Yasmani Grandal Talks On Pitch Framing, Says It’s Nothing New by Vincent Samperio | Dodgers Nation -- 2 hours ago Advanced stats have begun to take over baseball, as a more and more teams have started using them in order to build their team. The Los Angeles Dodgers new front office consists of plenty of executives that rely on these types of stats to help them construct a roster. Defensive liabilities Hanley Ramirez and Matt Kemp are no longer in Los Angeles, while defensive upgrades such as Jimmy Rollins and Joc Pederson will likely man those positions. Catcher Yasmani Grandal was the biggest piece of the Matt Kemp trade with the San Diego Padres, and much of the hype surrounding the 26-year-old catcher was his ability to frame pitches. In an interview on Dodger Talk on AM 570 Radio, Grandal spoke about his skill: "That’s something I’ve been doing for a long time. It’s just something that we worked on while I was in college and it’s just the way that I been catching for a long time." While he is considered one of the better catchers in terms of pitch framing, he doesn’t read too much into it because it’s something he’s always done: "I don’t give it too much thought. I always liked to play games while I’m back catching and try to see how many strikes I could get off an umpire." Last year, Grandal ranked sixth among catchers in the number of runs saved by getting extra strikes. Over the entire season, Grandal added 120 strikes to his pitchers. Meanwhile, Dodger starter A.J. Ellis cost his pitcher over 45 strikes and about seven runs. These advanced stats show that even though Grandal struggled with passed balls and baserunners, he still brings value behind the plate. It appeared Grandal never recovered from a 2013 knee injury, which could help his passed balls and throwing out baserunners in 2015. Expect a lot more looking strikes in 2015, and it will be on purpose with the acquisition of Grandal.
Well strictly based on offensive splits, they should go with Grandal vs RHP and AJ vs LHP (and probably Kershaw starts). Per BR, they had 120 games vs RHP and 42 vs LHP. http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/tgl.cgi?team=LAD&t=b&year=2014 So assuming one of those two started all 162, i'd say 110 for Grandal.
I wouldn't count on this Mr Samperio. He was letting balls get passed at the same rate in 2012 as he did in 2014. Just focus on his framing and don't find BS excuses for shortcomings, it just belittles his strength.
My son is 9 and he is working on catching this season. I've been working with him on stealing strikes..errr framing.
Yeah I mean just look at AJ catching and tell me it's not important. I don't think its "revolutionary" like some people make it out to be, but it definitely is a huge plus having a great defensive catcher.
Actually, not well said. It is a plus having a great defensive catcher, but that is NOT Grandal. His passed balls the last 3years is greater than Ellis over the last 3, and that's in fewer innings. Also, his caught stealing percentage is lower than Ellis. It's great that he's good at framing pitches, but stopping balls and throwing runners out counts for something too. He is going to be a plus offensively, and his pitch framing will probably get the defense more outs, but let's not call him a great defensive catcher, cause he's not.
I think it remains to be seen with Grandal because of injuries, but yeah the numbers haven't been overwhelming as far as passed balls and throwing people out goes. I wasn't necessarily calling Grandal a great defensive catcher, just saying that pitch framing is a big part of it.
I understand that, but don't necessarily agree. Pitch framing to me has more to do with game calling and handling pitchers than it does with defense itself. Kind of falls in there with catchers ERA. It saves runs but in more of an indirect fashion, I guess. I kind of see it as a third facet, there's offense, there's defense, and then there's handling the staff.
Yeah...absolutely. Everyone knows it exists, but people who profess that it's worth 10-15 pitches per game are in a fantasy world, and go overboard with reactions when someone makes it real and puts it in proper perspective. And we all knew we needed an upgrade at catcher, but didn't neccessarily think Matt Kemp would be sent packing to get one. That wasn't their original plan anyway, as some say. Not in this lifetime. Grandal was plan B. If AJ had a year where he batted .265, hit 14 HRs, and had a good D season, we wouldn't even be mentioning "pitch framing". And whether one is a proponent of it's value or not, we did pretty well without a skilled framer , I guess, since we had one of the top staff ERAs in MLB. It has value, no doubt, but you can get along without it...obviously.
All of this talk about the Patriots and deflategate had me wondering. Isn't pitch framing stealing balls from a batter and giving strikes to the pitcher? Are these really going to be miscalled balls that will now be correctly called strikes or the opposite. Will this at some point be called cheating and umps told to be more careful in calling strikes when calling games caught by strong pitch framing catchers? Just wondering.
Yes, you have a point Tubo...but I don't think it will ever become a real issue. I originally posted in response to the overblown " good pitch framer will get 10-15 pitches a game " for his guy on the bump, was that there is not an umpire alive that would ever admit to getting that many wrong...no way. Maybe they'll admit to that many wrong all season or something. Per game? 2-3 pitches a game...OK. But 30-45 miscalls in say, a three game series? Uh-uh. Why have them then? Use the FoxBox or whatever the generic name for it is...probably headed that way anyway... Roller Ball.
And as far as "deflategate", you can't do it to baseballs...not that I know of anyway. About the closest thing might be is the humidor BS in Coors...giving the visitors humidor BBs and not for use by the Rox. Or maybe the other way round it was...IDK. I forget if the humidor balls were supposed to be normal, and the non humidor ones flew out like Bill Cosby's johnson at the Playboy Club back in the day.