Pitching Framing Runs

[Stradling]

17 minutes ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

There is also a distinct possibility that there are park effects that effect pitch framing as well.

The key issue is also the limited number of pitchers a catcher pairs with in a year, at least with a statistically significant number of pitches. If you try to do pitcher/catcher comparison across a staff then you are running into the effects of different umpires. The more you divide things up the more you run into sample size issues and introduce noise to the data.

As much as I buy into framing as a skill, I think we are still trying to figure out how to allocate credit.

 

I have it on good authority we have an issue with plate alignment in Anaheim. 

[eaterfan]

53 minutes ago, Oz27 said:

I had a different response written here before but really I should have just said that the Baseball Prospectus metric already controls for any impact the pitcher has. It also does the same for the hitter and umpire. You can read more on that here - http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=25514

Anyway, people seem pretty keen to play down the importance of framing because it still challenges long-held beliefs but the evidence that this is a skill worth a lot is very strong.

It's actually funny because framing used to be the bastion of the old school. Now that pitch FX has made it possible to quantify, it is suddenly unimportant to the old school crowd.

[eaterfan]

3 minutes ago, Stradling said:

Or that it looks like it counts for only a handful of runs a season.  

You must have big big hands. 

[Oz27]

11 minutes ago, Stradling said:

Or that it looks like it counts for only a handful of runs a season.  

I don't understand what you're saying here?

[Oz27]

10 minutes ago, eaterfan said:

It's actually funny because framing used to be the bastion of the old school. Now that pitch FX has made it possible to quantify is suddenly unimportant to the old school crowd.

That is true and yeah it is bizarre. The numbers aren't perfect and will be refined over time but I trust them a lot and consider them very accurate. Yet people are very keen to find "problems" with the measurements, even though in many cases those problems have already been accounted for.

[eaterfan]

35 minutes ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

There is also a distinct possibility that there are park effects that effect pitch framing as well.

The key issue is also the limited number of pitchers a catcher pairs with in a year, at least with a statistically significant number of pitches. If you try to do pitcher/catcher comparison across a staff then you are running into the effects of different umpires. The more you divide things up the more you run into sample size issues and introduce noise to the data.

As much as I buy into framing as a skill, I think we are still trying to figure out how to allocate credit.

 

That's fair, but the ones with sample sizes that are so small aren't moving the needle much on the stat. 

[Troll Daddy]

1 hour ago, hangin n wangin said:

Troll Daddy is just a simpleton. Seems like a nice dude, but he's just one of those guys that pretty much invalidates anything that he doesn't understand instead of trying to learn.

You try to make a ball look like a strike ..: this isn't rocket science. 

Woopty fuckin doo

btw yes I'm a nice guy

[AngelsLakersFan]

5 minutes ago, eaterfan said:

That's fair, but the ones with sample sizes that are so small aren't moving the needle much on the stat. 

Right, but I'm getting at the small sample sizes that are the minutia of the data when you break it down. Say you have a guy who is +25, his backup is +7. When you dig into the data you have a majority of innings that make up those numbers coming from the same pitchers, so you have to dig a little deeper to try and differentiate between pitcher skill and catcher skill. This means you are basing your results on swings in the smaller pieces of data - guys like Ricky Nolasco who changed teams, or the quality of the framing from Giovani Soto.

I'm gona check out the article Oz posted earlier to see if they give any hard data on standard error and deviation.

[Erstad Grit]

17 hours ago, eaterfan said:

You didn't question it. Beyond that you don't believe it. Which is something a 10 year old would say. What component of the stat do you find inaccurate? Is it the value of getting strikes called that are normally called balls? Is it the accuracy of the pitch fx? Is it whether or not it is a skill and not just noise? You raised no questions. You just said you don't buy it.

You want a response that is above that of a 10 year old then raise a better argument than I disagree with what the stat said so therefore it's wrong because the only response to that is "no you're wrong". If you'd like to see the math about why you're wrong then read any number of the links in this very thread that show the value of changing balls to strikes. If you'd like to see how that relates to Ianetta specifically then you can probably find his 2014 numbers online. I'm also sure you can read about how pitch fx works many places online.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-two-things-chris-iannetta-represents/

Here's just one article about it.

