One job that I think is imperiled by technology is that of the home plate umpire in Major League Baseball.

“Kill the ump” might be a criminal thought, but “kill the ump’s job” won’t be, especially if one new report is correct.

A study of nearly 4 million MLB pitches by Boston University finance professor Mark Williams and a team of graduate students found that in 2018 there were 34,294 incorrect umpire calls. That averaged out to 14 bad calls a game or 1.6 per inning, according to Williams’ research.

The Boston University team also found that less experienced, younger umpires in their prime outperform the veterans and that there’s a clear two-strike bias in favor of pitchers.

The study was released April 8 and it names names of the best and worst umpires. And if this is any consolation to the players who were called out on strikes incorrectly, the percent of third-strike mistakes last year (21.5 percent) was a whole lot better than when the study began in 2008 (35.2 percent.)

No wonder the home plate umpires wear a mask for protection.