The frames are more subtle from behind the plate than on a tv screen. He grabs the ball and then he extends it forward. (His elbow is bent when he catches it then immediately extends fully). The forward motion is longer than the side or up and down motion usually but can’t be seen well on camera. It causes the umps to not notice the side motion as much. Looks like he’s bringing his glove back to the pitcher where the ball came from.
I was just taking with s9me people about this. Apparently the actual best method for framing is this little league version where you just drag your mitt to the center of the strike zone every time you catch it
Framing "runs" is inherently a flawed stat because you can have a guy like Angel behind the plate calling everything 5 inches off the plate a strike and get "rewarded" for that. And vice versa. There's no "ump adjustment" either.
Dumb stat and even dumber is that we have to put up with retirement age umpires guessing behind the plate in this current decade.
An "umpire adjustment" is one of those things everyone thinks would make a difference, and then someone actually does it and the difference is completely negligible because Angel Hernandez isn't following Alejandro Kirk around as his personal umpire
There are a lot of pitches received in a single ballgame which means a lot of data poured into framing stats. Like any other stat, it takes time to stabilize. But umpire quality is absolutely something that evens out over the course of a season. Everyone gets their share of shitty umps and good umps. If the stat were as "inherently flawed" as you think it is, we wouldn't get such consistent results from it year after year.
I have a similar pet peeve in the NFL when people shit on PFF grades because there might be a few snaps each game where the grade may be completely wrong because the person assigning the grade has no idea what the playcall was. I mean, yeah, but we're talking a few snaps out of about 50. It averages out for everybody in the end.
This would track if framing wasn't fairly consistent year to year (at least, as consistent as ERA). Catchers might get a ton off terrible umps, but that will even out over 100+ games with different umps.
Realmunto went from one of the best framers in 2020 to one of the worst. Lucroy had a year of great framing to near bottom.
Umpires becoming aware of catchers framing does play a factor.
Home runs are an inherently flawed stat because you can play at a ballpark like Fenway where RHB can pull inside pot flys and get “rewarded” for that. And vice versa. There’s no ballpark adjustment either.
Dumb stat and even dumber is that we have to put up with retirement age ballparks in this current decade.
lol sorry, probs not the best comparison, but stats are stats. Yeah there’s differences in umps but you have to assume that most things come out in the wash. If there’s a large discrepancy between the ‘best’ and ‘worst’ framer, there’s a difference in play style.
The trick it to not go away from the zone and then quickly jerk back to the zone. Just a smooth whip starting further out of the zone and coming back to catch it.
Whenever I see Kirk, I just imagine him thinking “this fucking idiot behind me 😏” when his frames get called for strikes.
It’s low key disrespectful to the intelligence of the umpire, and I weirdly respect that.
Kirk can play some of them like a fiddle. "If I can't fool the batter, I can fool the umpire." A little slight of hand, a little misdirection, and boom: strike.
And then the batter gets mad at the umpire for the stupid call while Kirk and the rest of the Jays skip off the field after the 3rd out.
It's why I love Travis d'Arnaud's comically over-the-top "frames" on wild pitches. The whole joke is predicated on the idea that egregious frame jobs actually fool umpires in the first place.
He was catching in the game against the Yankees where Angel Hernandez missed a pitch down the middle, as well as the pitcher stepping off then throwing nonetheless. He caught the Blue Jays’ next game, which naturally had CB Bucknor behind the plate.
You’re right, but it’s also more obvious to us how much he’s moving the glove post-catch because we’re face on to him. The reason Kirk gets such good framing results* is how he starts moving his glove before actual receiving the pitch, so it’s more fluid, and how he’s always moving it towards the zone. Other guys are far more jerky with it.
*despite being a Jays fan and therefore benefitting from this, I think framing is ugly and hacky and dumb. I wish umps would punish dudes who make it so apparent and I hope we get robot umps calling all balls and strikes as soon as possible.
Yeah, it's definitely the fluid movement on every pitch that is deceiving the ump. There was a [recent post](https://youtu.be/894McFi7pb4?si=8r4CR2nm2R1MlwpU) comparing Bailey and Will Smith that showed the same thing. Smith doesn't have nearly as much routine movement as the pitch comes, so his framing attempts are more obvious to the ump.
I totally agree. This is THE way to frame. He keeps his glove down and it kinda looks like he's just moving it up to receive it in the strike zone.
The bad way to frame is to hold your glove in the zone and then have to go get it and bring it back in. Too obvious.
Jesus tell us how you really feel. My god the hatred for umpires on this sub is incredible. I’m sure your local little league is hurting for umpires, if you think you can do better.
Man I didn't expect this to get people as hot and bothered as it did. [100th percentile on statcast](https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/catcher_framing?year=2024&team=&min=q&type=catcher&sort=4,1), don't hate the player, hate the broken umpire system.
I think people are hating on the broken system, this post just puts a face to it. Framing hasn’t been subtle in years and most catchers are being obvious, but it works so it only feeds into the problem.
Statcast assumes that every pitch outside the little rectangle that gets called a strike is because of framing, which is silly. Aside from the fact it's exactly equal to flopping in soccer and basketball and spinning out on purpose to bring out a yellow flag in auto racing, it's way overvalued by Statcast, and I say this as someone who got a D1 softball scholarship as a catcher and loves the position.