My two responses. 

1. Like probably you, I watch a lot of Angel games. I'm pretty sure if CI truly improved from one of the worst to one of the best it would have been more noticeable. I still saw the pitches in the FX box being called balls because he made them look like pitches in the dirt. 

2. This article would carry more persuasion with me had he not "regressed" this last season. The article paints a picture of him figuring it out. If that were the case I'm confused why it would disappear again. It's not like a skill like speed which can just disappear.  

My guess is there is some value in these formulas but CI exposed some limitations. I'm a huge believer of pitch framing. It's a valuable skill that could highly impact a game. I think there have been some good strides in figuring out how to quantify it. 

It sounds like you and Ozzy just conclude that anyone who doesn't buy into it completely is a moron. 

 

[ettin]

42 minutes ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

Right, but I'm getting at the small sample sizes that are the minutia of the data when you break it down. Say you have a guy who is +25, his backup is +7. When you dig into the data you have a majority of innings that make up those numbers coming from the same pitchers, so you have to dig a little deeper to try and differentiate between pitcher skill and catcher skill. This means you are basing your results on swings in the smaller pieces of data - guys like Ricky Nolasco who changed teams, or the quality of the framing from Giovani Soto.

I'm gona check out the article Oz posted earlier to see if they give any hard data on standard error and deviation.

I imagine a stadium like Coors Field creates more framing opportunities when you consider that the thinner air doesn't allow pitches to break as much as they would in a lower altitude environment putting them generally a bit closer to the plate (which of course ties in with why it is such a massive hitter's park).

[Oz27]

32 minutes ago, Erstad Grit said:

My two responses. 

1. Like probably you, I watch a lot of Angel games. I'm pretty sure if CI truly improved from one of the worst to one of the best it would have been more noticeable. I still saw the pitches in the FX box being called balls because he made them look like pitches in the dirt. 

2. This article would carry more persuasion with me had he not "regressed" this last season. The article paints a picture of him figuring it out. If that were the case I'm confused why it would disappear again. It's not like a skill like speed which can just disappear.  

My guess is there is some value in these formulas but CI exposed some limitations. I'm a huge believer of pitch framing. It's a valuable skill that could highly impact a game. I think there have been some good strides in figuring out how to quantify it. 

It sounds like you and Ozzy just conclude that anyone who doesn't buy into it completely is a moron. 

 

No, but I would question the critical thinking processes of a person who decides to dismiss something that has been thoroughly researched and developed by half a dozen of the smartest people involved in this sport because one player's statistics differ to their subjective assessment.

Also, if a shitty player has a one-year offensive breakout and then reverted back to their previous shitty self, would you:

a): believe that player was actually offensively valuable in that one good season, or

b): rubbish offensive statistics because of that one example

Assuming you would take option 'a', as any reasonable person would, why would you treat pitch framing metrics differently?

[eaterfan]

26 minutes ago, Erstad Grit said:

My two responses. 

1. Like probably you, I watch a lot of Angel games. I'm pretty sure if CI truly improved from one of the worst to one of the best it would have been more noticeable. I still saw the pitches in the FX box being called balls because he made them look like pitches in the dirt. 

2. This article would carry more persuasion with me had he not "regressed" this last season. The article paints a picture of him figuring it out. If that were the case I'm confused why it would disappear again. It's not like a skill like speed which can just disappear.  

My guess is there is some value in these formulas but CI exposed some limitations. I'm a huge believer of pitch framing. It's a valuable skill that could highly impact a game. I think there have been some good strides in figuring out how to quantify it. 

It sounds like you and Ozzy just conclude that anyone who doesn't buy into it completely is a moron. 

 

1. Every catcher will will make a lot of balls look like strikes and a lot of strikes look like balls. It's why it's important to track every single one of them and see how over the course of the season things go. 

2. The numbers in the article weren't wrong. They suggested a reason for his improvement was that he figured it out. But they said they couldn't be sure and it could be a blip. Overall the correlation is so high that it seems like it is a skill. But with anything that is a skill and something that happens so often there will be outliers. Brady Anderson hit 50 HRs in one season. He never reached half that in any of his other seasons. No one questions that HRs have value and are a skill. No one questions that Brady Anderson hit a lot of HRs that season because they'd watched him play and he hadn't hit nearly that many in any other season before or since. 

