How about an opinion:

[David B]

Originally Posted by mbyron

Who said anything about training? That's a ridiculous red herring. Tee was asking about evaluation.

I and others have already explained the rationale for including coaches' input: they offer a perspective on an umpire's game management that nobody else can. Not a partner, not a paid or volunteer evaluator (who might not hear a conversation).

That's a small but significant component of an evaluation. It's certainly not intended as a substitute for an umpire doing an evaluation, which would cover far more ground and be the primary evaluative tool.

I'm not too surprised that many coaches would ignore opportunities to evaluate umpires. It's not required by their job, nor will it help them keep it. When you ask people to do volunteer work, you have to go out of your way to explain how it will benefit them, their team, and the game. Otherwise all you get are the cranks and hotheads (which could happen anyway).

You have one thing correct, the only thing that we've found useful in evaluations from coaches is "game management". As far as positioning, strikes and outs, coaches simply don't have a clue because everything is based on wins and losses.

We've used coaches to evaluate several years ago for a season and it was a complete waste of time, they simply could not get past letting "one call" skew their perspective on the job the umpire or umpires performed during the contest.

The best evaluations I've ever gotten from a coach on an umpire was when i caught him at church, the mall, and the best place .... during summer ball when the regular season was over and the coach had a much more laid back approach to baseball.

Thanks
David