Orioles Officially sign Catcher Welington Castillo

[Can_of_corn]

6 minutes ago, Number5 said:

I know it sounds weird, but for a poor pitch-framer to have fewer passed balls makes perfect sense to me.  I caught in high school and I can tell you, we often tried to catch the ball at the end of the webbing on pitches just off the corner so that most of the glove was behind the plate.  I don't recall that we called it "framing" but more just a matter of presentation to the umpire to make it look like the pitch caught the corner.  Sometimes you misjudged it by a fraction of an inch, and the ball ticked off the glove and rolled back to the backstop.  Passed ball.

It doesn't sound weird at all.  They tend to be opposing skills.

[weams]

39 minutes ago, Number5 said:

LOL.  Had you ever heard of Murray before this?

I think he as an ace cub reporter. But he has a verified twitter account. So that's something. 

[Legend_Of_Joey]

9 minutes ago, ChuckS said:

Check out Sisco's passed balls number from last season.  It was the best in the organization.  I can't speak to his framing and I imagine you probably can't either unless you were out seeing him catch on a regular basis. 

I actually did see him catch on a regular basis. Bowie is the closest one to me.

He had less pitches thrown low or in the dirt while he was behind the plate than when Chris O'Brien and Austin Wynns were back there. Pitchers took less risk with him back there.

 

Back to Castillo, if he wants 3 but takes 2 with an option and the money is good, take him. Low investment for a "stop gap."

[Can_of_corn]

41 minutes ago, weams said:

So either he got better, or it's voodoo. 

Or he happened to have a better year and will regress again next season.

Three years of data tends to be more predictive than one year of data.

[Number5]

16 minutes ago, weams said:

I think he as an ace cub reporter. But he has a verified twitter account. So that's something. 

[Moondoggie]

1 hour ago, Number5 said:

LOL.  Had you ever heard of Murray before this?

Here's his bio from the Fanrag Sports site:

Quote

Robert Murray is a baseball writer and reporter for Today's Knuckleball. Murray has been around the game of baseball his entire life and began covering the game almost four years ago independently. He then moved on to Baseball Essential to cover the game and he was there for over a year before taking a position on the Today's Knuckleball staff. What Murray will provide to Today's Knuckleball is exclusive signings, rumors and trades, as well as featured stories and a roundup of the news from the day. Murray is still in college, as he is entering his third year of school. He is soon planning on attending the University of Eau Claire to study journalism.

 

[scOtt]

I think he as an ace cub reporter. But he has a verified twitter account. So that's something. 

 

21 minutes ago, Number5 said:

 

Jimmy Olsen. Beat me to it.

[El Gordo]

3 hours ago, Aristotelian said:

DD also said he was going to focus on OBP last year. He says things. Does not mean they will happen. 

To his credit OBP did improve from .307 to ,317

[El Gordo]

2 hours ago, ChuckS said:

Check out Sisco's passed balls number from last season.  It was the best in the organization.  I can't speak to his framing and I imagine you probably can't either unless you were out seeing him catch on a regular basis. 

I have never seen anyone adequately explain how an OZ pitch consistently given to a pitcher with good command like Maddux is distinguished from a blown call, or a catcher's slight of hand.

[Can_of_corn]

1 minute ago, El Gordo said:

I have never seen anyone adequately explain how an OZ pitch consistently given to a pitcher with good command like Maddux is distinguished from a blown call, or a catcher's slight of hand.

Because they can't.  They are guessing.

Maybe some of the teams have enough information to really quantify it.

[El Gordo]

Just now, Can_of_corn said:

Because they can't.  They are guessing.

Maybe some of the teams have enough information to really quantify it.

 

Just now, Can_of_corn said:

Because they can't.  They are guessing.

Maybe some of the teams have enough information to really quantify it.

Then why do people put so much stock in it? It seems like one of the least important of a catcher's skill set.

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, El Gordo said:

 

Then why do people put so much stock in it? It seems like one of the least important of a catcher's skill set.

Some of the folks doing the studies are showing huge impacts.  Huge impacts get folks attention.

I think that you can see what looks to be evidence of framing helps as well.

My stand is that framing does happen, they can tell the good framers from the bad framers but that they don't have the ability to accurately quantify what the impact is.

[weams]

8 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Because they can't.  They are guessing.

Maybe some of the teams have enough information to really quantify it.

 

[scOtt]

1 hour ago, El Gordo said:

 

Then why do people put so much stock in it? It seems like one of the least important of a catcher's skill set.

That and catcher's ERA. Smoke and mirrors imo.

[Aristotelian]

11 minutes ago, scOtt said:

That and catcher's ERA. Smoke and mirrors imo.

What would be interesting is Cather Runs Above Average that is calculated based on the pitcher that is pitching. CERA in the abstract doesn't tell you much if the guy is a "personal catcher" for the worst pitcher (like CJ was for Ubaldo).