Neither Oz nor I am saying people who don't accept it are idiots. We're just saying give it the same level of credence that you'd give any other stat. Probably more than a lot of other stats because Pitch FX is really good at telling which pitches were strikes and which pitches were balls. It's a definite stat unlike a hit or an error because those are sometimes the judgment of a scorer. Witch pitch FX it is a strike or a ball just like a HR is a HR or it's not. Now you can adjust for things like park factor and pitchers faced to determine how good of a HR hitter Brady Anderson really was that year, we can also adjust for pitchers caught and umpiring habits to account for pitch framing.

[Erstad Grit]

8 minutes ago, Oz27 said:

No, but I would question the critical thinking processes of a person who decides to dismiss something that has been thoroughly researched and developed by half a dozen of the smartest people involved in this sport because one player's statistics differ to their subjective assessment.

Also, if a shitty player has a one-year offensive breakout and then reverted back to their previous shitty self, would you:

a): believe that player was actually offensively valuable in that one good season, or

b): rubbish offensive statistics because of that one example

Assuming you would take option 'a', as any reasonable person would, why would you treat pitch framing metrics differently?

I don't discount homeruns just because Brady Anderson had an anomaly break-out season. 

However during Brady's 50 homerun season his breakout was pretty noticeable.

If a stat claimed a player had a breakout offensive power season but no difference was discernible, then yes I'd have at least some skepticism. 

Just like some stats claim Trout is not a plus defender. My eyes tell me BS. I realize I'm subjective, but sometimes baseball is bigger than stats and formulas. 

Small variables like height / stance of batter, rhythm of pitcher, count,  etc impact strikes /balls so much. 

 

 

[Erstad Grit]

HA!

We both referenced Brady at the exact same time. 

[eaterfan]

15 minutes ago, Erstad Grit said:

I don't discount homeruns just because Brady Anderson had an anomaly break-out season. 

However during Brady's 50 homerun season his breakout was pretty noticeable.

If a stat claimed a player had a breakout offensive power season but no difference was discernible, then yes I'd have at least some skepticism. 

Just like some stats claim Trout is not a plus defender. My eyes tell me BS. I realize I'm subjective, but sometimes baseball is bigger than stats and formulas. 

Small variables like height / stance of batter, rhythm of pitcher, count,  etc impact strikes /balls so much. 

 

 

I have much less of an issue with you disagreeing with defensive stats because there is still a lot of judgement on a lot of the numbers they enter in and the sample size is so small. The number of framing opportunities is probably 100x the amount of defensive plays a player gets. Witch pitch FX the was it a ball or a strike is taken out of the equation as well as the was it called a ball or strike. It's a lot more similar to HRs in that respect. 

It's also a lot harder to notice the impact of framing than of a HR. For example if you can improve by getting one extra strike a game it's not all that noticeable and it has a micro impact on each game. But over the course of the season it adds up. It's like the rounding on transactions in Office Space. It's really why this stat is so important. Say a guy goes from getting 40 borderline pitches called a strike each game v. 42 called a ball and just flips it. It's not noticeable for people who watch every day but it adds up big time.

Maybe you are better watching games than I am but another example of an offensive difference would be watch a guy all year and then try to guess his batting average without looking at any numbers ever. I'd imagine it's really hard to do. In 600 ABs the difference between a .250 hitter and a .290 hitter is 25 hits. That's just one extra hit per week. It's really hard to notice if you don't track it and yet hitting .290 is much better (assuming all else is equal).

[Troll Daddy]

Mathis must be doing something right to get a 2/4M deal. He must be a damn good framer. 

[ettin]

On 12/17/2016 at 2:00 PM, ettin said:

Love the discussion in this thread by the way.... Unfortunately I think the Miguel Montero train has passed. It was something I thought about for the Primer in terms of Montero being a possible "two birds, one stone" Eppler trade candidate where we send a long term controllable piece in exchange for Montero's remaining one year of control plus another prospect (I was thinking Zagunis to fill LF long term). However the Angels only have about $10M-15M left to spend off of payroll in terms of Average Annual Value (technically they are about $21M-25M away from the CBT threshold) and Montero's AAV is $11M so unfortunately this ship seems like it has sailed.

