Pitching Framing Runs

[AngelsLakersFan]

1 hour ago, Troll Daddy said:

I enjoy the human element of the game. Good or bad it's great entertainment. I'm also not a fan of replay because takes away the momentum of the game. 

I do understand those who prefer otherwise. Baseball is a great game either way. 

Funny, I hate replay, but I am for an automated strike zone. The impact of ball and strike calls over the game is exponentially greater than any specific call on the field, and the implementation of an automated system would be seamless. Replay, on the other hand, is almost always an excuse to change the channel, or turn my attention away from the game. It reminds me of when I would play sports video games as a kid, and if something terrible would happen in the game I'd exit back to the main menu before it would save. lol

[Angel Oracle]

I'm all for combining the human and computer elements.

Just make sure the games don't get much longer in duration.

[Dick B Back]

I think computers might take squatification theory out of the equation.

[Oz27]

5 hours ago, Troll Daddy said:

Grandal or Salvador Perez ...  Who would you sign ?

best to worst framer

I'm sure there is some level of trolling here that I'm missing, but not only is Grandal 40 runs better than Perez on framing alone, he is also a better hitter (by a lot) and was worth 6.2 wins more than Perex last year. This is like asking if I would prefer Noah Syndergaard or Hector Santiago.

[Troll Daddy]

1 hour ago, Oz27 said:

I'm sure there is some level of trolling here that I'm missing, but not only is Grandal 40 runs better than Perez on framing alone, he is also a better hitter (by a lot) and was worth 6.2 wins more than Perex last year. This is like asking if I would prefer Noah Syndergaard or Hector Santiago.

First, if you think I'm trolling then don't answer the question. 

Second, this is a discussion thread.

Third, I'm don't buy into the 6.2 wins 

Lastly,

• 4× All-Star (2013–2016)
• 4× Gold Glove Award (2013–2016)
• Silver Slugger Award (2016)
• World Series champion (2015)
• World Series MVP (2015)

[tdawg87]

1 hour ago, Oz27 said:

and was worth 6.2 wins more than Perex last year.

Grandal is better overall but this is not even close to accurate.

[Oz27]

29 minutes ago, tdawg87 said:

Grandal is better overall but this is not even close to accurate.

Grandal's WARP was 6.8, while Perez was at 0.6. The difference between those two numbers is, well, you know...

[Troll Daddy]

4 hours ago, hangin n wangin said:

This is my response to the human element argument: The point of officiating in any sport is for the officiating to be as objective as possible. Humans are not objective by nature, therefore the human element argument fails. If we have technology to improve the fairness of the game, then it is stupid not to use it.

Umpires aren't the humans anyone cares about. No one on earth is packing up the family and spending $200 to go see CB Bucknor call balls and strikes.

To each his own ... there's no right answer. It's about preference ... the game has survived many bad calls and has grown bigger than ever.

Personally, I enjoy every emotional aspect of the game from the players and coaches. I don't need perfection ... boring. I also enjoy my own emotions as a fan#joy#anger#thills#angony#elation#pissed#etc. 

[Troll Daddy]

12 minutes ago, Oz27 said:

Grandal's WARP was 6.8, while Perez was at 0.6. The difference between those two numbers is, well, you know...

• 4× All-Star (2013–2016)
• 4× Gold Glove Award (2013–2016)
• Silver Slugger Award (2016)
• World Series champion (2015)
• World Series MVP (2015)

[Oz27]

1 hour ago, Troll Daddy said:

First, if you think I'm trolling then don't answer the question. 

Second, this is a discussion thread.

Third, I'm don't buy into the 6.2 wins 

Lastly,

• 4× All-Star (2013–2016)
• 4× Gold Glove Award (2013–2016)
• Silver Slugger Award (2016)
• World Series champion (2015)
• World Series MVP (2015)

So he won a silver slugger award this year despite being a well below average hitter and not even close to the best hitting catcher in the American League. He has won a few gold gloves despite being a below average fielder every year of his career. He has made a few all-star teams despite having only one season in which he ranked as an above average player. Yeah, those awards don't mean much.