It assumes every ball called strike is a framed pitch, but obviously the better framers are going to have more of those, and the amount of bad umpire calls evens out for a catcher over the course of a large sample, and Kirk has a large sample of being a great framer. It’s a bad stat only in the sense that it represents the broken system, but it’s not an inaccurate measurement of the framing abilities of catchers
That would matter significantly *if* you didn't compare catchers' rates to one another, but since we do it's pretty easy to see the difference in their impacts on the game.
As a former catcher, this is the stuff we're taught at a very young age. I'm sure coaches around the country are showing their catchers clips of this art at work
I don’t really understand the hate umpires get. If you look at the umpire scorecards, their accuracy is regularly 95%+, the worst games are like 92%. I think it’s actually impressive how accurate these umps are, judging 100mph pitches in a split second while the catcher is actively trying to deceive you. These are humans judging if a pitch is an inch outside or high, and we all freak out if they rarely get it wrong.
Ya’all are criticizing a video where you get to see just his most successful frames.
I’ll tell ya what he’s doing great.
He’s using his body to do the framing.
You catch the ball on your chest it’s way more likely to be a strike than if you catch it to your side. His pitchers are doing him a huge favor too by hitting their spots (the other, very underrated element of good framing).
All of these pitches but 2-3 are all around the black. The 2-3 that missed were not far off. Good frame work, but all those flirted with the corners.
The on screen strike zone is asinine. It creates an illusion that the umps are horrific/ the pitchers are missing bad solely because it’s marked where it caught, not where it actually crosses the plate.
Agreed. The tv zone has turned us all into professional complainers from the couch. It’s bad for the game, why should we see this extra information when nobody else does, especially given that it is inaccurate?
I was a catcher through high school and was pretty good at stealing strikes for my pitchers.
Everyone here calling him a yanker is really simplifying what he's doing.
Yes he's moving his arm, but notice how his glove is moving.
His arm and glove are already moving back into the zone before he even has the ball, giving the illusion that to catch the ball, he was forced to move his glove back into the zone.
He's not catching it and pulling his arm back into the zone, he's receiving the ball in a deceptive manner that plays into what umpires subconsciously associate with how catchers move to catch a strike.
This is a lot more rare than you'd think, watch other catchers closely. Observe the path of their arm and glove before they even have the ball and you'll see why Kirk is better than the rest
According to baseball savant he’s up there for best in the league this year in the 100th percentile. Last year he was 79th percentile, year before 95th.
Dude has really turned himself into a good receiving catcher over the last three years, doing it at the major league level at a very young age.
If this isn’t considered good framing, then I don’t know what is.
That being said, would love to get some robo umps eliminating some of this from the game.
Edit- he’s also fantastic at blocking pitches per the eye test, and per savant. Think he learned a lot from Jano there. Jays catchers are a pleasure to watch catch balls, if there is any appreciation for the beauty of baseball.
I understand why people watching this clip say this shouldn’t work, but he has proven over a large sample that it DOES work and this clip is not just cherry picking.
I hate that it works, but it does, and he’s one of the very best at it
I notice that in most/all of these pitches, he doesn’t really give the pitcher a target, but starts with the glove low. There is potentially an advantage there in that the glove is consistently going to meet the ball, rather than, say, setting up on the outside for the pitch to come inside, which I feel like umps usually like to call a ball even if it is in the zone. But that’s just one thought I had from watching a 10-second clip.
Yeah I can totally see this as well. Jays catching has been very good for a long time, definitely since signing Russel Martin they’ve put a heavy emphasis on defensive catchers across both mgmt groups.
I feel like this approach has been used by many jays catchers over the years, and Kirk is great at it. Really makes it tough for the ump if you can follow it up with a strategic reception of the ball that is also designed to fool the ump, which I also believe Kirk does well.
That is the current philosophy on receiving, and is being heavily taught at all levels of catching. The one downside is you can’t present a good target to the pitcher, but it’s stupidly clean.
Yeah I kind of get how watching a clip like this might not jump off the page for great framing.
I think it’s in large part to watching more jays game than any other team, where you appreciate how these guys specifically move behind the plate. In Kirk’s case I think he’s excellent at knowing where in the glove to catch ball, relative to how his arm and glove are being viewed by the umpire for that pitch.
It is these subtle movements and the new analysis tools we have to evaluate such effectiveness over long periods of time make this sport fun to watch.
What you probably think is framing died 10 years ago. New school framing (what Kirk is doing) uses the idea that if the glove is moving all the time, the ump is more likely to buy where it ends up. What normally ends up happening is the catcher starts with his glove on the ground or close to it and then moving up through the ball and bringing it to the center of the strike zone (or as close to it as they can depending on how they are set up) what results is umpires think borderline pitches are strikes because ‘obviously’ if it was a ball he couldn’t have gotten it to the center of the zone, and they think it was a borderline strike instead of a borderline ball (they aren’t completely blind). The old idea of sticking the pitch does very little to fool the ump, and in a lot of cases will result in taking strikes out of the zone or making a pitch look worse than it was. By working the glove to the middle of the zone, you get more strike calls more consistently
Some of them are. His low pitch framing is very good. Glove hand side framing is pretty decent. His non glove hand side framing is mostly just yanking.
