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April 19, 2013 Overthinking ItThis Week in Catcher Framing, 4/19Before we get to the rankings and GIFs, a brief detour. In the comments section of Sam Miller’s article about Hector Sanchez’s poor framing in Tim Lincecum’s first start of the season, reader “jdeich” floated the possibility of a link between good receiving skills and a selective approach at the plate:
When you ask people who work in baseball what makes a good framing catcher (which I’ve been doing a lot lately), good eyesight and pitch recognition tend to be pretty far down the list. But I have heard those qualities mentioned, so it’s not just jdeich wondering whether the same skills can serve catchers well both at the plate and behind it. We can check! Over the past five seasons, 86 catchers have caught at least 1000 pitches and made at least 500 plate appearances. The top 20 framers of those 86, in terms of the ratio between out-of-zone strikes and in-zone balls, have an average career walk-to-strikeout ratio of 0.501. The bottom 20 framers have an average career BB/K of 0.480. The correlation between OZoneStrike/ZoneBall ratio and BB/K is a weak 0.11, and the correlation between OZoneStrike/ZoneBall ratio and contact rate is an even weaker 0.07. Framing standouts Jose Molina and Jonathan Lucroy have below-average BB/Ks. It probably shouldn’t be surprising that the connection is so tenuous. BB/K ratio and contact rate are themselves imperfect proxies for pitch recognition and, as jdeich acknowledges, catchers have a much better idea than batters of where a pitch will end up. Presumably, a catcher could be bad at picking up a pitch when he’s at the plate and doesn’t know what’s coming, and perfectly fine at tracking a pitch that he calls for himself from a pitcher whose stuff he’s seen often. Knowing what velocity, movement, and approximate location to expect removes a lot of the guesswork from receiving, allowing other attributes—body movement, glove placement, angle relative to the umpire, etc.—to take precedence in distinguishing the good framers from the bad. *** League Leaders Starting this week, in addition to monitoring Jose Molina, I’ll be keeping a running tally of the 10 top and bottom backstops in terms of OZoneStrike/ZoneBall ratio and total runs saved (subtracting 0.13 runs for every ball in the zone and adding 0.13 runs for every strike outside the zone). Let’s start with the two top 10 lists through Wednesday’s games. And keep in mind: it’s early. The Best Ratio
Runs
The Worst Ratio
Runs
This Week in Molina, 4/11-4/17 Weekly Net Strikes: 2 Another solid-but-unspectacular week from Molina, who ranks 11th in runs saved. We’ve yet to see him rack up the kind of runs saved totals he had last season, but there’s plenty of time. Here are his three best frames since last week, with some commentary: 3. Date: April 14
Note how Molina drops to his knee to receive this pitch. Presumably, he’s trying to drop his target for what he knows will be a low breaking ball (and maybe get into a better position to block the ball). One wonders whether he drops the knee only on low breaking balls, and only with the bases empty (since with a runner on second relaying signs, the knee drop could be a giveaway that the curve is coming). One will check before next week. 2. Date: April 17
This time, Molina knows a high pitch is coming, so he adjusts his pre-pitch crouch again. Compare his height off the ground before this pitch to his height on the pitch you’ll see next, a low two-seamer:
Since Molina is higher to start with, he doesn’t have to raise his glove to the ball as much as he would have otherwise. That makes the pitch's elevation a little less obvious, and Molina comes away with the call. 1. Date: April 14
Nava was not happy. So that’s two low pitches, and one high pitch. As discussed last week, Molina is a multi-purpose framer, not a Mauer/Lucroy-like specialist: he’s adept at presenting pitches as strikes no matter what border of the strike zone they approach. And given how he adjusts his setup prior to each pitch, it’s not hard to see why. Best Frames of the Week 5. Date: April 16
Well, whad’ya know. A low pitch to Lucroy. 4. Date: April 13
Gattis has a wide stance, which makes him more stable, and he hardly moves as the pitch makes its way to the plate. He looks the part of a solid receiver. 3. Date: April 12
Brantly stays very still here, too. He’s on the bottom 10 list above, but he could work his way off with more frames like that. 2. Date: April 12
Kratz was fourth on last week’s list of the best low-pitch framers. He was also fifth on the list of high-pitch framers. Kratz is a good defensive catcher (who hasn't hit at all through his first 50 plate appearances). 1. Date: April 14
It’s hard to tell, since Halladay’s upper body is blocking the plate, but this one was outside. Pierre wasn’t pleased, and with good reason: he was the batter for the past week’s best, second-best, and sixth-best frames. Poor Juan Pierre. Worst Frames of the Week 5. Date: April 11
The bulk of Ellis’ body doesn’t move much while the pitch is in flight, but seemingly on every pitch, he initially lowers his glove, then brings it back up, which has to distract the umpire. He also catches this one awkwardly, rolling the glove over instead of just shifting it toward the inside part of the plate without changing its orientation. Greinke didn’t miss the target by that much. 4. Date: April 17
Suzuki is a stabber. Detwiler missed the target, but Suzuki seemed slow to react, snapping the glove out to intercept the pitch at the last second. That’s not a great way to get calls. 3. Date: April 17
Not the worst technique; maybe a bit too much movement, or maybe the umpire’s view was blocked by Norris’ shoulder. 2. Date: April 12
Ellis again. Once more, we see the lowering and raising of the glove, followed by a stab at a pitch that didn’t miss its target by as much as Ellis made it appear. 1. Date: April 17
Well, this is embarrassing. After all my compliments about Lucroy, he ends up with the worst frame of the week. But this one isn’t as much about poor framing technique as it is a lack of intent to frame: Lucroy was more concerned with checking the runner back to first than he was with getting the call. It didn’t help that Vogelsong was almost on one knee himself. Thanks to Ryan Lind for research assistance.
Ben Lindbergh is an author of Baseball Prospectus. Follow @benlindbergh
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Fantasy Starting Pitcher Planner: Week Four
This feature illustrates how inaccurate K-Zone is.
It can be.
Yes, on many of them the K zone indicates a strike when your info says otherwise.
It's also interesting how inaccurate the "naked eye" can be. Some of the examples that are off the plate look like strikes to me. I guess that shows how hard it is to see where the ball actually crosses the plate looking through a two dimensional TV lens.
Keep up the good work!
Bob
Ben, wouldn't an exploration of K-Zone's flaws be a natural BP article?
I know little about it, but it seems clear that it's not adjusted batter-to-batter individual strike-zones, it seems poorly calibrated from game to game, and it's not three dimensional.As you've said before, variations of an inch or two are huge.
I'd love to see an in-depth examination of digital/laser strike-zoning.
And thanks for the Gattis mention. The legend grows.
Click the link in my comment above.