Discount advanced metrics and pitch framing all you want (as naive as that is to do), any argument in favor of Perez over Grandal is so flawed. Perez has a career OPS+ of 98, while for Grandal it is 118. In the five seasons Grandal has been in the big leagues, he has been a better hitter than Perez in four of them and they were essentially equal in the other one. This year, Grandal was 21 per cent better than a league average hitter and Perez was 11 per cent below average. By any reasonable player evaluation method, Grandal is so much better that it's just not funny. Copy and paste the same thing all you want, it doesn't make your argument any less silly.

[tdawg87]

What in the sweet christ is WARP

[Docwaukee]

1 minute ago, tdawg87 said:

What in the sweet christ is WARP

a slightly distorted version of WAR.  you use dice instead of cards.  

[Oz27]

3 minutes ago, tdawg87 said:

What in the sweet christ is WARP

Wins above replacement player, or Baseball Prospectus' version of WAR. It's the only catcher WAR which includes framing data so is therefore the only one which is close to accurate.

[tdawg87]

That seems a little over the top though. His WAR is 2.8 but we're saying his pitch framing ability was worth 4 wins? 

[tdawg87]

Jeff Mathis had a 0.9 WARP in 2016 despite playing just 41 games and putting up a 63 OPS+. Which makes him worth more overall than Perez, apparently.

[Oz27]

20 minutes ago, tdawg87 said:

That seems a little over the top though. His WAR is 2.8 but we're saying his pitch framing ability was worth 4 wins? 

BR's defensive metrics undersell Grandal by about two wins. His pitch framing was worth 26.7 runs (essentially two and a half wins) and overall defensively he was worth 27.5 runs, which is much better than his BR dWAR of 0.6. But BR's offensive statistics also sell him short. By true average, which BP uses for offensive value, Grandal was the 50th best hitter in baseball for anyone with more than 100 PA. By OPS+, which BR uses, he was down at 67th. So framing makes up a part of that difference but not all of it.

As for the Mathis/Perez thing, Perez is an awful framer and it really eats into his value. Given he was a pretty bad hitter too, he just wasn't a good player at all in 2016.

[Troll Daddy]

2 hours ago, Oz27 said:

BR's defensive metrics undersell Grandal by about two wins. His pitch framing was worth 26.7 runs (essentially two and a half wins) and overall defensively he was worth 27.5 runs, which is much better than his BR dWAR of 0.6. But BR's offensive statistics also sell him short. By true average, which BP uses for offensive value, Grandal was the 50th best hitter in baseball for anyone with more than 100 PA. By OPS+, which BR uses, he was down at 67th. So framing makes up a part of that difference but not all of it.

As for the Mathis/Perez thing, Perez is an awful framer and it really eats into his value. Given he was a pretty bad hitter too, he just wasn't a good player at all in 2016.

Pretty bad hitter ... are you for real? You do know that Perez received the Silver Slugger Award for 2016. 

I guess 4 GG awards consecutively means squat nowadays.

• 4× All-Star (2013–2016)
• 4× Gold Glove Award (2013–2016)
• Silver Slugger Award (2016)
• World Series champion (2015)
• World Series MVP (2015)

[Oz27]

24 minutes ago, Troll Daddy said:

Pretty bad hitter ... are you for real? You do know that Perez received the Silver Slugger Award for 2016. 

I guess 4 GG awards consecutively means squat nowadays.

• 4× All-Star (2013–2016)
• 4× Gold Glove Award (2013–2016)
• Silver Slugger Award (2016)
• World Series champion (2015)
• World Series MVP (2015)

I responded to this earlier, clearly you just lacked the ability to comprehend it. He also was a pretty bad hitter in 2016. His OBP was below .300 and OPS+ ranked him 11 per cent below average. He wasn't close to deserving of the silver slugger award.

And yes, using gold glove and silver slugger winners to judge a player's ability isn't smart. But keep copying and pasting that same thing, because that is a sign of real intelligence.

[Troll Daddy]

21 minutes ago, Oz27 said:

I responded to this earlier, clearly you just lacked the ability to comprehend it.

And yes, using gold glove and silver slugger winners to judge a player's ability isn't smart.

You're right .., framing is clearly the better way to go.

my bad

[Docwaukee]

41 minutes ago, ANAHEIMBOB said:

You got to love a great framer. With Blake DeWitt at the plate, Kemp stole second and advanced to third when the throw from Angels catcher Jeff Mathis sailed into center field. It was Mathis' sixth throwing error on a stolen-base attempt in his past 13 games.