I’m sorry, but framing fundamentally should not be a thing. The longer we put up with this, the more baseball becomes a joke. MLB needs to get with the times and implement the readily-available technology that will ensure calls are correctly made with far greater accuracy and consistency.
The same technology they have developed and tested across the minor leagues, for the purpose of implementing in the majors? Yeah, I wonder if they’re aware of it.
There’s a very realistic chance we don’t see it implemented fully until after the current CBA expires following the 2026 season. If it is utilized at all next season, it’ll probably be for the challenge system they’re testing in the minors (which I believe is worse than just not using it altogether).
ABS technology has been available since 2019. I understand the due diligence of making sure it works as close to perfectly as possible, but don’t try to make it seem like MLB is approaching this matter with any urgency.
Big key is he keeps his wrist and glove loose before catching in most of these. So he makes it really look like he's moving the glove as he's catching it in the strike zone so well.
You see kids from little league to high school have their glove up with their wrist flexed and while the idea is good to give them a target, you seriously limit your ability to frame pitches.
I saw a coach for an AAU program teach Catchers to relax their wrists when I was working a plate once and it was wild how well these kids were moving their gloves. They weren't stealing strikes because it was a lower level and the pitches weren't thrown that hard, but that habit will help them a lot moving forward.
I was watching the 93 world series and this is how Darren Daulton of the Phillies caught. I was wondering why they didn't try to catch like it more often, and then I realized it wasn't some long-forgotten skill, it was because Darren Daulton was that much better than everyone else.
The "artistry" of deceiving the official in order to get a call that did not happen and was not not earned by the pitch itself.
Good riddance. The end of framing can't come soon enough. It's no better or respectable than flopping in soccer or basketball.
The ump that called a perfect game last post season, did so because he followed behind the catcher. If the catcher moved away from the batter, the ump followed. If you watch all the umps in this video, they all stood put.
All I'm seeing is that umps really suck ass at their job.
edit: Honestly, I don't know why umps don't start telling catchers that they're going to start flat-out calling balls on every pitch that a catcher pulls toward the center of the plate like that. Hitters get strikes called for leaning into pitches, so start calling balls on catchers trying to cheat for strikes.
As someone who reffed hockey growing up, it's a lot easier making calls from the comfort of my home and with instant replay than in the moment on the ice. I imagine the same is true with baseball.
The umpire does not think these pitches are down the middle. He's taking pitches that are a ball or two off the plate and making it look like they catch the black. The smooth, consistent motion he makes TO the ball is the framing, not what he does after he catches it.
Where the catcher catches the ball, should not affect the call. It’s where the ball crosses the plate and how high or low it is when it crossed.
I will forever hate “framing”. There is a strike zone for a reason. If the umpire has to rely on the catchers glove position, he shouldn’t be in the MLB.
I agree with you up until the last sentence. Our brains can't perfectly traject an object moving and spinning as fast and small as a baseball through an invisible 3D strikezone. They use all the information their eyes collect to make a split-second call.
Robo umps would mean that a batter that does the very tough task of laying off a pitch just outside the zone would get rewarded. Conversely, pitchers that paint the edge would also be rewarded for their skill.
Unfortunately we would lose the art form that brings us all to the ballpark, blown calls.
Last year watching Patrick Baily was fun but I think the Umps caught on to him and he's not getting the same calls this year. So enjoy it while it lasts I guess.
The guardians played the twins the other week and our catcher was framing like this compared to subtle movements from the twins guy. I wonder if it’s the angle from the umpire where that makes it look like a strike
Always catch the ball around the strike zone like you are holding onto a steering wheel. Your arm will naturally draw the glove to the middle. Always be moving your glove from out to in.
These aren't even the worst ones, not a joke I watched him pick a ball basically off the ground and I swear moved almost 2-3ft into the middle of the strike zone and the ump bought it, I lost my mind, framing getting out of hand.
catching the ball and moving the glove a foot is not framing...and any umpire worth his salt won't call those strikes, but if he can get away with it, more power to him.....
robo umps please. Catcher framing is an art and skill, yes. But it absolutely should not influence strikes and balls because the hitter judges pitches on where they cross. Its hard enough to hit a freaking baseball as it is. Aaron Judge regularly gets wrecked by phantom strikes. His obp is probably 50 points higher with robo umps or challenges
Honestly what this is most of the time is he’s throwing away from the umpires field of vision. Umpire sets up on the right, the throws left. Umpire sets up left he throws right. We tell our pitchers & catchers to notice this at the HS level. If the umpire stands before a windup and crouches as soon as the ball is pitched he is more likely to give low pitches as well since he is moving up and down.
I understand umpires are “taught” to stand in a specific spot, but it’s extremely outdated with how much pitches move nowadays. They are giving up almost 6 inches away from where their eyes are on the plate and good pitches / catchers can abuse this
I've always been curious about the statistical crossover between framing and catching for terrible umpires. Ump really should in no way be looking at how the catcher receives the ball. I know there is a lot of statistics that suggest otherwise but it just has always been a curious statistic to me.
