Jen Mac Ramos, Shawn Brody, and Ronnie Socash on the transferability of framing from softball to baseball.

1. Here’s the Catch:
The Transferability of Pitch Framing from Softball to Baseball
By Jen Mac Ramos, Ronnie Socash, and Shawn Brody

2. Survey
● We ran a survey to gauge what people’s
perception was about women and baseball.
● We ran the survey for a week.
● Received 69 responses.
● Essentially asked two questions:
○ What position would translate best from softball
to baseball? Why? (could choose > 1)
○ What position will the first woman MLB’er play?
Why? (could only choose 1)

3. Survey Viz

5. What makes a good
framer?
The Sport Specifics — ‘Instincts’:
○ Understanding of where the zone is
○ Understanding of how certain pitches
move
○ Mental mapping of where the pitch
would land
○ Positioning behind the plate
The Non-Sport Specifics Trainables:
○ Wrist strength
○ Forearm strength
The Non-Sport Specific Intangibles:
○ Quiet, stable body
○ Small/Slight movements

6. On Instinct:
● Cultivating baseball instinct in a
softball catcher would be the
equivalent of converting minor
leaguers to catcher
● Current MLB Catchers who
learned to catch either in college
or minor league baseball:
○ Buster Posey
○ Russell Martin
○ Tony Wolters
○ J.T. Realmuto
○ Willson Contreras

8. StatCorner
Valuation
StatCorner.com: Values on flipped pitch into 0.13 runs
Munro approximate Positive “Calls per game” :
1.40-1.75
Between 2015 SEC Tourney, NCAA Regionals, Super
Regionals, WCWS (11 G)
10 runs every ~23 games
Framing Wins = 3 over course of softball season
Softball wins 10 runs per game? Probably less

9. Source: Christopher Long github repository
Disclaimers:
● In these stats, the
programming assumes that
the catcher stays in the game
they started.
● Pitch strings are not readily
available for every softball
game and are erratically
recorded for some teams.
● These stats tell us, on the
surface, who is a good framer
and who has the potential to
be good at framing.
● What it doesn’t tell us is
anything exact or without a
margin of error.

10. But what about throwing?

11. Behind the throws
to second
● Home to second
○ Softball: 84’10 1/4"
○ Baseball: 127’3 3/8"
● Average MLB pop time: 2.0
● Average softball pop time: 1.9-2.1
● Difference between baseball and softball
dimensions: 1.513
● Aubree Munro pop time: 1.6

12. But what about hitting?

13. The threshold for hitting is substantially lower

14. Jose Molina
● Career .233/.282/.327 slash in 2795 PA
● Has never appeared in more than 102 games in
one season
○ Played in ~60 games a year
● 16-year MLB career
● 197.6 Framing Runs in his career
● Assuming 10 runs = 1 win, worth ~20 wins over
the course of his career solely based on framing
○ Career WARP is 18.2

15. Other examples
● Jeff Mathis*
○ 13-year MLB career
○ .199/.256/.311 in 2445 PA
○ 51.5 Framing Runs
● Jason Castro*
○ .231/.309/.387 in 2518 PA
○ Currently in 7th-season
○ 30.4 Framing Runs since 2014
● Rene Rivera*
○ In 9th-season
○ .217/.268/.341 in 1354 PA
○ 49.6 Framing Runs
● Brad Ausmus
● Chris Stewart
● Alberto Castillo
● Roberto Perez

16. An Area That Might
Make It Worth An
Attempt
● We’ve talked about why framing in softball
might transfer easily to baseball, but what if
they weren’t just equivalent?
● What if they were an obvious candidate for
improvement?

17. Height ● In 2013, Ben Lindbergh conducted
a study
● Correlation between catcher
height and:
○ High pitches: 0.35
○ Low pitches: -0.12

18. If Height Is A
Factor...
● Average height for MLB catchers in
2016:
○ 73 inches
● Average height for SEC softball
catchers in 2017:
○ 67 inches
● Nearly half a foot!
● Is glove height a lurking variable?

19. “For me, it’s a lot easier to come up to a ball and make it look like a strike
than it is if you have a high target and come down.”
“When you have a high target and you come down, the ball’s going to take
you down and the umpire’s going to ball it because that’s what he sees.”
“If you start low and come up to it, then you can keep it more in the strike
zone, you can control it better.”
“I always try to bring balls up, a lot. You can get easy strikes like that.”
Jonathan Lucroy on glove height:

20. Tyler Flowers on height and framing:
“I changed my setup to get my center of gravity and base
lower to the ground, just to create a stronger position for
the lower pitches, and I also started to really anticipate
low pitches in the zone and how I wanted to catch them”

21. What does this all
mean?
● College softball is essentially the pinnacle of the
sport
● Elite-level college softball players are
world-class athletes
● This presentation is not a means to an end
● It is the beginning of a conversation
● The extent to which we can prove our thoughts
is limited due to available resources
● We believe that elite college softball catchers
have a path to professional baseball based on
the perceived transferability of their framing
skills

22. What does this all
mean?
● This also proves that some of the underlying
skills transfer from softball to baseball
● This means that:
○ Former softball catchers could serve as framing
coaches or consultants
○ Techniques used to create good softball framers
could be transferred to baseball
○ Former softball players, especially catchers,
would also translate well to being scouts and
analysts

23. Thank You

24. Citations ● http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.
php?articleid=15093 (Mike Fast)
● http://baseball.physics.illinois.edu/ClarkGre
erSemonSoftball.pdf (Jean M. Clark,
Meredith L. Greer, Mark D. Semon)
● http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.
php?articleid=20211 (Ben Lindbergh)
● https://theringer.com/tyler-flowers-atlanta-b
raves-mlb-most-improved-160c5100f9c7
(Ben Lindbergh)

25. Contact info:
Jen Mac Ramos
○ @jenmacramos
○ jenmacramos@gmail.com
Shawn Brody
○ @Shawnbrody
○ shawnbrody9@gmail.com
Ronnie Socash
○ @rjsocash
○ socashronald@gmail.com