season games officiated in MLB history.

Meanwhile, a source informs Close Call Sports that at least eight crew chiefs and two additional umpires on the full-time staff—including those deemed "high-risk"—have opted out. MLB offered to pay these umpires their full wages (as agreed to for the 2020 season), along with credit for a year of service time.

For instance, MLB's senior-most Crew Chief (as opposed to senior-most umpire-overall West) is Gerry Davis, another umpire who may be deemed at risk, and who is just 43 games shy of achieving his own milestone of 5,000 games worked. Unlike West, however, Davis may well decide to opt out.

Other longtime crew chiefs, in order of seniority, include, Jerry Layne, Brian Gorman, Tom Hallion, Mike Winters, and Fieldin Culbreth. A handful of non-crew chiefs also are in the older age category. Long-time backup crew chief Phil Cuzzi, for instance, will turn 65 in August, while rookie crew chief Kerwin Danley will not actually step on the field to work as a regular season crew chief until he is 59 years old.

Another umpire, Greg Gibson, is sidelined in 2020 with a quadriceps injury.
Related Post: Injury Scout - Greg Gibson Out for 2020 Season (6/11/20).

In an interview with The Athletic, West explained that MLB Deputy Commissioner Dan Halem was "taken aback" by West's decision to work the 2020 season, while revealing that umpires will likely fly mostly on team charters during the season, with little-to-no commercial air travel.

With West unable, in 2020, to surpass Bill Klem's record for most regular season games officiated in Major League history, the difference between opting in and out, relative to Klem, would be setting a new all-time games worked record in early April 2021 vs June or July 2021.

In deeming an umpire "high-risk," MLB considered several criteria, including age and medical history, including body mass index (BMI).

As for West, he described his heart as "healthy as a horse's" while stating his belief that coronavirus doesn't personally pose a significant health risk: "Most of these people that they're reporting are dying are not healthy to begin with," adding, "I don't believe in my heart that all these deaths have been from the coronavirus. I believe it may have contributed to some of the deaths." West also said he lost 25 pounds over the offseason.

Will umpires like West wear a mask?

According to the Center for Disease Control, however, the greater risk for misclassification is COVID-19 deaths being misclassified as pneumonia or influenza in the absence of positive test results, as opposed to non-COVID deaths being misclassified as COVID-caused.

West's home state of Florida, for instance, which is presently experiencing a statistically significant spike in reported COVID-19 deaths, does not include in its report "probable" cases: in Florida, only "confirmed" cases are included in its death report.

The CDC and John Hopkins University reported 130,000 COVID-19 deaths in the United States at the time of this report.

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MLB Mulls Reduced Travel for Umpires in COVID Season

When it comes to controlling the spread of COVID-19, umpires are undoubtedly MLB's weak link. In a normal year, umpires travel more than any team, walk through public airports, and take more commercial flights than any other on-field personnel. Consider that an umpire's average age is significantly higher than a player's, and umpires similarly are the most vulnerable uniformed characters in baseball to both contracting and spreading the coronavirus.

For this reason, Major League Baseball is reportedly considering mitigation strategies for its most exposed Tier 1 cohort that go above and beyond COVID testing and other measures already in store for players, coaches, and managers.

Some of MLB's potential plans for umps include:

> Umpire crews may be regionally based and drive whenever possible, as opposed to fly. This means a healthy dose of Los Angeles-to-Anaheim-to-San Diego and New York-to-New York-to-Philadelphia-to-Boston routes.
It is unclear whether MLB will seek to redraw the crews or simply distribute existing 2020 crews throughout the country (and, perhaps, Toronto...will Stu Scheurwater head up a permanent Canada crew?).
Related Post: 2020 MLB Umpire Crews (Delayed Season) (5/6/20).

> Crews may stay at one site for an entire homestand and not leave after every series.

> Umpires may stay at team hotels, as opposed to offsite at separate accomodations.

> Call-up umpires may be on standby as taxi squads, similar to MiLB players.

> MLB still has the option to forego Replay Review this year, but prefers to keep it in place.

> Face coverings may be encouraged but not required.

Joe West & Gerry Davis are nearing records.

And a confirmed rules change is already in the books:

> Umpires will have the authority to eject any player or manager who leaves his position to argue a call or instigate an altercation with a guideline of a six-foot socially distant circle.

UEFL rhetorical question: Will we see an increase in ejections or will players/coaches/managers respect MLB's guidelines?

Additionally, high-risk umpires may be offered paid opt-out options for health and safety concerns, likely with credit for service time.

For instance, Joe West, born on Halloween 1952, enters the 2020 season at the age of 67. Gerry Davis (February 22, 1953) is not too far behind. West and Davis comprise the senior-most members of the full-time umpire staff and both veterans are seeking to officiate milestone games in the not-too-distant future: Davis needs 43 regular or post-season games to achieve 5,000 MLB games worked and West is 60 regular season games short of all-time regular season games worked leader Bill Klem (5,370).

Related Post: Is This Gerry Davis & Joe West's Final Season? (4/29/20).

Coincidentally, West needs 60 regular season games and MLB's proposed 2020 season is exactly 60 regular season games in length. The question is whether West or other umpires would choose to opt out and try and set their respective records in 2021, presumably with fans in attendance.

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