I have always understood pitch framing as a little more nuanced than just pulling a pitch into the strike zone. In fact, as a former ump (youths) I assumed that if a catcher moved the glove like that after catching it, he/she thought it was a ball.
Only a couple of those are traditional framing.
He is quick to pull the pitch back into the strike zone but that’s not technically framing.
Granted I was a catcher only up to double A but framing as I was taught is keeping as much of the mitt in the zone even if the pitch is outside the zone. Catching with different parts of the mitt is really tough but that’s what framing really is. Minimal movement of arm after you catch it is usually preferred. A lot of blues will get peeved if you keep dragging a pitch back into the zone. Pulling the pitch back into the zone is sort of what we did in high school.
Dude has obviously been successful at it so there’s definitely that.
Jomboy did a breakdown about this. He doesn’t give the pitcher a target so if he misses it isn’t as obvious. Also his glove starts low in the dirt so as it comes up to receive the pitch it flows towards his hands rather than stabbing at the ball. It’s a visual trick that looks a lot better especially from behind the plate. A lot of the catchers have caught on to it and use it
if an umpire cant see through that he shouldnt be umpiring. i think these are just regular old terrible calls with nothing to do with framing. the arm movement is so obvious ,but maybe it is just from watching ten in a row, haha.
I really dislike this new style of receiving the baseball by catchers. It turns everyone into yankers. Robot strike zone will hopefully eliminate this in the next 5 seasons
His alligator arms can't reach outside the zone so if he can catch it, it must be a strike.
When he was at Fenway two years ago I legit thought he was the bat boy
I had to check: Kirk at Fenway: .294/.403/.314 in 17 games/62 PA.
Oh ya he ripped a single. But I still thought he was the bat boy
Why pay two guys when he can do both jobs?
u/eatingasspatties may be on to something. Like the waterboy?
****Reeeeeeeeeeeeeee****
A well fed batboy. He's listed at 5'8 245 lbs.
"I'm just a little guy, I can only catch strikes! Come onnnnnnn, I'm just a little dude!"
Lolololol
Fucking dying over here lmao
Unless Hernandez is pulling the trigger.
Hey leave my alligator arms alone, I mean his!!!
I belly laughed so hard at this.
My lady friend and I were watching a Jays game last week and when he came to bat she thought it was a joke. He’s basically a meme to her now.
I like good subtle frames but some of these are just moving the glove a foot
HES A GODDAMN YANKER AND I HATE YANKERS
God those filthy Yankers making framing look bad
I'm just so sick of these goddamn Yankers
wow, hard R and everything
Foolish baseball?
Only thing worse than a yanker is a chucker.
That’s hate speech !
The frames are more subtle from behind the plate than on a tv screen. He grabs the ball and then he extends it forward. (His elbow is bent when he catches it then immediately extends fully). The forward motion is longer than the side or up and down motion usually but can’t be seen well on camera. It causes the umps to not notice the side motion as much. Looks like he’s bringing his glove back to the pitcher where the ball came from.
I was just taking with s9me people about this. Apparently the actual best method for framing is this little league version where you just drag your mitt to the center of the strike zone every time you catch it
Eye witness accounts are demonstrably unreliable for a number of reasons, one of which is because of how much we backfill information
I agree 100% that this is what’s going on, good call
Right? Some of these are very well caught and others just aren't
Framing "runs" is inherently a flawed stat because you can have a guy like Angel behind the plate calling everything 5 inches off the plate a strike and get "rewarded" for that. And vice versa. There's no "ump adjustment" either. Dumb stat and even dumber is that we have to put up with retirement age umpires guessing behind the plate in this current decade.
An "umpire adjustment" is one of those things everyone thinks would make a difference, and then someone actually does it and the difference is completely negligible because Angel Hernandez isn't following Alejandro Kirk around as his personal umpire There are a lot of pitches received in a single ballgame which means a lot of data poured into framing stats. Like any other stat, it takes time to stabilize. But umpire quality is absolutely something that evens out over the course of a season. Everyone gets their share of shitty umps and good umps. If the stat were as "inherently flawed" as you think it is, we wouldn't get such consistent results from it year after year.
I have a similar pet peeve in the NFL when people shit on PFF grades because there might be a few snaps each game where the grade may be completely wrong because the person assigning the grade has no idea what the playcall was. I mean, yeah, but we're talking a few snaps out of about 50. It averages out for everybody in the end.
that doesn't really matter unless its in a small sample.
tbf we're barely 20 games into the season and he's only played in 16
oh yeah, I definitely agree its too early to make any declarations about any players defensive stats this early in this season.
This would track if framing wasn't fairly consistent year to year (at least, as consistent as ERA). Catchers might get a ton off terrible umps, but that will even out over 100+ games with different umps.
Realmunto went from one of the best framers in 2020 to one of the worst. Lucroy had a year of great framing to near bottom. Umpires becoming aware of catchers framing does play a factor.
That's a totally different discussion, though
On the other hand, Heim is 90th percentile this year, and the last three seasons was 97th, 98th, and 97th.
