framing a pitch

My son is taught that he should catch the ball with as little movement of the glove as possible. Assuming you are set up for the inside pitch and the pitcher hits the spot, you should try to catch the ball with your elbow close to your body (which means the thumb will NOT be pointed down) and have the ball hit the glove on the fingers and nestle into the pocket.

That way the largest part of the glove stays in the strike zone, and the ball is caught with the minimum movement of the glove.

"Framing" is an interesting discussion. I observe a lot of catchers snatch a ball that is barely out of the zone (or even marginally in the zone) and then try to quickly move the glove into the zone, thinking this is "framing."

My son is taught not to do this. Lots of umps will tend to call a ball anything the catcher tries to move back into the zone on the theory that he wouldn't have done it if it was in the zone. It also negatively affects the relationship between the ump and the catcher.

Framing, in the way my son is taught, involves proper set-up and catching the ball so that the glove moves as little as it can and still get the ball, then holding the caught ball precisely where it hit the glove for a beat, which his coaches call "sticking" it.

I've seen lots of catchers even at the college level do a real sloppy job of sticking pitches, and at times it costs their pitchers strikes. I cringe when I see a marginal strike caught and then taken out of the zone by a lazy catcher who is just snatching at balls. My kid got his butt kicked whenever he would do that as a 13 year old, and he learned.

So, to answer your question: thumbs down on catching an inside pitch with the thumb down. That requires a lot of movement by the glove arm - the elbow has to go up.

thanks a lot, i was just really getting mad at some people telling me the other way and they had no idea what they were talking about and i just wanted to check up and make sure on everything. and the point where people pull or drag those pitches into the zone kills me too, that is the wrong way to gain respect from an umpire i would think

Hopefully their isn't any umps on this board who will have to look at the catchers glove to make the determination of a ball or strike...

yeah that is true about there shuldnt be umps looking at the glove to determine it but there are probably times hwen they are unsure and make a mistake and use that to tell. but i know what ya mean.

Framing is a very interesting topic. I'm just curious as to why it was posted on the "Ask the Umpire" forum as opposed to the "Catcher's" forum.

we usually get a post now and then asking about the differences between Framing and Pulling....

Frame the pitch but do not pull it.....no one ever had to pull a strike. So if your pulling pitches back into the zone, you and I both know its a ball........

Pulling a pitch is not a way to endear yourself to your umpire....

quote:

Pulling a pitch is not a way to endear yourself to your umpire....

...and "freezing" is even worse.

What is freezing?

There are two basic methods to teach catching the pitch - one is the thumb down (which is the most popular now) and the rainbow.

In the thumb down the glove moves completely parallel to the ground with the flat of your hand facing the sky and your thumb pointing down. If you watch TV you will see almost every MLB player doing that. The purpose is to make the glove move as little as possible and cover more area with the glove on the corner.

In the rainbow you start middle of the plate with your thumb down and half turn it either way to each corner. On a RH batter the outside pitch your thumb will be "down" but your fingers will be pointing down or almost to the first base side. On the inside pitch your thumb and fingers will be pointing up and make almost a "V" with your thumb and fingers

Hope that helps.

"Freezing" is a ploy used by some catchers when the ump calls a ball and the catcher wanted a strike call. The catcher will "freeze" his glove where he caught the ball for a couple of seconds after the ump has called a ball. It's a catcher's way of trying to show up the ump.

quote:

Originally posted by Ruste:
Hopefully their isn't any umps on this board who will have to look at the catchers glove to make the determination of a ball or strike...

You comment betrays your lack of understanding of proper plate umpiring mechanics. when a competent/well trained umpire watches a pitch he will fix his head position and then follow the path of the ball with his eyes only. He will "track" the ball from it's release point all the way to the glove. Any umpire not watching the ball all the way to the glove is cheating himself from being a better more consistant umpire. There are 2 reasons to follow the pitch all the way to the glove, the first has to do with timing. If an umpire fails to properly track the ball he will be quick on the timing of his calls and he is more likely to be fooled with change ups and late breaking pitches. The second reason is that the glove is one of the few reference points that an umpire has in determining where the pitch crossed the plate. The problem for umpires is that we all have to imagine the strike zone since it is a three demensional area floating above home plate and the ball is only in it for about 1/100 of a second. I have great eyesight, but my eyes need additional reference points (as do all good umpires) and the location of the catcher's glove is one of those needed references. Now as it relates to the original question about how to "frame" a pitch, i can live with either method (thumb down or rainbow) as long as the catcher doesn't go jerking the ball around on me. I just want to call all the strikes I can and I hate it when catchers push strikes out of the strike zone or pull borderline pitches back to the center of the zone, because that is taking away pitches I want to call strikes and not allowing me to.

So I guess the bottom line DWC is that you should do what your coach tells you to and work on not moving the ball around after you catch it. That will make your coach happy and us umpires and your pitchers happy too. Good luck!

fvb explains the way a PU calls strikes. When you pull pitches you tell everyone that you thought it was a strike. If we call a borderline pitch that is pulled a strike then it looks like the catcher is buying calls. Sticking pitches will get you more strikes than not. Freezing pitches just makes the PU mad.

