On Framing Pitches, Revisited: Looking At Russell Martin

By On July 8, 2011 · 3 Comments · In Statistical Analysis

A few weeks ago, I highlighted a fascinating bit of ongoing research from Max Marchi of THT regarding framing pitches. Today, he released updated leaderboards for the last 3 seasons as well as some more explanations regarding his work, and some of the names therein should be interesting to Yankees fans:

One thing that Marchi pointed out and I thought was important to see was the recurrence of the same names on the leaderboard from season to season. While you would expect some players to have good or bad years in any particular skill due to health and other factors, in general you would like the model to reflect the fact that intuitively, you would expect most catchers to consistently perform to their skill level when it comes to framing pitches. Seeing the same names on the leaderboards each year gives me more confidence that the model is measuring what it purports to measure.

Putting that aside, let’s first look at the negative side of the ledger and note that by this metric, Jorge Posada cost the Yankees more than two wins over his last two seasons as a catcher simply by being poor at framing pitches. Throw in his inability to stifle the running game or block pitches and it seems that the Yankees were more than justified in taking him off the position prior to this season, regardless of his concussion issues.

On the other side of the ledger lies Russell Martin, who has consistently been among the best in the business at framing pitches, adding 1-2 wins per season to his value through that proficiency. This suggests that even if Martin is just a 2 win catcher based on his bat, he might be much higher on the catcher value leaderboards by dint of his defensive prowess (UZR does not measure the other aspects of catcher defense, while DRS has him at +16 for his career).

Now, I do want to add what I said when I first looked at Marchi’s work:

I really do not have a ton to add here, but I will note that the sizable nature of the effect illustrates that any analysis of catcher defense at this point is, at best, a rough estimate. If something such as framing pitches can create a value gap of 2-3 wins between two catchers, how can we really evaluate relative value without measuring every element that goes into the catching position? The best we can do is measure those skills that are more easily quantifiable and roughly estimate the rest based on scouting reports, while waiting for people like Marchi to help read the tea leaves that the data provides us in the murkier areas.

As I noted in the comments to that post, while the effect seems huge, it is important to note that the catcher “catches” on every single play in a baseball game. There are 125+ opportunities to frame in a game, although obviously not every pitch requires framing. When I thought about it like that, it came off as more plausible, although I am still wary of giving the results too much weight. At worst, however, we can say that defense at the catching position can greatly impact the value that a catcher provides, and that we might want to consider it strongly before, say, discarding the starter in favor of the hotshot prospect at AAA.

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3 Responses to On Framing Pitches, Revisited: Looking At Russell Martin

  1. Justice Beaver says:
    July 8, 2011 at 6:35 pm

    Catcher defense is so hard to quantify, but it is easy to see how much it affects. As you mentioned, the simple notion of 125 plus pitches in a game. Every borderline call, by simply framing or having a good reputation at it, can go your way. That is a HUGE swing.

    Defense can be hidden at other positions, but it is very important to have a good defensive catcher. The running game, stealing strikes and being able to coax pitchers through a game are hard things to relate and this is where you kind of have to feel your way around. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a very real benefit.

    Even if Montero proves he can catcher, I believe it is imperative, for at least the first two years in the MLB for him to serve as the primary DH and catch 40-50 and then 50-70 games. He needs to break in his cat first and then work on defense. He has focused so much on defense these last two years out of ST it could be a reason for his slow starts.

    Reply
    • T.O. Chris says:
      July 9, 2011 at 1:32 am

      It is very important to break in your cat before teaching them defense. House breaking can be tough though hahaha. I had too.

      On a serious note though, I agree with some of what you said but I highly doubt his focus on defense can be used to excuse his slow starts. Really they aren’t slow starts but slow first halves, at a certain point we have to put the blame on him alone and stop making excuses. I’ve seen way too many “he’s bored”, and “he’s focusing on defense” excuses for my liking. The truth probably falls somewhere more along the lines of arrogance, and lack of plate discipline. Arrogance because he’s so talented and doesn’t think he needs to try 100% all the time, and lack of plate discipline comes from not understanding the strikezone vs his strikezone. He seems to have a very Robinson Cano approach at the plate, but he can’t cover quite as much outside the plate as Cano. He needs to reel this in some to be effective at the big league level.

      Reply
  2. On Framing Pitches, Revisited: Looking At … – The Yankee Analysts | Yankees News Source says:
    July 8, 2011 at 9:02 pm

    [...] the original here: On Framing Pitches, Revisited: Looking At … – The Yankee Analysts AKPC_IDS += "25331,"; AKPC_IDS += [...]

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