Bryce Harper has become the latest MLB player to offer his own suggestion on how to improve umpiring standards in Major League Baseball.
Speaking at All-Star Game media day Monday, Harper suggested that umpires who grade out as the best should be entitled to higher pay. In addition, he argued those umpires should get more plate assignments to emphasize that they are the best at calling balls and strikes.
“I enjoy the human aspect of the game, I do, it just has to be done the right way and I don’t know what that would be,” Harper said, via Matt Snyder of CBS Sports. “But the one thing I think, if you’re a really good umpire, I think you should get paid more and that you should umpire more than one game per week behind the plate. Even if we don’t have the challenge system, if the better umpires are behind the plate all the time, I think it’s better for baseball.”
MLB does grade its umpires internally, with those that grade out the best getting the most high-profile playoff assignments. Whether graded pay would improve that standard is a fair question. However, putting the best umpires behind home plate more often would not only improve general performance, but would also minimize the time spent there by the lowest-graded umpires. Keeping those umpires at the bases — where blatantly missed calls can be corrected by replay — is an intriguing idea.
Plenty of MLB players agree that umpiring standards are an issue, but there have been plenty of different suggestions for how to fix it. The league itself seems to be headed for a different solution to the balls and strikes issue.
