Can Kurt Suzuki Turn Things Around In 2016?

Definitely agree that the defensive side is another big issue when it comes to playing time with Suzuki. 

 

Here's the thing with Kyle Gibson's framing number: They've always been bad, no matter who has been catching him. I wrote the same thing about Gibson's first season while Mauer was catching him. Admittedly, at that time Mauer was really bad at getting strikes at the bottom of the zone where Gibson was throwing most frequently. Now the Twins have never had a strong receiver when it comes to framing so we have no real comparison in what Gibson would be like with a good framer. Sometimes I wonder if certain pitchers are bad at getting borderline calls for various reasons. It would be an interesting study for someone with time/no life.

Is it the catcher, Mauer or Suzuki, or the pitcher Gibson .  Mike Fast already had no life. If there still is doubt that it is the catcher's action that gets the call then the pitch framer wonks did not do a very good job of convincing people.

Is it the catcher, Mauer or Suzuki, or the pitcher Gibson .  Mike Fast already had no life. If there still is doubt that it is the catcher's action that gets the call then the pitch framer wonks did not do a very good job of convincing people.

I don't think there is doubt in most major league front offices. They show through their roster decisions at catcher and hiring people like Mike Fast.

I still wonder about Suzuki. By most measures, he is a poor to below average defensive choice at catcher. Is there some aspect of catching that goes unmeasured in which Suzuki excels? For some reason pitchers on his teams appear very confident in him behind the plate. That confidence can't come from his ability to frame pitches or throw out runners. It has to be something else.

Note: the one measure where Suzuki once excelled was blocking pitches and preventing wild pitches. If true, it was baffling to me that Gardenhire would choose to sit him with the very wild Deduno on the mound. If anyone needed help preventing wild pitches, it was Deduno.

I'm always a bit wary of the luck comment when it comes to players. Yeah, there's some there, but it's usually quite a bit more than that.  These guys are very highly skilled, and there's very little that separates the good skilled guys from the bad ones.  Simple adjustments can make a big deal, even it can look like random distribution.

 

A real simple example is BABIP.  If all pitching (minus the Ks) was simply due to luck, just about any one of us could go out and pitch.  The reality is that our BABIPs would never normalize, because don't have the skills required to make it normalize.  I think we lose that when we look at stats as it's often easy to say, that a player's problem is bad luck and just a little time will make things change. It's often an adjustment (even a minor one) that makes it change. 

 

Going back to Kurt, it looks to me in that photo that he's just a tad underneath the pitch (something he wasn't in 2014).  Perhaps that's due to eye sight, but it looks like he keeps his shoulders more level and his wrists in a bit tighter when going oppo in 2014 vs. 2015.  To me, I would think that's correctable.  It's also likely what he's been doing his entire career.  Sometimes old habits can be hard to break.  By the way, just a side note, but average BABIP is usually around .300.  A .310 BABIP is not exactly an outlier. It is in relation to his career, but I don't think it's unreasonable for someone to figure something out that normalizes that number a bit more.  Suzuki wouldn't be the first person that this happened to.

 

That said, it's one photo.  Hardly enough to make a reasonable conclusion, and I'm too lazy to look   That's why Parker writes all the good articles and I don't.

I read once that BABIP normalizes out for a pitcher in about 1000 innings. Hopefully your bad pitcher never gets to that.  On the other hand, a league average pitcher for BABIP can have terrible results, Kevin Correa.  or be very good like Shields. Porcello got a 4/82 contract with a career BABIP of .317

I don't think there is doubt in most major league front offices. They show through their roster decisions at catcher and hiring people like Mike Fast.

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The comment was a jab at Parker. The actual benefit of pitch framing is debatable as there was one study showing that it was not consistently called by inning nor pitch count and by score of the game.

Somebody with too much time and no life could replicate that study again.

I don't think there is doubt in most major league front offices. They show through their roster decisions at catcher and hiring people like Mike Fast.

I still wonder about Suzuki. By most measures, he is a poor to below average defensive choice at catcher. Is there some aspect of catching that goes unmeasured in which Suzuki excels? For some reason pitchers on his teams appear very confident in him behind the plate. That confidence can't come from his ability to frame pitches or throw out runners. It has to be something else.

Note: the one measure where Suzuki once excelled was blocking pitches and preventing wild pitches. If true, it was baffling to me that Gardenhire would choose to sit him with the very wild Deduno on the mound. If anyone needed help preventing wild pitches, it was Deduno.

KS is likely never going to be a good hitter for a season again. He might have something better than last year, but not likely anything that a fanbase should be excited about.

My personal opinion and observations is that he just is not very good "overall" defensively. I think KS gets extra props and perceived bonus points for being a great guy and being tough. This gives him some sort of perceived positive of being a leader and handler of the staff. However, I really don't think those traits make him a good catcher or game caller. He is just liked is all. I "like" him too, just not offensively or defensively.

Defensively, I really do not see him as a good catcher in any area. Everyone is aware of him being a really bad thrower and framer. The former being less important, and the later being much more important. However, the one area that I have noticed KS as a liability through watching games very intricately last season, is that makes odd pitch sequencing decisions and calls for terrible placement locations on the regular. I can't remember how many times huge rallies or big hits came from a pitch being exactly where or near he set up for it. I repeatedly would say to myself WTF is he calling for that pitch for right now and why would he ask for it in that location?! Of course, that is not ALL the time and of course guys would miss spots too. But, overall his calling left me scratching my head and often it had major consequences. 

*Sidenote: In all the catcher framing articles I have read over the past few years on Fangraphs and Baseball Prospectus I have noticed and watched several gif breakdowns in them. They never made this point, but I noticed that catchers that are the opposite handedness as the pitcher seem to receive and frame the ball much better than same-handed battery mates.

Particularly, this seemed even more so the case with sliders and curveballs, which of course are most pitchers "outpitch." If you cannot get a hitter to swing and miss on that outpitch, at least there is a chance you might get a called strike on the edges, right. You would think these 2 strike breaking balls would factor in several strike 3 calls or non calls, which have the biggest implications in games.

***Aesthetically, a pitch being framed from a opposite handed battery mate is much much smoother. Especially so when the catcher is stabbing at and stopping a breaking ball to the outside of the pitchers glove side. In stopping those breaking pitches, the ball is coming toward and into his glove, and not away as it would for an opposite handed glove mate. This makes for a very smooth and easy catching of the ball, with very little movement. The catcher also does not need to reach across his body to extend his arm or turn his torso to stop breaking balls at the edge, nor does the ball pull his glove with momentum. 

All of that lack of extra movement and effort has to make the pitch "look" better to the ump than the same pitch that might have a same sided catcher extending his arm, or turning his torso, having the glove pulled by momentum or having to pull the ball back in order to frame it.

Maybe this is why the Dodgers, White Sox, and Pirates are going so LH heavy this year. 

Anything out there on this? If you watch some of these videos in slow motion, it really is easy and drastic in the difference in movement by the catchers in receiving and framing by opposite handed catchers vs same handed catchers.

There's been only one player as a left-handed thrower to be a catcher for even one inning since like 1980, so this is not a thing.

That is my point...it is not a "thing"because of throwing out runners at 2B and 3B, which we are learning play very little of importance anyway......and could likely be made up for by the much smoother receiving of the pitch, allowing for a quicker throw. Old paradigms. 

Also, factoring into the lack of lefty catchers is that any lefty with a good arm is likely on the mound. Teams should be out looking for a good catcher that is a lefty, or some young kids should be looking to pioneer in this. 

Many things in baseball are not things, until they are. The past ten years has seen many shifts in team makeup and how the game is played compared to in the past.