Pitch Framing

[Guest Shag]

Pitch Framing..  Been around forever, and now they have stats for it.  My question...are umpires actually duped into calling a ball a strike?  From the plate umpire's position, can he see the catcher's glove, and if so, see it move out/in and up/down?
 

[Umpire in Chief]

On 10/23/2019 at 4:49 PM, The Man in Blue said:

As it should be.

 

Do you think part of the problem may be in how we train umpires to watch pitches?  At clinics, camps, etc. I have always heard “Watch the ball to the catcher’s mitt.”  Personally, I feel we should be saying “Track the ball through the strike zone.”  
 

The focus should be on the zone, not the last thing you see.  Umpires who are sold by the catcher’s mitt are either not watching the pitch all the way in or are suffering from recency bias and defaulting to the last thing they see.

I think watching it from the moment the pitcher starts his delivery to the catcher receiving the ball. You see where it goes through the zone as you should. But Watching it to the mitt helps with timing as @Young_Ump mentioned, but gives umpires the judgement we need. I've mentioned a few times lately, the pitch can just miss the corner and be made to look great by a catcher and you can get the strike or it can nip the corner and be butchered and lose a strike.