“I just made a bad throw. No other way to put it,” Mathis said.

“Jeff is trying to find a rhythm behind the plate throwing the ball and he's been throwing better the past few games,” Scioscia said. “That one just got away from him.”
 

Does anyone else envision Anaheimbob's apartment being a replica of Spacey's from Se7en?  Yet all the journals are filled with Scioscia rants.  And he constantly re-enacts the final scene with himself as John Doe and Jeff Mathis as Brad Pitt with Scioscia's head wrapped up all nice and neat.  

WHAT'S IN THE BOX!

[tdawg87]

I have a really awkward boner right now.

[Docwaukee]

7 hours ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

What's interesting is that MLB players have been pushed to the max of their abilities, and weeded out by the precision of batting statistics to the point that most of these guys are fairly interchangeable, and teams are looking for 5 to 10 run improvements by position to get ahead. Then we start tracking pitch framing, something that we never had data on before, and we see these huge gaps in talent. As time goes on this too will become like hitting, where the worst are weeded out or learn to get better. The numbers are so large we are taken aback, but when we can tease out these relationships between actual strikes and called strikes over huge sample sizes of thousands of pitches we can draw conclusions with much more confidence. Something like CERA is trying to tell you about everything at once, and in turn isn't really telling you anything.

As for the 4 strikes per game equals 27 runs per year, they have looked into the differences in hitting by count. Go take a look if you'd like, the swings in offensive outcomes based on count are huge. Turning a 2-1 count into a 1-2 count completely changes the expectations for an at bat.

League wide tOPS+ after a certain count

0-1 vs 1-0  67 vs. 128

0-2 vs 1-1  23 vs. 86

1-1 vs 2-0  86 vs. 174

1-2 vs. 2-1 38 vs. 120

2-1 vs. 3-0 120 vs. 261

0-3 vs. 1-2  0 vs. 38

1-3 vs. 2-2  0 vs. 64

2-2 vs. 3-1  64 vs. 197

3-1 vs. 4-0  197 vs. inf

2-3 vs. 3-2  0 vs. 132

3-3 vs. 4-2  0 vs. inf

 

League wide, the avg number of pitches/PA was 3.87.  Posey caught 8968 pitches or 2317 at bats (or so).  He was +201.  So one pitch changed from a ball to a strike every 11 at bats.  As OZ mentioned, the weighted context neutral average of a ball to a strike is 0.14 runs.  

I am not sure this was mentioned, but better framers actually neutralize better hitters disproportionately.  The more pitches you see, the better hitter you likely are yet the more framing opportunities there are for the catcher during that players at bat.  

[Troll Daddy]

Pardon my sarcasm but pitch framing, in my opinion, is a myth perpetuated by the need to have a new type of subjective stat pop up every few years. It is not substantive because even with PITCHf/x – a pitch tracking system created by Sportvision – a determination must be made if the umpire would have called a ball or strike with a pitch in the same location without a catcher. That is indeed impossible to do. Additionally there is no way to determine how many runs good pitch framing would save or poor pitch framing would give up.

Watching a game and observing how catchers receive the ball certainly puts pitch framing in the myth category. Catchers invariably pull pitches just off the plate in and those below the knees up and that includes former Dodgers catcher Russell Martin who carries a reputation as a good pitch framer.

Most Dodger fans and perhaps most baseball fans consider former Dodger pitcher Zack Greinke to be a high IQ guy with a correspondingly high baseball intellect. He is also known for calling them as he sees them. I like his take on pitch framing.

“I believe that some catchers are better at framing pitches. But I’m not a believer that it’s as valuable as it’s being made out to be,” Greinke said. “It’s part of a catcher’s skill set. It’s not the most important part. Just because he frames good doesn’t mean he’s a good catcher.”

Dodgers lefty and perennial Cy Young contender Clayton Kershaw seems to take a neutral position on the art of pitch framing and takes no position on the validity of a catcher’s ability to steal strikes. I might add that it is seldomly mentioned that if a catcher can steal strikes he might also turn a strike into a ball.

“I don’t know,” Kershaw said. “You just want strikes called strikes … I guess I’m in the middle. I don’t roll my eyes at it and I don’t pay a whole lot of attention to it either.”

