If you log onto the World Wide Web and check out the 2024 Catcher Framing Leaderboard on Baseball Savant, you must scroll pretty far down to find Minnesota Twins catcher Ryan Jeffers.
It's been a slow slide down that leaderboard since 2021, when he was near the top of the list, saving the team two runs in the process. But his downward trajectory isn't all his fault: the Twins have instructed catchers in the organization to sit middle-middle, presenting prominent targets.
This somewhat counters the bottomfeeder ethos introduced by Tanner Swanson. The Twins catchers were encouraged to get under the ball and get it back toward the middle of the zone, thus blurring the edges of the strike zone for pitches at or near the bottom.
Swanson moved on to the New York Yankees organization, and his successor, Tucker Frawley, leaned into the philosophy that catchers should set up middle-middle to present a clear target well within the borders of the strike zone for the pitcher. This method diverted from trying to nab pitches on the corners to some degree. Framing is still very much a practice the Twins emphasize in their receiving methods – catchers will still pull pitches toward the middle of the zone – but the newer practice centers on the idea that pitchers will miss less when aiming directly at the center of the zone.
Research shows that even the most elite pitchers in the league do not have the precision we like to believe. Many readers will swear Greg Maddux had command so fine he could hit a penny off a hummingbird's back, but most pitchers regularly miss their intended targets by up to two baseballs’ diameters. If a catcher is set up on the edges of the zone, this could mean pitches wind up in non-competitive areas.
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For more on the effects of target-setting behind the plate, with the other Twins catcher in the spotlight, check out Matthew Trueblood's piece on Pablo López, from last month.
The concepts of framing and targeting are intertwined. Both are mainly trying to increase the margins in favor of the defense, and to flip counts. By setting up middle-middle, the defensive side is hedging that they will be able to increase the number of favorable counts by having their pitchers throw more in-zone strikes – even if they miss their intended target. While a catcher might gain strikes by providing targets or setting up on the corners or bottom of the strike zone, pitchers may lose more strikes by egregiously missing their spot. No amount of showmanship behind the plate will win a strike that bounces on the way there.
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