I could be wrong. Typically teams like to maintain some payroll space heading into a new season but maybe Eppler, in the particular case of 2017 and where we are on the win curve, might forego maintaining that reserve and will use all of the remaining payroll space (the full $21M-25M) to improve the team as much as possible pre-season without exceeding the threshold.

If he did that then a Montero-based trade could be a remote but possible event.

 

I need to say that the Angels still have the payroll space to take on Montero but the likeliest way this happens is if they send Huston Street in a swap to save money which I think is a real possibility especially since the Cubs still need to fortify their bullpen (as do we). This would allow both teams to improve at positions of need. Contreras will almost certainly pick up the lion's share of the starts so Montero is bound to lose playing time which, in his last year before free agency, would be a blow to his earnings.

[ettin]

On 12/17/2016 at 2:06 PM, nikkachez said:

Yeah, it's mostly wishful thinking. He's a free agent next winter, might make sense as a veteran stopgap to help out with run prevention, catcher's another position of uncertainty moving forward.  Maldonado's only under control for two seasons. I don't think Perez has a spot long-term. Just another thing Eppler's going to have to piece together. 

I have changed my tone if the Angels can swing a Street for Montero based trade. It all rests on Huston to have a good showing in Spring Training as this would be a late Spring deal if it were to go down. If not the Angels will roll with what they have.

[Troll Daddy]

Is Salvador Perez is the worst framer in baseball ?

[BaseballMom]

On Hot Stove this morning someone said that the Diamondbacks have gone with Jeff Mathis instead of Wellington Castillo because he is a better pitch framer.

[ettin]

4 hours ago, BaseballMom said:

On Hot Stove this morning someone said that the Diamondbacks have gone with Jeff Mathis instead of Wellington Castillo because he is a better pitch framer.

I've read the same in other articles. There was an article just posted on FanGraphs regarding Ryan Doumit who was a noted horrible catcher and pitch framer and they basically indicated that he cost his team multiple wins with his poor framing and play (he had a good bat but it was outweighed by the other negatives).

[Angel Oracle]

Does pitch framing truly save more runs than throwing out base stealers?  

[AngelsLakersFan]

Interesting read from The Hardball Times. Pitch Framing Was Doomed From the Start

It seems to echo what I was saying to @Oz27 about the gap between the best and worst framers decreasing because of teams actually seeing the data.

[eaterfan]

30 minutes ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

Interesting read from The Hardball Times. Pitch Framing Was Doomed From the Start

It seems to echo what I was saying to @Oz27 about the gap between the best and worst framers decreasing because of teams actually seeing the data.

I'm going to go back to my original position in this thread:

Use robot umps. Take pitch framing out of the equation. As the gap narrows it just means a lower floor on the bad catchers. This means more strikes are being stolen and less offense is created. That's boring. I love pitching and defense but framing is neither.

It's basically like giving a math test, having an answer key with the correct answer, and then giving some people credit for answering 2+2 = 5 because they made a convincing argument that it was and not giving credit to people who answered 2+2 = 4 but made a bad argument. We're then giving out jobs as mathematicians to the people who made the most convincing argument instead of those who answered 4. And instead of teaching those that answered 5 how to be better at math we're teaching the people who answered 4 to get better at arguing. 

[totdprods]

18 minutes ago, eaterfan said:

I'm going to go back to my original position in this thread:

Use robot umps. Take pitch framing out of the equation. As the gap narrows it just means a lower floor on the bad catchers. This means more strikes are being stolen and less offense is created. That's boring. I love pitching and defense but framing is neither.

It's basically like giving a math test, having an answer key with the correct answer, and then giving some people credit for answering 2+2 = 5 because they made a convincing argument that it was and not giving credit to people who answered 2+2 = 4 but made a bad argument. We're then giving out jobs as mathematicians to the people who made the most convincing argument instead of those who answered 4. And instead of teaching those that answered 5 how to be better at math we're teaching the people who answered 4 to get better at arguing. 

That's a damn good analogy. I'm pretty firmly against a robo-zone but you've managed to get the needle to move.