Note to Boras---Wieters rated the 9th worst "framing"-

[DrungoHazewood]

Well there seems to be two aspects to this theory. Determining what constitutes framing, apart from other reasons a ball is called a strike, and ascribing a value to that. It seems many can talk about how value is ascribed, but I have yet to see anyone explain how one determines a "framed " strike from all the other possibilities.

I think there is a lot of question about how this value gets assigned. The other side of the coin is, that if you assign 20, 30, whatever number of runs of value to Molina you have to take that away from the pitchers. How bad were the Milwaukee pitchers last year if they were 9th in the NL in runs allowed and they had 20-30 runs of framing advantage from LuCroy (and a pretty good defense)?

[Lester Freamon]

Couldn't agree more. There have been many instances of him just seemingly accept the pitch is going to be called a ball and doesn't even attempt to frame it I don't really like how he sets up his target as well. When the Braves were in their heyday their catchers would setup with the outside of the plate, to a right handed batter, right in the middle of their body. Not only does it provide a great target for the pitcher, to help identify where exactly that outside corner is, it also helps the umpire have a better look at the plate. Wieters also probably needs to work on how he is going to work with the new collision rule at home-plate. Two instances in this game where he essentially gave up the whole plate to the runner instead of just half of it. Both close plays and with the new rule it is tricky but if I understand the rule when you have the ball you can block the plate, if you don't have the ball you have to give the runner a part to slide to. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Wieters does a lot of stuff great, like throwing out runners, blocking pitches, and the confidence he brings when calling a game, but as a former pitcher the way he receives the ball would irk me. He does put up 20-25 HR's and 75+ RBI's so I shouldn't complain to much but if he wants Brian McCain money I have a hard time wanting to do that. I'd rather give the $ to Davis and Machado

Well, one thing I can't criticize Wieters about is not blocking the plate. He's always been a bulldog in that regard. I know things have changed the last year or two (team directive to Wieters) and will change even moreso this year. We'll see how that goes, but I suspect every team is going to have issues there.

Unfortunately I can't supply a link for this. I can't remember if I read this in a MASN blog post or if I heard it during a MASN broadcast of a spring training game. But I do recall that, at least initially, Wieters and the Orioles were going to approach covering home plate, under the new rules, similarly to how a player would cover 2B or 3B on an attempted steal. They were going to try and straddle the plate, it would leave the plate open for the runner but at the same time potentially have Wieters in a good position to make the tag. Showalter believed that this was within the rules.

We'll see.

[UpstateNYfan]

Guys I don't know about you all, but after watching the game again last night, I thought Wieters did about as good a job of framing as I've seen him do. He was routinely snapping pitches back over the plate, mostly borderline fastballs, and getting a few calls. Did a nice job bringing some low breaking balls higher into the zone for strikes, too.

Strictly eyeball test here, but after I've been berating him for poor framing, I gotta say I think he did pretty nice last night. Hopefully it's a trend.

Now if he can just get Hunter to throw more breaking balls...

You don't get calls by snapping. It has to be subtle and sometimes not catching the ball in the middle of the glove. The less movement the more likely the call. It also helps if the pitcher throws close to a target.

[Number5]

Poor choice of words with "snapping", I guess. Some of them I noticed he just plain received well, more just position of the glove when he caught it rather than snapping it. But regardless, he did snap some of them, subtle or not, and got the calls.

I just though he looked crisp receiving the ball, which I don't often. Just giving some credit where it's due. Made a few nice blocks, too, but we knew he could do that.

I wouldn't base anything on yesterday's game. Plate umpire had a rough day, IMO. Center field camera can be deceiving, but there sure seemed to be a floating zone in that game.

[Redskins Rick]

I wouldn't base anything on yesterday's game. Plate umpire had a rough day, IMO. Center field camera can be deceiving, but there sure seemed to be a floating zone in that game.

To be honest, I dont remember the last time I actually watched a game and the Plate Umpire had a good zone for the entire game for both sides.

I don't care if he calls a high strike or even a low zone, as long as he is consistent that game and not floating around.

Got to be a witch for the pitchers, not knowing exactly what they are going to call from batter to batter.

[LookinUp]

It may be true to some extent but I highly doubt it's a significant factor. Teams just aren't heavily distributed with great "command" pitchers one way or the other.

I'd imagine that this is a hypothesis that could be tested multiple ways.

1. You could look at framing data by pitcher. The smaller sample sizes could be problematic, but it would be interesting if Wieters framed better for a guy like Chen or Gonzalez than for a guy like Johnson or Arrieta.

2. You could, theoretically, measure distance from where a catcher sets up to where the ball crosses the plate, and account for that in the framing data. The benefit of this is it would be pitcher-independent, so sample sizes would remain large. This would penalize a guy less (or not at all) for a ball that ended up over the outside corner even though the catcher set up over the inside corner.

3. Along the same lines as #2, you could try to account for velocity. The 89 MPH fastball may be easier to frame than the 99 MPH fastball. Knuckleballs are another small factor to control for.

Anyone know if data exists with these types of factors included, or is the framing data not this sophisticated yet?

[atomic]

I don't know about framing but if I were Wieters I would fire Boras so he doesn't end up like Drew and Morales. On the outside looking in.