Dewan: The most improved pitch framers
From SABR member John Dewan at ACTA Sports on February 19, 2016:
When Baseball Info Solutions developed its pitch-framing component Strike Zone Runs Saved, we discovered that it was one of the most consistent and important aspects of catcher defense. Catchers who are good at drawing extra strike calls because of their framing tend to stay good from year to year. For example, Jonathan Lucroy and Buster Posey, two of the games’ best framers, have each saved their teams runs with framing every year since 2010, the first year BIS calculated the statistic.
With examples like Lucroy and Posey, it’s tempting to assume that framing is an ability that some players are born with and others are not. However, perhaps in part because we and others have recently been able to put numbers to the skill for the first time, several players made substantial improvements to their framing from 2014 to 2015. Here are the biggest improvers among catchers who caught 500 or more innings in both seasons.
Read the full article here: http://www.statoftheweek.com
Originally published: February 19, 2016. Last Updated: February 19, 2016.