Maybe the Atlanta Braves Want to Ride the Framing Wave

There’s a trendy thing in Catching: pitch framing skills. It may not matter if you can swing a bat or throw out a base stealer, but if you can steal a strike and crouch in a meaningful way, teams want to hire you.

I’m guessing you’ve heard this rumor… that the Atlanta Braves are looking for a catcher.

Apparently it’s not just any catcher. Otherwise by now they would have re-signed somebody like A.J. Pierzynski (who isn’t ready to retire quite yet) or Jarrod Saltalamacchia or Nick Hundley or any number of several other names that we’ve bandied about.

Fangraphs had an interesting chart – and article to go with it – last week. They ranked the 30 MLB teams in terms of “Extra Strikes” over the 2012-16 seasons. The numbers are pretty shocking.

Jonathan Lucroy seems to be the King, President, High Sultan, and Prime Minister of pitch framing. Under his glove, the Brewers have amassed nearly 1700 strikes that their pitchers may not have actually been entitled to in those 5 seasons.

That works out to 2+ extra strikes per game, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but if you know as a hitter that close pitches are more likely to be called as strikes, then you will change your approach at the plate. Also, you should recognize that these are extra strikes from called pitches, not swung-at pitches.

But after Lucroy and the Brew crew, no other team have even half as many stolen strikes. That’s truly impressive.

On the other end of the scale were teams like the Marlins and Twins… who lost more strikes that should have been called… and weren’t. In those 5 years, Minnesota scored -1147 extra strikes and the Marlins -899.

The Marlins’ primary catchers over that period were J.T. Realmuto, Saltalamacchia, Jeff Mathis, and John Buck. The Twins used Kurt Suzuki and Ryan Doumit.

Yeah, the Braves used Doumit for a time as well. At least Atlanta is closer to breaking even in those years (-141 extra strikes) since it’s an era that included Brian McCann, David Ross and Tyler Flowers.

But let me give you some of the names in the bottom 20 of rated catchers for 2016 alone:

Baseball’s Fashionable Trend

Fangraphs goes on to point out how the Twins paid a lot of money to Jason Castro to join their club in recent days. His rank on that chart? 5th best.

The Pirates locked up Francisco Cervelli before other teams had a chance to go after him. He ranked 6th this past season. Houston added Brian McCann (14th). Fangraphs points out that the Rockies have now improved their framing lot with Tony Wolters (7th). So have the Indians with Roberto Perez (both Indians and Rockies having ranked in the bottom 5 on that team chart).

It’s a trend.

Pitch-framing skills are certainly not a new thing, but the topic does seem to be getting a lot more emphasis within the last year or so. As witnessed by the Castro signing, teams are willing to ante up to get it.

Tyler Flowers also ranks highly on that 2016 chart: 4th best. But he can’t play every day.

But that seems to be why the Atlanta Braves are still looking… hunting… for somebody to help their pitchers feel like they will get the calls they deserve when making a good “pitcher’s pitch”.

That might certainly help knuckleballer Dickey or location-driven Colon this next year, too.

The best framers can make a staff better – especially a young staff (ignore Colon and Dickey for the moment). They should be more comfortable on the mound.

The worst? Might make pitchers start thinking that they have to be perfect with their location… and that doesn’t help their confidence when perfection doesn’t happen.

So Who Fits That Mold?

Miguel Montero (3rd) of the Cubs. He’s a backup to Willson Contreras (23rd) now and thus could be trade-targeted.

Derek Norris (15th) is probably available from the Padres.

Believe it or now, Evan Gattis ranks strongly here… but framing is unfortunately one of the few things he does well as a catcher… and the Astros will want to keep him around regardless.

All three of the Mets’s catchers used in 2016 ranked highly. Perhaps we could go ahead and do the inevitable 2017 deal early: sign Kelly Johnson now and then trade him to the Mets for Travis d’Arnaud?

In case you’re curious, the injured Wilson Ramos ranks in the lower half of 2016 catchers; a bit below average, but at least he is certainly not a butcher back there.

Next: What has been going on this off-season?

It may be difficult to get a premium framer, for the supply of frame-first catchers is not high. But the Braves might be inclined to be patient… and indeed already seem to be doing so. It’s a new thing.

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Maybe the Atlanta Braves Want to Ride the Framing Wave

By Alan Carpenter | Nov 28, 2016

There’s a trendy thing in Catching: pitch framing skills. It may not matter if you can swing a bat or throw out a base stealer, but if you can steal a strike and crouch in a meaningful way, teams want to hire you.

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Baseball’s Fashionable Trend

So Who Fits That Mold?