Laurila: Tyler Flowers on framing and umpires
From SABR member David Laurila at FanGraphs on July 17, 2014:
Much has been written about pitch framing, and Tyler Flowers knows the subject well. The Chicago White Sox backstop has caught 255 big league games and another 362 at the minor-league level. He’s no grizzled veteran, but at the age of 28 he’s far from a neophyte behind the dish.
Flowers is 6-foot-4, which makes receiving low pitches a challenge. It’s a facet of his game he’s working to improve, and he’s doing so fully aware that not all framing nuance is of a purely physical nature. Flowers shared his thoughts on selling strikes — and related matters — when the White Sox visited Fenway Park last week.
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Flowers on getting the low strike: “When the situation permits – nobody on base – I’ve been putting one knee down. I’ve been lowering my center of gravity probably another three-four inches, which strengthens my ability to handle a pitch at the bottom of the zone. Before, it was 10 inches high, now all of a sudden you’ve lowered yourself so the bottom of your zone is six inches high. You can handle that pitch and not have it carry out of the zone; you can be in a strong position to kind of hold that pitch and kind of massage it back up into the zone to keep it looking like a good pitch.
Read the full article here: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/tyler-flowers-on-framing-and-umpires/
Originally published: July 17, 2014. Last Updated: July 17, 2014.