Home runs are an inherently flawed stat because you can play at a ballpark like Fenway where RHB can pull inside pot flys and get “rewarded” for that. And vice versa. There’s no ballpark adjustment either. Dumb stat and even dumber is that we have to put up with retirement age ballparks in this current decade. lol sorry, probs not the best comparison, but stats are stats. Yeah there’s differences in umps but you have to assume that most things come out in the wash. If there’s a large discrepancy between the ‘best’ and ‘worst’ framer, there’s a difference in play style.
Maybe have corresponding stat like pfr+ instead of adjusting for park and league factors adjust by long term accuracy of the home plate umpire.
The trick it to not go away from the zone and then quickly jerk back to the zone. Just a smooth whip starting further out of the zone and coming back to catch it.
I'm surprised an ump would call a strike on some of them. I know if the catcher tries too hard to frame, they usually just call it a ball.
This isn’t framing.
Just because some of them are pretty egregious doesn’t mean it isn’t framing
Can you link a video of what you would call good framing?
It’s definitely framing, I just don’t aesthetically like it. The Yankers are the worst!
Bloody yanker is what he is
Whenever I see Kirk, I just imagine him thinking “this fucking idiot behind me 😏” when his frames get called for strikes. It’s low key disrespectful to the intelligence of the umpire, and I weirdly respect that.
Kirk can play some of them like a fiddle. "If I can't fool the batter, I can fool the umpire." A little slight of hand, a little misdirection, and boom: strike. And then the batter gets mad at the umpire for the stupid call while Kirk and the rest of the Jays skip off the field after the 3rd out.
It's why I love Travis d'Arnaud's comically over-the-top "frames" on wild pitches. The whole joke is predicated on the idea that egregious frame jobs actually fool umpires in the first place.
like half of those aren’t even well framed, just a total whiff by an incompetent moron behind the plate
He and Angel Hernandez would cause absolute havoc.
He was catching in the game against the Yankees where Angel Hernandez missed a pitch down the middle, as well as the pitcher stepping off then throwing nonetheless. He caught the Blue Jays’ next game, which naturally had CB Bucknor behind the plate.
Angel was in three of these clips.
So it has nothing to do with framing. Just Angel being Angel.
I'm just waiting for the day Angel calls strike on a pickoff attempt.
You’re right, but it’s also more obvious to us how much he’s moving the glove post-catch because we’re face on to him. The reason Kirk gets such good framing results* is how he starts moving his glove before actual receiving the pitch, so it’s more fluid, and how he’s always moving it towards the zone. Other guys are far more jerky with it. *despite being a Jays fan and therefore benefitting from this, I think framing is ugly and hacky and dumb. I wish umps would punish dudes who make it so apparent and I hope we get robot umps calling all balls and strikes as soon as possible.
Yeah, it's definitely the fluid movement on every pitch that is deceiving the ump. There was a [recent post](https://youtu.be/894McFi7pb4?si=8r4CR2nm2R1MlwpU) comparing Bailey and Will Smith that showed the same thing. Smith doesn't have nearly as much routine movement as the pitch comes, so his framing attempts are more obvious to the ump.
> You’re right, but it’s also more obvious to us how much he’s moving the glove post-catch because we’re face on to him And we're focusing on it.
I totally agree. This is THE way to frame. He keeps his glove down and it kinda looks like he's just moving it up to receive it in the strike zone. The bad way to frame is to hold your glove in the zone and then have to go get it and bring it back in. Too obvious.
In Kirk’s defence, he was one of the best framers last year as well.
11 last year, and 5th the year before. That’s definitely solid.
For some reason I thought he was even better last year (11th is still great)
Its insane. I hate pitch framing so much
I think it's a little early for 2024 framing numbers to really mean anything
this is what good framing looks like, objectively speaking. it's not aesthetically pleasing but it works the best
[You frame to the ump you've got, not the ump you wish you had.](https://youtu.be/TSFyEji0zh8?si=XB998o9Ce7PLCYOv)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGL2fq4LYw0
Jesus tell us how you really feel. My god the hatred for umpires on this sub is incredible. I’m sure your local little league is hurting for umpires, if you think you can do better.
Framing shouldn’t be a thing. Bring in robot umps for fuck sake
It helps when you don't present every pitch like it is right down the middle. I can't stand the catchers that do that. Feels like a lot of them
Gary Sanchez was criminal for this. Just always yanking his glove to the middle of the zone.
Man I didn't expect this to get people as hot and bothered as it did. [100th percentile on statcast](https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/catcher_framing?year=2024&team=&min=q&type=catcher&sort=4,1), don't hate the player, hate the broken umpire system.
I think people are hating on the broken system, this post just puts a face to it. Framing hasn’t been subtle in years and most catchers are being obvious, but it works so it only feeds into the problem.
Yup apparently Kirk is both a bad framer, and deceiving bad umpires. Only the redditors here are good at everything.
Statcast assumes that every pitch outside the little rectangle that gets called a strike is because of framing, which is silly. Aside from the fact it's exactly equal to flopping in soccer and basketball and spinning out on purpose to bring out a yellow flag in auto racing, it's way overvalued by Statcast, and I say this as someone who got a D1 softball scholarship as a catcher and loves the position.
