F2 dropping the inside knee? What is happening here?

[SeeingEyeDog]

So, the current F2 HS trend that is taking my market by storm is...with no runners on, they are dropping their inside knee fully to the ground regardless of pitch location. (F2 right knee down for LHB and left knee down for RHB). Why are they doing this? Are they trying to give their leg muscles a rest so when runners are on and they have to make a throw, they are fresher? Just curious...
 

~Dawg

[Richvee]

I believe the theory is they can frame the low pitch better. Catch the ball lower with the mitt still thumb down 

[Velho]

This is all the rage. MLB. catchers do it often. There are even advocates for 'OKD' with runners on. It's mostly the people who believe dropping the glove entirely to the ground (giving the pitcher no target) so they can always draw the pitch back into the heart of the zone on every pitch is proper technique. No more "sticking it" on an edge pitch.

Los of push back as well. It's green vs orange at this point.

[beerguy55]

14 hours ago, Richvee said:

I believe the theory is they can frame the low pitch better. Catch the ball lower with the mitt still thumb down 

This - it's all for the benefit of selling to the umpire. 🙃

It will be irrelevant in MLB by 2025 I suspect.

[Velho]

29 minutes ago, beerguy55 said:

This - it's all for the benefit of selling to the umpire. 🙃

That's their thinking. From MLB, MiLB, and D1 umps I've talked to, it's irrelevant now.

Been meaning to dive into the data on why they think this helps but haven't had time.

[concertman1971]

It isn't new. It is just all the rage right now. Tony Pena, Terry Steinbach, et al were doing the OKD stance in the 80s. Does save some wear and tear on the knees though

[beerguy55]

2 minutes ago, Velho said:

That's their thinking. From MLB, MiLB, and D1 umps I've talked to, it's irrelevant now.

Been meaning to dive into the data on why they think this helps but haven't had time.

There's quite a bit of data on catcher framing - Strikes Gained is the stat you want to look into.  And other sites are simply summarizing how borderline pitches end up as either balls or strikes based on the catcher's actions....umpire independent.

Statcast Catcher Framing Leaderboard | baseballsavant.com (mlb.com) 

Zone 18 in particular...the best catchers are approaching two thirds in getting the strike call on low pitches...the worst approach one third.  Then it's a matter of seeing which one of these catchers use the knee drop technique.   Lots of these guys are doing it even with runners on base (much to the chagrin of those who value blocking pitches over stealing a few strikes)

[Jimurray]

Probably the primary reason why NCAA changed their catcher's box rule.

[Velho]

14 minutes ago, Jimurray said:

Probably the primary reason why NCAA changed their catcher's box rule.

For those not aware (I wasn't)

https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/championships/sports/baseball/rules/2020-22PRMBA_MajorRulesChanges.pdf

[SeeingEyeDog]

1 hour ago, beerguy55 said:

There's quite a bit of data on catcher framing - Strikes Gained is the stat you want to look into.  And other sites are simply summarizing how borderline pitches end up as either balls or strikes based on the catcher's actions....umpire independent.

Statcast Catcher Framing Leaderboard | baseballsavant.com (mlb.com) 

Zone 18 in particular...the best catchers are approaching two thirds in getting the strike call on low pitches...the worst approach one third.  Then it's a matter of seeing which one of these catchers use the knee drop technique.   Lots of these guys are doing it even with runners on base (much to the chagrin of those who value blocking pitches over stealing a few strikes)

My apologies...statistics and data analysis is not my strength. Please help me understand how framing, leg drops, etc...are definitively proving you got a strike you shouldn't have? How do we definitively know the frame created the strike versus that the umpire missed it?

~Dawg 

[beerguy55]

34 minutes ago, SeeingEyeDog said:

My apologies...statistics and data analysis is not my strength. Please help me understand how framing, leg drops, etc...are definitively proving you got a strike you shouldn't have? How do we definitively know the frame created the strike versus that the umpire missed it?

~Dawg 

It's a correlative exercise...much like you can analyze an umpire's score against the strike zone (accuracy) and their own effective zone (consistency)...if you look at one game you might not have all context (maybe you have a really good/bad framing catcher)...but if you take those scores across all games you get a pretty good measure....now, you take that same mapping across all catchers, and try to make it independent of pitcher or umpire.

Even if you determine that all pitches in the "shadow zone" are Schrondinger's Strike, and may be factually a ball or factually a strike, you can still see how the exact same pitch in the exact same location can be rule a strike more with some catchers than others.

You take a measure of all pitches on the border of the strike zone (in this case, low), and you can see patterns in how all catchers receive pitches in the same location, independent of umpires, and (usually) independent of pitchers - you're looking at hundreds, if not thousands, of pitches for each zone...and then you can see which ones are called balls and strikes, for all catchers, across all locations/pitchers/umpires.   At that point, your catcher is either getting a strike that should have been a ball...or getting a ball that should have been a strike. 

It doesn't really matter which is right at that point.   If you have a pitch that is at the same specific grid point 1000 times...potentially for 120+ different plate umpires, and potentially a dozen pitchers for each catcher... for two different catchers, and catcher x gets 700 strike calls, and catcher Y gets 450, that's not an issue of any one umpire, or group of umpires, missing a call....that's an issue in how the catcher is presenting the pitch to all of the umpires.  And it doesn't matter what they should have been called.

And from there, the patterns become apparent...some catchers are better/worse than other catchers at framing/receiving...and as such, cost/gain their pitcher strikes, regardless of umpire, or umpire quality.

You could even do the same statistical analysis of all catchers receiving in front of the same umpire...you might get a finding of either more strikes, or more balls, as a general finding for that umpire, which might go to how much framing influences that umpire, but even with the "smartest" umpires, you should/will see a difference among catchers who are more, or less, successful.

The leg drop issue specifically is about low strikes in general.  It makes framing those low strikes easier.  And pitchers like to stay at the bottom of the zone, or below the zone if they can get some free strikes.  Those are harder pitches to turn into hits...and especially home runs.

I'm not sure if this will be location blocked - it's a Sportsnet Canada video showing the difference between Alejandro Kirk and Danny Jansen, and seeing several low (probable) balls called strikes for Kirk, and low (probable) strikes called balls for Jansen - across multiple pitchers and umpires.  These corroborate the stats shown above.

 

Analyzing different stances between two Blue Jays’ catchers behind the plate (sportsnet.ca)

 

[beerguy55]

On 3/15/2024 at 1:50 PM, SeeingEyeDog said:

My apologies...statistics and data analysis is not my strength. Please help me understand how framing, leg drops, etc...are definitively proving you got a strike you shouldn't have? How do we definitively know the frame created the strike versus that the umpire missed it?

~Dawg 

Here's the TLDR version...

If you have a pitch that is at the same specific grid point 1000 times for each catcher...across dozens of different plate umpires, and potentially a dozen pitchers; and catcher X gets 725 strike calls, and catcher Y gets 400, that's not an issue of any one umpire, or group of umpires, missing a call....that's an issue in how the catcher is presenting/selling/receiving the pitch. Either the catcher is getting strikes that should be balls...or getting balls that should be strikes...or at the very least, is influencing the direction of a borderline pitch that should be called a strike/ball (theoretically) 50% of the time.