5 most egregious called strikes against Cardinal batters since 2016

Umpires have a greater effect on the baseball game than fans may think, particularly home plate umpires. The average MLB game has around 300 pitches thrown, so the umpires behind the plate play a massive role in any given game. Some home plate umpires are placed in scorching conditions in the middle of the summer; some mistakes are understandable.

Umpires such as CB Bucknor, Laz Diaz, Phil Cuzzi, and Angel Hernandez, long-time veterans of their craft, are notorious for being terrible pitch callers. Angel Hernandez has received plenty of flak so far in the young 2024 season. All of the missed calls by umpires have made fans and critics of the game alike clamor for an automated strike system similar to what is used in the minor leagues.

Most recently, Hernandez missed 21 calls in a game between the San Diego Padres and Milwaukee Brewers. However, most of his fame this year came from three terrible calls against Texas Rangers rookie Wyatt Langford.

All of these missed calls made me want to figure out which called strikes have gone against the St. Louis Cardinals in the most egregious ways. In order to find out this information, I went to Baseball Savant. Below is a thread I put out on X (formerly known as Twitter) that details the 5 most extreme called strikes since 2016.

The Cardinals have already been on the wrong side of many calls by umpires this year. While they haven't experienced the worst of home plate umpire calls, they have received a fair amount of calls going the other way. While umpires aren't the main reason the Cardinals are off to a relatively uninspiring start, they are a part of it.

For this exercise, I limited the scope to 2016, as that is when accurate pitch tracking became strongest.

Here are the 5 most egregious called strikes against the St. Louis Cardinals since 2016.