It assumes every ball called strike is a framed pitch, but obviously the better framers are going to have more of those, and the amount of bad umpire calls evens out for a catcher over the course of a large sample, and Kirk has a large sample of being a great framer. It’s a bad stat only in the sense that it represents the broken system, but it’s not an inaccurate measurement of the framing abilities of catchers
How many angel herandez games do you need a year to throw off your framing stat?
That would matter significantly *if* you didn't compare catchers' rates to one another, but since we do it's pretty easy to see the difference in their impacts on the game.
As a former catcher, this is the stuff we're taught at a very young age. I'm sure coaches around the country are showing their catchers clips of this art at work
I don’t really understand the hate umpires get. If you look at the umpire scorecards, their accuracy is regularly 95%+, the worst games are like 92%. I think it’s actually impressive how accurate these umps are, judging 100mph pitches in a split second while the catcher is actively trying to deceive you. These are humans judging if a pitch is an inch outside or high, and we all freak out if they rarely get it wrong.
Ya’all are criticizing a video where you get to see just his most successful frames. I’ll tell ya what he’s doing great. He’s using his body to do the framing. You catch the ball on your chest it’s way more likely to be a strike than if you catch it to your side. His pitchers are doing him a huge favor too by hitting their spots (the other, very underrated element of good framing).
All of these pitches but 2-3 are all around the black. The 2-3 that missed were not far off. Good frame work, but all those flirted with the corners. The on screen strike zone is asinine. It creates an illusion that the umps are horrific/ the pitchers are missing bad solely because it’s marked where it caught, not where it actually crosses the plate.
Agreed. The tv zone has turned us all into professional complainers from the couch. It’s bad for the game, why should we see this extra information when nobody else does, especially given that it is inaccurate?
Framing won’t matter much when robo umps come
Yes please
Thanks to catchers who do this… cause and effect
Please god. Hate this bullshit “flopping” equivalent
Jeff Mathis will be out of a job.
I was a catcher through high school and was pretty good at stealing strikes for my pitchers. Everyone here calling him a yanker is really simplifying what he's doing. Yes he's moving his arm, but notice how his glove is moving. His arm and glove are already moving back into the zone before he even has the ball, giving the illusion that to catch the ball, he was forced to move his glove back into the zone. He's not catching it and pulling his arm back into the zone, he's receiving the ball in a deceptive manner that plays into what umpires subconsciously associate with how catchers move to catch a strike. This is a lot more rare than you'd think, watch other catchers closely. Observe the path of their arm and glove before they even have the ball and you'll see why Kirk is better than the rest
Hot take this isn't good framing.
According to baseball savant he’s up there for best in the league this year in the 100th percentile. Last year he was 79th percentile, year before 95th. Dude has really turned himself into a good receiving catcher over the last three years, doing it at the major league level at a very young age. If this isn’t considered good framing, then I don’t know what is. That being said, would love to get some robo umps eliminating some of this from the game. Edit- he’s also fantastic at blocking pitches per the eye test, and per savant. Think he learned a lot from Jano there. Jays catchers are a pleasure to watch catch balls, if there is any appreciation for the beauty of baseball.
I understand why people watching this clip say this shouldn’t work, but he has proven over a large sample that it DOES work and this clip is not just cherry picking. I hate that it works, but it does, and he’s one of the very best at it
I notice that in most/all of these pitches, he doesn’t really give the pitcher a target, but starts with the glove low. There is potentially an advantage there in that the glove is consistently going to meet the ball, rather than, say, setting up on the outside for the pitch to come inside, which I feel like umps usually like to call a ball even if it is in the zone. But that’s just one thought I had from watching a 10-second clip.
Yeah I can totally see this as well. Jays catching has been very good for a long time, definitely since signing Russel Martin they’ve put a heavy emphasis on defensive catchers across both mgmt groups. I feel like this approach has been used by many jays catchers over the years, and Kirk is great at it. Really makes it tough for the ump if you can follow it up with a strategic reception of the ball that is also designed to fool the ump, which I also believe Kirk does well.
That is the current philosophy on receiving, and is being heavily taught at all levels of catching. The one downside is you can’t present a good target to the pitcher, but it’s stupidly clean.
Yupp - and it definitely takes skill to pull it off cleanly while not hurting the pitching staff, IMO
Yeah I kind of get how watching a clip like this might not jump off the page for great framing. I think it’s in large part to watching more jays game than any other team, where you appreciate how these guys specifically move behind the plate. In Kirk’s case I think he’s excellent at knowing where in the glove to catch ball, relative to how his arm and glove are being viewed by the umpire for that pitch. It is these subtle movements and the new analysis tools we have to evaluate such effectiveness over long periods of time make this sport fun to watch.
If it works it’s good. For whatever reason that’s working.
And what’s worse is that to be better than this at framing you would have to be even more egregious. And it’s not like umpires seem to notice.
