How much was the O's pitching to blame for Wieters poor pitch framing?

[Dark Helmet]

14 minutes ago, ArtVanDelay said:

Saul Pwydan

9:13

How does pitch framing account for pitches that miss their target by a large margin? If a catcher is setting up outside corner, and the pitcher hits the inside corner but it's called a ball, does this hurt the catcher's framing stats even though he probably had no chance to frame the pitch?

 

Paul Swydan

9:14

I don't know for sure, but I would assume that it does hurt him.

 

Jeff Zimmerman

9:14

It hurt them. Part of the game.

Thanks for asking that and posting the response.

[ArtVanDelay]

2 minutes ago, Dark Helmet said:

Thanks for asking that and posting the response.

No problem!

[ArtVanDelay]

37 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

Disagree.   I think Bill Ripken has a point.   You can't steal a strike if the pitcher misses his target.    Stealing a strike isn't so much moving the glove once you've caught the ball.   It's setting up 2 inches off the outside corner and angling your body back in towards homeplate to create or accentuate the angle and making a ball look more like a strike.    If the pitcher hits' the target you have a good chance to get that call.    If you have pitchers who don't have pinpoint control it's tough to setup and give a precise target like that.

You can steal a strike if a pitcher misses his target.  That's why it's a skill.  Caleb Joseph is a good framer with the same staff.  A lot of pitches aren't going to hit their target unless Kershaw or Colon is pitching.

[SteveA]

3 hours ago, Dark Helmet said:

A pitcher could miss his spot by a foot, and still have it be borderline. What if a C sets up on the outside corner and the pitcher hits the inside corner. The C has to adjust to that and still frame it. 

Pure guesswork, but I think it would be hard to frame a pitch like that.  The ump would see how far the C has to move from where he set up to where he caught it and is unlikely to think "good pitch".

The best video examples I have seen of good frame jobs have been where the C is able to subtly, quickly, almost imperceptibly move the glove from out of the zone to in the second the ball hits his mitt.  Effective framing is making such a move, of several inches, look so natural that it doesn't seem he moved at all.

[Aristotelian]

3 hours ago, Can_of_corn said:

I'd appreciate you posting that information, when you have the time.

 

2 hours ago, weams said:

I'd be surprised if it existed in a volume that I'd agree was convincing.

Found a couple of articles with numbers. From an article in early 2016:

 Coming into 2016, Jimenez owned a 2.92 ERA and .236 opponent’s batting average over 33 games with Joseph behind the plate. Overall, pitcher’s owned a 3.66 ERA during the 2015 season when they worked with Joseph. Not bad.

http://www.camdenchat.com/2016/11/15/13631358/caleb-joseph-orioles-starter-rumors-chance-sisco-2016

From an article in late 2015:

Furthermore, with Joseph behind the plate, Orioles’ pitchers have a sub-3.50 ERA. When Wieters puts on the mask, the same pitchers have a 4.19 ERA. Joseph has a very good grasp on how to handle this patchwork pitching staff.

https://www.baseballessential.com/news/2015/08/17/caleb-joseph-underrated-orioles-success/

 

I trust those numbers more than a smaller sample in 2016 when he was mostly on Ubaldo duty.

[NashLumber]

1 hour ago, SteveA said:

Pure guesswork, but I think it would be hard to frame a pitch like that.  The ump would see how far the C has to move from where he set up to where he caught it and is unlikely to think "good pitch".

The best video examples I have seen of good frame jobs have been where the C is able to subtly, quickly, almost imperceptibly move the glove from out of the zone to in the second the ball hits his mitt.  Effective framing is making such a move, of several inches, look so natural that it doesn't seem he moved at all.

From our angle on the TV feed, almost all of the framing looks rather phony to my eyes. It's like the flopping in basketball. But it's a skill that's been refined to the point that there's a metric for it, so hat's off to them. I can appreciate a catcher who can do it, but it's painful (for me) to watch it as it just goes to show the ump can't perceive accurately what's going on at the edge of the strike zone.

[Aristotelian]

Joseph destroys Wieters in CERA and framing metrics:

Handling the pitching staff

Catcher's ERA is a pretty flawed statistic as it likely more reflects the skill of a pitching staff and the fielders around it rather than the catcher. Nonetheless, it's another way to compare the two catchers.

