MLB is always trying to get its league to become more diverse, as it remains predominantly white. Now, a study conducted by Hank Snowdon, who is a student at Claremont McKenna, claims that umpires are more biased towards players of color.
“These effects are small, but also large enough to be noticeable. Mistaken calls are about 0.3 percentage points more likely due to race effects, according to the study. Snowdon estimates that umpires called about 18,000 pitches differently over the 13-year period of the study because of racial bias, meaning a little more than a thousand changed calls per year. Any individual player might only receive a handful of these in a season, but for Black players in the league already struggling against discrimination in other regards, any additional barrier is a significant problem.”
A lot of calls are definitely questionable when it comes to balls and strikes. This study is now showing additional proof for sure that Black and Hispanic players may have more difficulty at the plate. Pitches were analyzed from 2008-2020. 90% of the umpires during this period were white as well. This study went on to add that these umps tend to make calls that favor major leaguers who are the same race as them. It also ended up being found that 18,000 pitches were called differently in this time period, due to racial bias.
Flip the page for some of their worst calls.