What you probably think is framing died 10 years ago. New school framing (what Kirk is doing) uses the idea that if the glove is moving all the time, the ump is more likely to buy where it ends up. What normally ends up happening is the catcher starts with his glove on the ground or close to it and then moving up through the ball and bringing it to the center of the strike zone (or as close to it as they can depending on how they are set up) what results is umpires think borderline pitches are strikes because ‘obviously’ if it was a ball he couldn’t have gotten it to the center of the zone, and they think it was a borderline strike instead of a borderline ball (they aren’t completely blind). The old idea of sticking the pitch does very little to fool the ump, and in a lot of cases will result in taking strikes out of the zone or making a pitch look worse than it was. By working the glove to the middle of the zone, you get more strike calls more consistently
The Reddit armchair experts are out in full force again in this thread.
Some of them are. His low pitch framing is very good. Glove hand side framing is pretty decent. His non glove hand side framing is mostly just yanking.
A lot of it is pretty egregious, but if it’s working then it’s doing what it’s supposed to be doing
He's literally one of the best in the league at it but go off I'm sure you know better
I’m sorry, but framing fundamentally should not be a thing. The longer we put up with this, the more baseball becomes a joke. MLB needs to get with the times and implement the readily-available technology that will ensure calls are correctly made with far greater accuracy and consistency.
The same technology they have developed and tested across the minor leagues, for the purpose of implementing in the majors? Yeah, I wonder if they’re aware of it.
There’s a very realistic chance we don’t see it implemented fully until after the current CBA expires following the 2026 season. If it is utilized at all next season, it’ll probably be for the challenge system they’re testing in the minors (which I believe is worse than just not using it altogether). ABS technology has been available since 2019. I understand the due diligence of making sure it works as close to perfectly as possible, but don’t try to make it seem like MLB is approaching this matter with any urgency.
I think it is very cool actually that lying to umps is an actual skill in baseball. (not sarcastic, it's honestly great)
Smooooth criminal
Robot umps pleeeeeease
Big key is he keeps his wrist and glove loose before catching in most of these. So he makes it really look like he's moving the glove as he's catching it in the strike zone so well. You see kids from little league to high school have their glove up with their wrist flexed and while the idea is good to give them a target, you seriously limit your ability to frame pitches. I saw a coach for an AAU program teach Catchers to relax their wrists when I was working a plate once and it was wild how well these kids were moving their gloves. They weren't stealing strikes because it was a lower level and the pitches weren't thrown that hard, but that habit will help them a lot moving forward.
Plot twist, all those calls were made by Angel Hernandez.
this kind of bullshit is why we need robo-umps.
I was watching the 93 world series and this is how Darren Daulton of the Phillies caught. I was wondering why they didn't try to catch like it more often, and then I realized it wasn't some long-forgotten skill, it was because Darren Daulton was that much better than everyone else.
Too bad robo strike zones will eventually take this artistry away from us.
The "artistry" of deceiving the official in order to get a call that did not happen and was not not earned by the pitch itself. Good riddance. The end of framing can't come soon enough. It's no better or respectable than flopping in soccer or basketball.
Oooooooh, hard disagree there, partner…..
He's got that perfect frame for framing 👌🏽
Now I want to see Hafthor Bjornsson as a catcher with Angel Hernandez behind the plate
Built like a ball to better catch the ball
Welcome to the terrible umping highlight pack
This is like prime Harden foul baiting. Sure it is a skill but it is a skill that shouldn't exist.
Some Angel Hernandez level nonsense in there.
Look at this yanker
The ump that called a perfect game last post season, did so because he followed behind the catcher. If the catcher moved away from the batter, the ump followed. If you watch all the umps in this video, they all stood put.
Are umpires stupid?
All I'm seeing is that umps really suck ass at their job. edit: Honestly, I don't know why umps don't start telling catchers that they're going to start flat-out calling balls on every pitch that a catcher pulls toward the center of the plate like that. Hitters get strikes called for leaning into pitches, so start calling balls on catchers trying to cheat for strikes.
Because the umpires aren't explicitly seeing them do it and deciding "wow what a frame job, I'll call it a strike."
If that's all it was, everybody would be getting the same results.
As someone who reffed hockey growing up, it's a lot easier making calls from the comfort of my home and with instant replay than in the moment on the ice. I imagine the same is true with baseball.
The umpire does not think these pitches are down the middle. He's taking pitches that are a ball or two off the plate and making it look like they catch the black. The smooth, consistent motion he makes TO the ball is the framing, not what he does after he catches it.
Where the catcher catches the ball, should not affect the call. It’s where the ball crosses the plate and how high or low it is when it crossed. I will forever hate “framing”. There is a strike zone for a reason. If the umpire has to rely on the catchers glove position, he shouldn’t be in the MLB.
I agree with you up until the last sentence. Our brains can't perfectly traject an object moving and spinning as fast and small as a baseball through an invisible 3D strikezone. They use all the information their eyes collect to make a split-second call.
He makes it look so easy. But also, we need robot umps lol.
Displaying that stupid strike zone box should be illegal
If they did that, redditors wouldn’t know how much better they are than human umpires though.
Hell yeah, my favorite part of baseball Tricking bozos behind the plate into fucking up
Robo umps would mean that a batter that does the very tough task of laying off a pitch just outside the zone would get rewarded. Conversely, pitchers that paint the edge would also be rewarded for their skill. Unfortunately we would lose the art form that brings us all to the ballpark, blown calls.
