We always had some understanding that pitch-framing was a thing. There’s a technique to catching, and there are guys who do it better than others. But it wasn’t really until last summer that our understanding of pitch-framing grew up. Mike Fast did some fantastic research for Baseball Prospectus, and he identified some links between catcher behavior and consequent umpire behavior. Fast now works for a baseball team, and that baseball team is not very good. But that probably isn’t because of Mike Fast.
Fast looked at catchers who did the best and worst job of framing pitches, measured by who generated the best and worst calls on borderline pitches. The guys he identified as being pretty bad included Ryan Doumit, Jorge Posada, and Rob Johnson. Russell Martin and Jonathan Lucroy came away looking good. Jose Molina came away looking amazing.
Over Fast’s sample, no catcher generated a better zone than Jose Molina. The effect was enormous. Suddenly, we understood Jose Molina. We understood why he had floated around for so long, and we understood why the Tampa Bay Rays took a chance on him as an aging free agent. Molina has real value. He’s probably always had real value. It just took researchers years and years to find it.
Tuesday night, the Rays played the Blue Jays, and Brett Lawrie took a pair of very questionable called strikes in the bottom of the ninth. Lawrie flipped out and inadvertently hit home-plate umpire Bill Miller with his batting helmet. Lawrie was ejected and will soon be suspended, probably. The catcher behind the plate was Jose Molina.
Some pretty interesting stuff here about Molina’s pitch framing, including several animated GIFs showing it. He basically seems to just keep the glove completely motionless as he catches the ball, rather than moving it back toward the zone or turning it or anything like you might see other catchers do when they’re trying to steal a call. Molina’s glove is almost entirely stationary on several of them as he receives the pitch.
Reader Comments and Retorts
Go to end of page
Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.
1. Yeaarrgghhhh Posted: May 17, 2012 at 01:22 PM (#4133982)I had the opposite reaction. In many of the GIFs he appears to catch the pitch and move it slightly towards the strike zone all in one fluid motion, rather than catching it and then moving it, which I assume would be more obvious to the ump. Maybe to the ump it looks like the ball just has a lot of movement and he's catching it as it veers back to the zone.
Regardless, many of those calls are completely ridiculous. If that's due to Molina, then more power to him I guess.
And nice work with the GIFs.
That's a good point. In those clips molina never stabs at the ball by moving his glove away from the center of the strike zone as he's catching it. That probably makes a pretty big difference to the ump.
Some of those pitches were like 8 inches off the plate.
Agree, that's what stands out to me - Molina almost never moves his body on these pitches. He reaches with the glove and moves it slightly towards the strike zone, but the impression the ump gets is probably Catcher didn't move; pitcher must have hit the target.
As a supporter of a team that no longer has Jose Molina, I thoroughly agree.
Jeff Sullivan's post was well done, and gave many examples of how smooth Molina is with his framing and how well it worked. A lot of those pitches looked like obvious balls, yet Molina barely had to move his glove much to bring it back into the zone. He seems quite good at getting his glove to where the ball will be well before the pitch crosses the plate.
Now, do umpires look more at where the ball lands than where it crosses the plate? You'd figure that where the catcher catches the ball should not have anything to do with the call, but the split-second nature of having to make a decision is probably influenced strongly by the 'end result'. It looks like Molina is showing how umps can 'cheat' their calls.
That was exactly my thought.
If he's looking at catchers framing/receiving pitches and evaluating that skill, i get why they got rid of humberto quintero. but what i do NOT get is the massive LUUUUVVVVV for jason castro, who is one of the worst pitch receivers I have EVER seem - bad at framing, bad at blocking, allowing waaaaaaayyy too many WP/PB.
The Jays didn't sign him. The Jays traded for him, which is even worse.
Pulling pitches doesn't work; ump just figures (and will say to the C), hey, YOU must have thought it was a ball, otherwise you wouldn't have pulled it, and that's good enough for me. That should make the C knock it off.
But framing a pitch, i.e. being very still and smooth, will help an ump call a strike a strike. Jabbing at the ball and taking it out of the zone will cost some calls.
And I disagree that this is a reason to go automated; it rewards a legitimate baseball skill. We're not talking about calling obvious balls strikes or vice versa; we're talking about the coin-flip calls at the margins.
They are only "coin-flip" calls because human perception is limited. We have the technology to accurately make ball/strike calls, we should be using it.
For some reason, I too, always confused NApoli with Mathis when they were in LA; in terms of which one was good and which one was shite.
I assume that's true of the Jays
Even if we look at it that way it still isn't a real baseball skill. Player A is doing something that affects an umpire and that shouldn't be a trait that we need to have developed.
He wants to punish Jose Molina for being good at catching a pitched baseball.
Don't the extra called strikes help Molina's team win? And if so, how does that "have nothing to do with the competition"?
Actively attempting to fool the officials or interfering with their ability to call the game should be punished. That isn't what Molina(or any other catcher) is doing really. However, in the act of catching, they are interfering with the officials. The simple solution is to automate ball/strike calls.
The "extra strikes" are caused by the fallibility of the officials, nothing to do with the competition between the two teams. They need to go.
Skillfully and brilliantly, Molina has found a way around the defined strike zone. Does this make baseball better? Or is it making a mockery of the rules? If that answer is yes, what is the remedy? I suspect that now that this ruse has been exposed the umpires will be more wary of being tricked when Molina is catching.
Actually, considering Molina's main trait seems to be catching the ball quietly, I'd say it's less a case of him finding a way around the rules as much as inferior catchers haven't fully taken advantage of what's there for the taking. But I'm in the group that think it's a skill, and one that makes baseball better. I also like personalized strike zones*, on the belief that being able to adapt to the way the strike zone is being called on a game by game basis is a skill for pitchers and batters alike.
* In theory. They have to be reasonable (a few inches in any direction). And the zone should be consistent from the first inning to the last, which isn't always the case.
I think it's just a matter of taste, because adapting to the umpires on a game by game basis would be a skill no matter what rules the umps were ignoring/changing.
i would like to see some kind of computer hologram over the base computer thingy for balls and strikes. also this way, jose altuve won't be given those neck high strikes any more.
as long as there are personalized strike zones, then more power to the molinas of the world to counteract that crap
And an RFID chip embedded in the end of every bat, so it can be determined if the batter was able to check his swing in time (based on the interaction of the chip and the hologram).
Also, put chips in every baseball, glove, shoe, and base, and we can eliminate umpires from making bang-bang calls on close plays at the bases.
Finally, thrown down some invisible lasers down each foul line and across the top of the outfield wall to provide instantaneous fair/foul/home-run calls.
You must be Registered and Logged In to post comments.
<< Back to main