I am a former catcher and have been coaching for 12 years and I have never heard the term freezing but it makes sense. I know some catchers will do that but never knew it had a name other than being a jerk.

FVB, So what you are saying is that a good umpire is going to call a strike where the ball is caught. You don't hit a pitch that is in the catchers mit but where it crosses the plate. You can have a curve ball hit the front corner and end up outside when the ball is caught. Do you want a ball called on your hitter and a strike when it's your pitcher? The plate is 2' in front of the catcher, you are going to have allot of balls cross the plate where it should be hit as strikes end up looking like balls when the catcher catches them. So I do not agree with your statement. Give me an umpire who calls strikes and balls where the ball should be hit anyday. How many umps have you had that call a strike when the catcher catches the ball low? Where did it cross the plate? Pitchers throw down to the catcher and the ball crosses the front of the plate at your batters knee's but continues down another 2' to your catchers glove... looks like a ball but it's a strike.

You're mssing what he is saying. When you call balls and strikes you watch the pitch all the way to the glove which happens to include where it crosses the plate. If the catcher is set up on the outside corner and it is a fastball, the pitch pops the glove then it's a strike. If he sets the same place and he reaches away for it then it's aball. Calling curves and sliders is more difficult. However the glove can assist you by being one more piece of evidence of how the pitch crossed the plate. It isn't the only thing you use but a piece of the puzzle. In younger kids you have to call the pitch on it's merits but they don't throw strange pitches.

By no means am I an umpire and I also respect your position. Umps take a beating all the time. But, what you just said about a fastball crossing the plate and being caught two different ways. One being a strike another being a ball. Same pitch crosses tha plate in the same location but caught different and your going to give a ball or strike? Again, I'm no umpire but one would think if a ball crosses a plate and it's in your floating three dimensional zone it's going to be a strike no matter where the catcher catches it. Yes it's a quick zone and you guys have to be quick but to rob a hitter or a pitcher is rough. I watched the RedSox last night with Wakefeild and the ump did a good job calling the game. Granted when they replayed some of the calls they where in slow motion but the ump made real good calls. This postis a double edge sword because it's one persons opinion against another. I'm still sticking to my point that the ball and strikes should be called where they should be hit. Outside corners or not if it crosses they plate it's a strike.

You are still missing the point. On a borderline pitch if the catcher sets on the edge of the zone and doesn't move then it's a strike. If he moves any out then it isn't. So along with watching the pitch we use the movement of the as a tool to help us. The other thing is if he pulls it back toward the zone then he tells us it was off.
Bear in mind we aren't using this as the only fact in calling the zone but an additional clue.

I get the point and I had the point from the get go. I understand the tools one uses to judge where the path is. I quess shaky Johny won't do allot of catching this season.( joke )
I think you and fvb will at least agree with this is that Iv'e seen a good fastball with the catcher set good ,get his glove moved by the ball. All catchers are not the middle linebacker on their fotball team. Holding up the leather for a whole came can get tireing. A little drift here and their is going to change the game. I can say for sure that the umpires on here would call a fair game. Iv'e seen other umps that will use the glove as their final inticator for the whole game. That was my point from the get go. I quess I didn't phrase it right.

Gotcha. We do reconize the overpowering of the glove by the pitcher. It is a good point though. We had a local HS that won the 1A states and their catcher has that problem. He was moved to varsity last year as a freshman because of an injury and has caught two excellent pitchers that easily overpower his catching ability. One is throwing in the upper 80's to low 90's.

Ruste- I think I sould have made my point a little differently. When I watch a pitch in the air i am judging movement and general location, but once it nears the plate it is moving fast enough that my eyes cannot focus of the things around it any more than just the blur that they are in the background of my vision of the ball. In fact, my mind blocks out all the other things in my view other than the ball until it gets to the catcher's glove. At that point my brain analyses the route the ball took to get to the glove and then using the location where it hit the glove it extrapolates backwards to determine exactly where the pitch was when it crossed the plate (i.e. did that curve get part of the front of the zone at the knees, was that slider already outside when it passed the plate etc.). Then i make my ruling. Remember that I make that mental decision in a fraction of a second and without watching the ball all the way to the glove I am missing an extremely important piece of evidence about the pitch's path. I know this is true from watching video of my self when I have a batter crowd the plate (personally I have this most commonly with lefties) and then the catcher sets up inside (taking away my slot) and then the pitch is on the outer half in the bottom of the strike zone. In those situations my accuracy is very low (in the 75% range which is barely better than random guessing, unfortunately) and the reason is that i lose sight of the ball before it gets to the glove because of the positioning of the bodies involved. When I can't see where the ball is caught I have serious trouble judging the pitch accurately, thus the way a catcher handles a pitch is always important since they are the last thing I see before i make my split second decision about the pitch. If the catcher is moving the ball all over on me It is VERY difficult for my mind to properly reconstruct the path of the ball and make accurate decisions. And if he is intentionally moving it around I know that everyone else can see that too and he is announcing to everyone involved that he didn't think the pitch was a strike where he caught it and so he had to move he ball. If I allow that kind of action to be rewarded I am going to cause problems for myself and my fellow umpires later. Rewarding that kind of act benefeits no one.