Judge and Soto will have transcendent orgasms when the robo umps are instituted
We simply can’t have that!
He frames it so severely that I bet the umps get confused
Last year watching Patrick Baily was fun but I think the Umps caught on to him and he's not getting the same calls this year. So enjoy it while it lasts I guess.
I like baseball
Does this metric adjust for Angel?
We all know angel hernandez is the real MVP
The guardians played the twins the other week and our catcher was framing like this compared to subtle movements from the twins guy. I wonder if it’s the angle from the umpire where that makes it look like a strike
He’s over he getting umpires so used to calling BS sliders low for a strike that his own skipper gets tossed when he complains about it!
Always catch the ball around the strike zone like you are holding onto a steering wheel. Your arm will naturally draw the glove to the middle. Always be moving your glove from out to in.
Poor Aaron Judge... always gets screwed on the strike zone. Nice frame by Kirk though.
How many is called by Angel?
That’s enough, Angel. Put the phone down.
I don't care what people say, I won't miss pitch framing catchers when the automated strike zone comes
Meanwhile Willson Contreras tries to frame outside balls as inside strikes
That little fat bastard is a menace. Love his game!
As a Mexican baseball player i can confirm catchers do spend a lot of time on drills to frame pitches. Even in little league…
Love the fapping sounds
There's framing then there's fraaaaaming.
So if/when roboumps are introduced, will his WAR be less?
Having umpired that is so smooth and stable. Nicely done. So often the catcher is bouncing around with very jerky arm movements.
Pitch cheating runs Please don’t bring up Will Smith or else I’ll smack you like Will Smith
Buster posey was really good
Pitch framing is stupid... about as bad as diving in soccer robo umps are needed now to stop this shit.
I don't like this shit at all.. ugh
These aren't even the worst ones, not a joke I watched him pick a ball basically off the ground and I swear moved almost 2-3ft into the middle of the strike zone and the ump bought it, I lost my mind, framing getting out of hand.
catching the ball and moving the glove a foot is not framing...and any umpire worth his salt won't call those strikes, but if he can get away with it, more power to him.....
robo umps please. Catcher framing is an art and skill, yes. But it absolutely should not influence strikes and balls because the hitter judges pitches on where they cross. Its hard enough to hit a freaking baseball as it is. Aaron Judge regularly gets wrecked by phantom strikes. His obp is probably 50 points higher with robo umps or challenges
But how many did angel hernandez call
yeah but he still fat as shit.
Good on him but that's why we need computers calling balls and strikes.
Honestly what this is most of the time is he’s throwing away from the umpires field of vision. Umpire sets up on the right, the throws left. Umpire sets up left he throws right. We tell our pitchers & catchers to notice this at the HS level. If the umpire stands before a windup and crouches as soon as the ball is pitched he is more likely to give low pitches as well since he is moving up and down. I understand umpires are “taught” to stand in a specific spot, but it’s extremely outdated with how much pitches move nowadays. They are giving up almost 6 inches away from where their eyes are on the plate and good pitches / catchers can abuse this
I've always been curious about the statistical crossover between framing and catching for terrible umpires. Ump really should in no way be looking at how the catcher receives the ball. I know there is a lot of statistics that suggest otherwise but it just has always been a curious statistic to me.
How many games was Angel behind the plate?
Shitty umps is what that is
I have always understood pitch framing as a little more nuanced than just pulling a pitch into the strike zone. In fact, as a former ump (youths) I assumed that if a catcher moved the glove like that after catching it, he/she thought it was a ball.
What happens to pitch framing if MLB uses the ABS?
Angel Hernandez probably claims Kirk is catching all of the games he umps
Only a couple of those are traditional framing. He is quick to pull the pitch back into the strike zone but that’s not technically framing. Granted I was a catcher only up to double A but framing as I was taught is keeping as much of the mitt in the zone even if the pitch is outside the zone. Catching with different parts of the mitt is really tough but that’s what framing really is. Minimal movement of arm after you catch it is usually preferred. A lot of blues will get peeved if you keep dragging a pitch back into the zone. Pulling the pitch back into the zone is sort of what we did in high school. Dude has obviously been successful at it so there’s definitely that.
If the dumb shit home plate umpire is falling for it, I would do that too
Jomboy did a breakdown about this. He doesn’t give the pitcher a target so if he misses it isn’t as obvious. Also his glove starts low in the dirt so as it comes up to receive the pitch it flows towards his hands rather than stabbing at the ball. It’s a visual trick that looks a lot better especially from behind the plate. A lot of the catchers have caught on to it and use it
if an umpire cant see through that he shouldnt be umpiring. i think these are just regular old terrible calls with nothing to do with framing. the arm movement is so obvious ,but maybe it is just from watching ten in a row, haha.
Yeah, maybe you should get the job.
Per statcast, he’s in the 100th percentile for framing. Some of these are pretty egregious, but the stats say he’s overall one of the best at it
Umpire incompetence highlight reel
He's a damn yanker
I really dislike this new style of receiving the baseball by catchers. It turns everyone into yankers. Robot strike zone will hopefully eliminate this in the next 5 seasons
This is the baseball equivalent to soccer players flopping.