Interestingly enough, Kershaw prefers to pitch to his close friend A.J. Ellis. Perhaps that explains his agnostic position regarding pitch framing. Ellis unfortunately has gained a reputation for being a poor pitch framer while his catching teammate Yasmani Grandal is considered to be a top-5 pitch framer.

On the other hand perhaps Kershaw sees pitch framing as one of a subset of catching skills and on the lower end of the scale. Catching skills, among others, that would top pitch framing are: game calling, taking control of a game, throwing arm, blocking pitches, providing a good target, game preparation. It would be difficult to label A.J. Ellis sub-par in those catching skills.

Dodgers reliever Chris Hatcher, who was signed out of the University of North Carolina, began his professional career as a catcher. He broke into the big leagues with the Florida Marlins in 2010 as a backstop but was quickly converted to pitching. Hatcher does not subscribe to the metrics of pitch framing. For him putting a number to the skill or art is no easy task.

“How do you quantify it? It doesn’t take into account guys with late movement,” Hatcher said. “It’s easier to catch a pitch that’s 98 miles per hour straight versus 90 miles per hour with late sink.”

“Like a lot of statistics, it’s subjective,” said Kansas City Royals bench coach and catching coordinator Don Wakamatsu about pitch framing.

 

Pitch Framing – Myth or Passing Fad?

 January 29th, 2016 at 6:00 am by Harold Uhlman

 

[Tank]

7 hours ago, Oz27 said:

Grandal's WARP was 6.8, while Perez was at 0.6. The difference between those two numbers is, well, you know...

6.2?

what do i win?

[Docwaukee]

On 12/28/2016 at 9:49 PM, Oz27 said:

On CERA, have a read of this - http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1489

In more basic terms, pitch framing data is controlled for many factors - most notably umpire and pitcher. Their impacts are factored into the metric you see at the end. There are no controls like that with CERA. There is a relatively strong year-to-year correlation in individual pitch framing results, while there is no meaningful correlation in year-to-year CERA totals (that is important because a strong year-to-year correlation indicates a statistic represents an actual skill, rather than random chance).

There have been many good articles posted in this to explain how and why pitch framing can be so valuable and why the statistics are so reliable. This is another good one - http://grantland.com/features/studying-art-pitch-framing-catchers-such-francisco-cervelli-chris-stewart-jose-molina-others/

if Catcher A is a great framer, and Catcher B is terrible, why wouldn't there be a year to year difference in a pitchers era with catcher A vs. that with catcher B?

Let's say that factor A through J impact whether a pitcher is going to have a better era with one catcher vs. another.  Let's say that factor C is pitch framing.  Let's say you had Sal Perez and Buster Posey as your two catchers and they split time equally.  Let's say you were somehow able to neutralize all the other factors like the same umpires and having them catch the same pitcher the same number of times vs the same batters in the same park under the same conditions etc then theoretically, by the end of the season there would be a 24 run delta in run prevention when buster caught vs. when sal caught.  (half of their 2016 numbers ie 13.5 runs from posed and 10 runs from sal because they each only caught half the games).  If the team era was 4.0, then buster's CERA would be 3.85 and Sal's would be 4.15.  

Now, they have statistically proven that CERA isn't a reproducible phenomena from year to year.  But one catcher might be 5 wins better at framing than the other?  

This tells me that all those other factors that affect CERA which cannot be isolated or measured appropriately essentially cancel out the effect that framing has on the overall impact of run prevention.  Or they think they have isolated the factors that affect framing but they really haven't.  

Essentially what this is saying is that framing may have up to a 5 win impact between catchers, but that is somehow not reflected in a pitcher's era when those catchers are catching said pitchers.  

Catcher framing is a sub-component of CERA.  If the impact if 5 wins, then we should see at least a marginal effect.  

My opinion is that framing is real.  But they haven't truly isolated the impact of it, and they haven't found a way to assign value to certain things (like sequencing, setup, and scouting) that impact the true value of what a catcher brings to the table.  It absolutely doesn't make sense to me that a catcher's ability from top to bottom doesn't impact a pitchers era in some way.  Maybe CERA isn't a perfect way to measure, but if there is variable run prevention by one of the factors (framing), then there should be a way to do a better job of isolating a catcher's overall impact on the game.