 

Last year, Joseph had a CERA of 3.03, which would have been the best in baseball had he caught enough innings to qualify as a league leader. This year, his CERA is 3.80, putting him at 11th in the league among league leaders.

The best season of CERA from Wieters was back in 2012 when he recorded a 3.80 as well. Throughout his career, his other CERAs are 3.93 (2014), 4.32 (2013 - second-worst among qualifiers), 4.57 (2011 - worst among qualifiers), 4.58 (2010 - second-worst among qualifiers) and 5.05 (2009 - rookie season).

More recently, the art of pitch framing has become more and more analyzed. The following Chart is based off of statistics from StatCorner. zBall% is the percentage of pitches caught within the strike zone that are called balls. oStr% is the percentage of pitches caught outside the strike zone that are called strikes. +Calls are the number of calls a catchers gets or loses for his pitcher.

Matt Wieters

	zBall%	oStr%	+Calls
2009	16.8	8.0	+29
2010	14.3	8.2	+39
2011	15.2	7.6	+25
2012	14.5	6.7	-31
2013	13.6	5.8	-81
2014	13.4	7.0	-11

Caleb Joseph

	zBall%	oStr%	+Calls
2014	11.9	8.8	+80
2015	9.7	9.7	+29

With these numbers, you want oStr% and +Calls as high as possible and zBall% as low as possible. From that, we can say that Joseph is a touch better in every category. Wieters' performance has started to drop off in terms of +Calls.

http://www.camdenchat.com/2015/5/19/8624191/caleb-joseph-matt-wieters-orioles-position-battle

 

[Frobby]

12 hours ago, Aristotelian said:

I believe the title of the thread should go the other way. It is pretty clear to me that for two years Caleb Joseph the pitchers numbers across the board were better with him catching and that his framing was the biggest aspect. I don't have them in front of me, but it was pretty conclusive, just about every guy was significantly better with Caleb catching. Last year was tough to judge - he played a lot less, and spent most of his time catching Ubaldo. 

In no way is framing akin to cheating. As a catcher you are simply giving the best presentation possible and hoping that it gets called a strike. You would be a fool not to do it. If there was anything unsportsmanlike about it, you can bet teams would be drilling guys like Joseph left and right, but it's not, it's an accepted part of the game. 

About 2/3 of the way last season, I did a post analyzing how each pitcher was doing with Wieters vs. Joseph, and most were doing better with Wieters.    I don't know how it ended up, and there's a lot of noise in statistics like that in any event.    

[Frobby]

8 hours ago, Aristotelian said:

Joseph destroys Wieters in CERA and framing metrics:

Handling the pitching staff

Catcher's ERA is a pretty flawed statistic as it likely more reflects the skill of a pitching staff and the fielders around it rather than the catcher. Nonetheless, it's another way to compare the two catchers.

 

Last year, Joseph had a CERA of 3.03, which would have been the best in baseball had he caught enough innings to qualify as a league leader. This year, his CERA is 3.80, putting him at 11th in the league among league leaders.

The best season of CERA from Wieters was back in 2012 when he recorded a 3.80 as well. Throughout his career, his other CERAs are 3.93 (2014), 4.32 (2013 - second-worst among qualifiers), 4.57 (2011 - worst among qualifiers), 4.58 (2010 - second-worst among qualifiers) and 5.05 (2009 - rookie season).

More recently, the art of pitch framing has become more and more analyzed. The following Chart is based off of statistics from StatCorner. zBall% is the percentage of pitches caught within the strike zone that are called balls. oStr% is the percentage of pitches caught outside the strike zone that are called strikes. +Calls are the number of calls a catchers gets or loses for his pitcher.

Matt Wieters

	zBall%	oStr%	+Calls
2009	16.8	8.0	+29
2010	14.3	8.2	+39
2011	15.2	7.6	+25
2012	14.5	6.7	-31
2013	13.6	5.8	-81
2014	13.4	7.0	-11

Caleb Joseph

	zBall%	oStr%	+Calls
2014	11.9	8.8	+80
2015	9.7	9.7	+29

With these numbers, you want oStr% and +Calls as high as possible and zBall% as low as possible. From that, we can say that Joseph is a touch better in every category. Wieters' performance has started to drop off in terms of +Calls.

http://www.camdenchat.com/2015/5/19/8624191/caleb-joseph-matt-wieters-orioles-position-battle

 

Good link.   I just want to point out that the article was written on May 19, 2015.

