On Pitch Framing And Glen Perkins

Last year, the Pioneer Press’ Mike Berardino documented a conversation that Perkins had with a local radio show in which he deemed the ability to frame pitches as one of the most significant keys to a catcher’s ability. The discussion centered on Pinto and his subpar framing numbers.

“Pitch-framing ability, I think that makes the biggest difference in the world,” Perkins said on Phil Mackey and Judd Zulgad’s 1500 ESPN’s radio program in 2014. “Eric Fryer is really good at pitch framing, so I’m excited about that. He does a great job.”

Why does it make the biggest difference in the world?

“When you can get your pitcher borderline pitches and get them to go his way, that allows you not only to get ahead in counts but expand the strike zone and go further away,” Perkins said. “That goes a long way to having success. … I think that’s the most important thing. The game calling is secondary. You’ve got to be able to catch pitches around the zone. You need to get pitches. You can’t give pitches. The more pitches you can get, the better off our pitching staff is going to be.”

Pitch framing, to paraphrase former MLB umpire Jim McKean, isn't holding a ball or doing any special tricks, it is simply receiving the ball using the proper techniques. And when it comes to seeing results, some catchers are considerably better than others.

The notion of pitch framing’s worth extended to data-savvy teams like the Pittsburgh Pirates who, according to Big Data Baseball, zeroed in on free agent catcher Russell Martin almost exclusively on his ability to steal strikes on the outer edges of the strike zone. This, wrote Travis Sawchik, made signing free agent pitchers like Francisco Liriano that much more attractive. Blessed with an assortment of unhittable stuff, Liriano had faulty control but a rare swing-and-miss arsenal -- particularly when he was able to deploy his slider. Martin, the Pirates front office correctly surmised, could turn some of those borderline fastballs into strikes and allow Liriano to spin more sliders.

So as the front office of the Pirates rebuilt their rotation based on the belief that Martin had the ability to steal strikes -- whether because of skill, voodoo or otherwise -- only to become an annual playoff team, one of the Twins’ most outspoken proponents for using and understanding data has thrown shade at the data used in measuring pitch framing.

“That’s what frustrates me about the framing statistics,” Perkins told Berardino at some point this season. “I know when I say I don’t believe in them, that’s what a lot of guys do: They’ll believe in numbers that support what they think, what their opinion is, and they’ll not support stuff that doesn’t back up what they believe. That’s part of it for me, too.”

Wait. What? How does pitch framing go from “the most important thing” a little over a year ago to “I don’t believe in them”?

“There’s just too many variables,” he said. “I still think there’s bias in who’s pitching and bias in who’s hitting, regardless of the fact (umpires) get graded or not. I think some guys have tighter strike zones as pitchers and guys that are more established have a bigger strike zone. And hitters, too.”

To be fair, Perkins isn't completely off-base. While he may have overstated his position in 2014, pitch framing was far from a perfect science and measurement. In examining Josmil Pinto's shortcomings this past offseason, evidence of Pinto being unfairly docked on pitches that were in the strike zone but ultimately called a ball due to a pitcher grossly missing his location were highlighted. Available framing stats found at StatCorner.com do not account for a pitcher's intent. Is it the catcher's fault that he called for a slider away only to have to lunge back across the plate when a pitcher misses his spot?

That is why Baseball Info Solutions developed a Strike Zone Plus/Minus metric that accounts for factors other than just the catcher (all the gory details found here). Their study showed that even when considering the pitchers, hitters and umpires, Kurt Suzuki was still one of the worst pitch framers in the game at -15 runs in 2014. This season, despite showing improvements by StatCorner.com’s measurements, according to BIS’s Strike Zone Plus/Minus Suzuki is actually at -11 runs saved, again the worst framer in baseball.

Roughly translated, 11 runs equals about one win in the standings. Is that important?

"One pitch can mean the whole game,'' Russell Martin, who signed a five-year, $82 million contract with Toronto partially based on his framing abilities, told USA Today. "Going from a 2-1 count to a 1-2 changes that at-bat completely. As you go through the year, there are times when getting a call here and a call there can change the outcome of a whole year, really, when you're talking about being in the playoffs or missing the playoffs by one game.''

Perkins’ stance on pitch framing isn’t without its merit but at the same time, starting catchers have thousands of data points each season. While some measurement systems are grabbing a bunch of noise, patterns begin to emerge with various catchers who far exceed others at coaxing more out-of-zone pitches to be called strikes and fewer in-zone pitches to be called balls. There are reasons why some catchers like Jonathan Lucroy are perennially at the top of the framing list while others like Suzuki and Jarrod Saltalamacchia are pulling up the rear. What's more, there is now a framing metric that accounts for all the influencing factors (pitchers, umpires and hitters) which had previously concerned players like Perkins.

For the Twins who are doing their best to remain relevant in the wild card race, one game in the standings could end up being the difference between a one-game playoff berth or another October at home.