Larry Brown Sports: seven ancient-tenured MLB umpires accept buyouts from the league to retire early, including notoriously oft-questioned umpire, CB Bucknor

Make absolutely no mistake, this story is probably 95% on account of the fact that the automated ball and strike system has nuclear-power kicked open the door of exposing umpire ineptitude, with the other 5% being that there’s an extremely high chance that the entire league is going on strike after the 2026 season and that there will be no or a shortened 2027 season on the near horizon, and Beaner wanted to give their old boys club a chance to get out ahead of time.

But really, this has almost entirely to do with the fact that the ABS system has wreaked havoc on the umpire fraternity, and this seems like the safest way to get many of the most exposed umpires out the door with the most minimal amount of further humiliation at how bad they are at their jobs.

I know it’s been a divisive topic among baseball fans, with lots of old school old heads not liking the advancement of change, and that old school part of me can understand it, but I’ve been a sports fan long enough to know the frustration and aggravation of missed officiating ruining and tarnishing games, so even if it means that there’s a chance that it goes against the outcoming I’m hoping for, I’m generally accepting of the fact that this newer system of accountability is in place, in the event it helps the probabilities that I’m hoping for.

Let’s not sugar coat it, baseball umpiring has been among the worst when it comes to league oversight.  No other major American sport, do fans know the names and faces of officiating crews more than they do in baseball, primarily for reasons of disdain, dislike and hatred.  It didn’t take me long at all to learn who Tim McClelland, Joe West and Angel Hernandez were in the past of notorious umpires, and it took me no time at all to understand the significance of CB Bucknor headlining the latest list of umpires getting pushed out the door.

And not to go unnoticed is Laz Diaz, whom despite not being the headlining name, was very clearly listed second in the list of umpires sent packing.  Whether it was intentional or not, smart of him to sneak in underneath CB, so that some of his heat is mitigated by a worse umpire.  But make no mistake, I’m about as pleased to see Laz getting the boot as much as Bucknor is, because he too, fucking blows.

I digress though, when change this large crashes over, it sometimes turns into those scenarios where we might not like the devil we don’t know that’s looming ahead of us, versus the devils we just sent out to pasture.  I still believe that there’s an extremely low chance that there’s even a baseball season in 2027, given the MLB Owners basically speed-running the inevitability of a work stoppage, with their list of demands that the players will more than likely absolutely not agree to, but regardless of what happens when baseball is back on the field after the 2026 season, as far as the umpiring goes, it’s probably going to be, one of baseball’s favorite cliches, a brave new world.

But at least it will be one where umpire culture is getting something of a hard-reset and hoping that we the fans (and those like me who pretend to be them) won’t ironically know and react to the names of every umpire that is slated for the games we want to watch.