[Sanfran327]

14 hours ago, ArtVanDelay said:

Framing is basically "stealing" strikes.  It's when a pitch is outside the zone and the catcher presents it as a strike.  The O's pitching would have almost nothing to do with this.  

Except for, you know, pitching on the fringe of the strike zone, like you're supposed to. And the catcher can get a couple extra calls for you when you do that consistently.

[Larry18]

In my opinion there are two other abilities/traits/skills (or whatever you wish to call them) that are every bit as important at framing but which aren't currently measured. The first is pace of play- Does the catcher keep the game moving at a pace that keeps the fielders from "falling on their heels"? And two, how fast does the catcher recognize that a particular pitch is very (in)effective? I guess a third would be can they work in an ineffective pitch enough to make the make the rest more effective?

 

I know that Pavlidis and Judge are working on these type of analytics but haven't vetted them.

[Aristotelian]

1 hour ago, Frobby said:

Good link.   I just want to point out that the article was written on May 19, 2015.

Yes, I remember seeing a bunch of articles like these starting late 2014 and into 2015 but I have no idea if it carried through into 2016.

He did not play nearly as much last year due to his injury and Wieters' health in 2016, and what little time he got was mostly with Ubaldo, so I am inclined to believe that 2014-15 was real, at least to some extent, plus the eye test confirms.

I do believe Wieters had strengths over Caleb in other aspects, and it is possible that Caleb's offense is just so bad that he does not belong on a MLB team.

[ArtVanDelay]

2 hours ago, Sanfran327 said:

Except for, you know, pitching on the fringe of the strike zone, like you're supposed to. And the catcher can get a couple extra calls for you when you do that consistently.

But all pitchers do that.  Do O's pitchers throw less framable pitches than other staffs?  Maybe when Ubaldo is pitching. 

[Il BuonO]

18 hours ago, Dark Helmet said:

I ask, because I don't know what they use or how they judge this. Bill Ripken just basically said you can't frame pitches if you have guys that can't throw strikes consistently. 

He's wrong.

 

18 hours ago, Dark Helmet said:

Thanks for the responses. I'm just trying to understand it.

Matt was great at foul tips. I Think thats going to be a missed asset.

 

I'll agree the methodology isn't exact, but no amount of tweaking will improve Wieter's numbers in that regard. He's the one who needs to make changes.

Foul tips? Not exactly a hot commodity in the catching market.

[Il BuonO]

13 hours ago, Aristotelian said:

Joseph destroys Wieters in CERA and framing metrics:

Handling the pitching staff

Catcher's ERA is a pretty flawed statistic as it likely more reflects the skill of a pitching staff and the fielders around it rather than the catcher. Nonetheless, it's another way to compare the two catchers.

 

Last year, Joseph had a CERA of 3.03, which would have been the best in baseball had he caught enough innings to qualify as a league leader. This year, his CERA is 3.80, putting him at 11th in the league among league leaders.

The best season of CERA from Wieters was back in 2012 when he recorded a 3.80 as well. Throughout his career, his other CERAs are 3.93 (2014), 4.32 (2013 - second-worst among qualifiers), 4.57 (2011 - worst among qualifiers), 4.58 (2010 - second-worst among qualifiers) and 5.05 (2009 - rookie season).

More recently, the art of pitch framing has become more and more analyzed. The following Chart is based off of statistics from StatCorner. zBall% is the percentage of pitches caught within the strike zone that are called balls. oStr% is the percentage of pitches caught outside the strike zone that are called strikes. +Calls are the number of calls a catchers gets or loses for his pitcher.

Matt Wieters

	zBall%	oStr%	+Calls
2009	16.8	8.0	+29
2010	14.3	8.2	+39
2011	15.2	7.6	+25
2012	14.5	6.7	-31
2013	13.6	5.8	-81
2014	13.4	7.0	-11

Caleb Joseph

	zBall%	oStr%	+Calls
2014	11.9	8.8	+80
2015	9.7	9.7	+29

With these numbers, you want oStr% and +Calls as high as possible and zBall% as low as possible. From that, we can say that Joseph is a touch better in every category. Wieters' performance has started to drop off in terms of +Calls.

http://www.camdenchat.com/2015/5/19/8624191/caleb-joseph-matt-wieters-orioles-position-battle

 

Eh, five years ago it started to drop off.