Prospectus Q&A: Russel... (06/01)
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June 1, 2013 Overthinking ItThis Week in Catcher Framing, 6/1Framing-related links Because the Martin and Hanigan interviews were so lengthy, only parts of them fit into the Grantland posts. I didn't want the leftovers to go to waste, so I put the tastiest portions together in this BP piece. It's meaty. And now I'm going to take a break from interrogating catchers and coaches. *** 2013 League Leaders (Out-of-zone strikes and in-zone balls, not adjusted for other factors) The Best (min. 70 OZoneStrikes+ZoneBalls) Ratio
Runs
The Worst (min. 70 OZoneStrikes+ZoneBalls) Ratio
Runs
*** This Week in Jose Molina, 5/23-5/29 Weekly Net Strikes: 4 Yadier Molina has caught almost twice as many innings this season, but Jose leapfrogged his younger brother in the runs rankings with another solid week. As always, the three called strikes he caught farthest from the zone: 3. Date: 5/29
Hernandez's follow-through makes my neck hurt. 2. Date: 5/25
Ichiro was surprised by this call. Completely baseless speculation: I wonder whether having high socks makes a hitter any more likely to get borderline low calls in his favor. High socks make knees look a little lower (to me). Someone should do a study! 1. Date: 5/25
Same game, same Suzuki. Hanigan told me that the closer a pitch is to the umpire's eye level, the less he likes to move the glove. Molina receives this one quite casually, then transfers his attention to the runner at third. *** This Week in Jonathan Lucroy, 5/23-5/29 Weekly Net Strikes: 13 A very strong week for Lucroy. If you've been reading this series from the start, you won't be surprised to see that his best frames all came on low pitches: 3. Date: 5/28
The quintessential Lucroy called strike.
More of the same, with just slightly more glove movement. 1. Date: 5/28
Lucroy pulls this pitch up so quickly and imperceptibly that it looks like the ball is attached to an invisible string running from Figaro's hand to the glove. (Or maybe I'm just starting to hallucinate.) Obviously, it helps that Figaro nearly nailed the target. According to the numbers, this one was the farthest outside of any called strike caught this week. That might seem unlikely, but (thanks in part to Lucroy) it's lower than it looks:
It's also possible that the PITCHf/x operator overestimated the height of the bottom of Carroll's zone—he's not a big guy to begin with, and he gets considerably smaller once he's in his crouch. *** Best Frames of the Week 5. Date: 5/25
If there are any home movies of the Molinas out there, somewhere in the world, they must just show all three Molinas making this motion at various stages of development. In the delivery room! At birthday parties! On their prom nights! And eventually in the majors. All of them framed before they could walk. If I were better at Photoshop, I'd make a sonogram image of a framing fetus, label it "Jose Molina, 28 weeks," and embed it here. But I can't, so you'll have to settle for that description of the concept. 4. Date: 5/26
Bruce: Don't do it 3. Date: 5/27
Pierzynski has historically rated as a poor receiver. The movement he made on this one was somewhat pronounced, but it can't be easy to receive sliders that move like wiffleballs. It's certainly not easy to hit them. Pollock looked like Charlie Brown for the rest of the plate appearance. 2. Date: 5/28
I wish I could give Cruz credit for this, because he's literally the least-played player in baseball—10 games and 16 PA since Opening Day—and his next day on the bench might be brighter if he could think about how he stole that one strike. But sometimes, a bad call is just a bad call. I don't know that Cruz did anything to make this a strike. It just was one. 1. Date: 5/28 As seen in the Lucroy section above. *** Worst Frames of the Week 5. Date: 5/25
There are many ways in which this pitch could (and should) have been a strike. It could have been a called strike, or a swinging strike called by Kulpa, or a swinging strike called by Ed Rapuano at first. Triple redundancy! And still Pestano's plan failed. 4. Date: 5/24
Either Corporan was crossed up, or he suddenly forgot physics. 3. Date: 5/27
Sometimes, the "worst" frames happen when a pitcher misses his spot by a foot. Other times, the catcher is Wilin Rosario. 2. Date: 5/28
A rare stabby reception from Russell Martin. He looks like he knows what he did. 1. Date: 5/27
The pitcher was on the wrong side of the plate, but Brantly rarely looks completely comfortable. Bonus Worst Ryan Doumit Frame of the Week
Doumit caught only eight innings this week, so this was the worst he could do. No Doumit catch is complete without a head dip, a right arm spasm, and a strong resemblance to a poorly operated puppet.
Ben Lindbergh is an author of Baseball Prospectus. Follow @benlindbergh
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No Chris Stewart vs. the Mets in the 8th inning of the first game at Citi? Tried to frame a low pitch with a quick little "pull up" ala Lucroy and flat out missed it. Not only that, but the runners moved up to second and third in a tie game. If there was a WPA stat for framing I could not even fathom what he would have received in that spot.