Grantland (Lindbergh): The Art of Pitch Framing

Really good discussion, not just of the good (Molina, J) and bad (Doumit) of pitch framing, but approaches to fixing the issues:

For Diamondbacks bullpen coach Glenn Sherlock, a former minor league catcher and an experienced catching instructor whom Arizona GM Kevin Towers credits with turning Miguel Montero into a good framer, the first fix is glove height. “I think catchers’ targets at the bottom of the zone is so important,” he says. “You see a lot of catchers who have high targets and take the balls out of the strike zone.”

Lower the target, turn your thumb, adjust your crouch. That’s the easy stuff. It may feel unnatural at first, and it takes some time to get used to, but it can produce improvement overnight. The more grueling method of improvement, the one that over the long run produces the greater gains, is as simple as it is painstakingly slow: catch. Catch in games, catch in the bullpen, catch in side sessions, and then do it again in your dreams after you finally fall asleep. “Baseball is a habit,” Cervelli says. “It’s a repetition. You’ve got to repeat things every day, and they come.”