Robo umps may be on the horizon, but for now, the Yankees are winning the battle for framing.
Jose Trevino and Austin Wells have been two of the best pitch framers through the first six weeks of the season, playing a hand in helping the Yankees’ pitching staff get off to a strong start despite not being at full strength.
“Obviously, Trevy, that’s what he’s known for, and he’s really good at that,” Clarke Schmidt said. “Even early on in this season, I told Wells, we’ve had that conversation: ‘Dude, you’ve been winning some of these swing pitches and it completely changed the [at-bat]. And it can change an outing, too.’ Just by putting that extra emphasis on trying to steal the strike.”
And while the risks of the race for pitch framing were highlighted this week when Cardinals catcher Willson Contreras broke his arm when a swing from Mets slugger J.D. Martinez hit his outstretched arm — as catchers around the league inch closer to the plate to better receive low pitches — the Yankees are plugging away with their process aimed at maximizing framing and minimizing risk.
“There’s no secret, there’s benefits — I think the league now has recognized that,” director of catching Tanner Swanson said. “We’re seeing the number of CIs [catcher’s interferences] are rampant. But I’ll say that we’re really diligent at trying to maximize those benefits but keeping player safety in the forefront and mitigating those risks as best as possible. There’s a lot of different variables we look at that help us do that strategically.”
Entering Thursday, Trevino was tied for first with three Catcher Framing Runs, per Baseball Savant, while Wells was tied for fourth with two (Ben Rortvedt, whom the Yankees will see this weekend after trading him to the Rays before the season, is tied for seventh with one).
Together, the Yankees led all of MLB with five Catcher Framing Runs as Trevino and Wells had combined to convert an MLB-best 51.8 percent of non-swing pitches into called strikes in the shadow zone — which Baseball Savant classifies as the edges of the strike zone, measured roughly by one ball width inside and outside of the zone.
“That’s my job, try to get as many strikes as I can,” Trevino, the Platinum Glove winner, said recently. “I want to get as many strikes as possible every single time.”
One of Trevino’s most memorable frame jobs this season came on April 13 in Cleveland, when he stole a strike three out of the zone — a Clay Holmes slider off the inside corner — to get Estevan Florial looking in the ninth inning of the Yankees’ 3-2 win.
“To be honest, every pitch that Trevy catches, I think I have,” Holmes said. “It’s tough for me to tell a lot, just because he catches them so well. He’s really good back there. He’s got some awards for it, and I’m glad to have him back there.”
So far this season, the Yankees have been among the best in baseball particularly at framing pitches at the bottom of the zone, which comes with some risk because of how close they have to set up to gain an advantage on those pitches.
The Yankees broke the major league record by committing nine catcher’s interferences in 2022, per Baseball Reference’s Stathead, the downside of being one of the early adopters in moving their catchers forward to improve framing.
Since then, they have been on a mission to correct that. They tied for second with six last season, but entered Thursday with just one (by Trevino on April 21 vs. the Rays) this season.
“We saw the benefits, we experienced the benefits in that same year [2022], and since then, we’ve been trying to figure out how we can do it smarter,” Swanson said. “How we can gain that edge while mitigating the risk. That’s where that competitive advantage lies. Unfortunately, this is a copycat league, and there’s a lot of teams or [organizations] or individuals that are getting in there blindly and not really doing their due diligence necessarily. I’m sure some are, but I’m sure there’s a collection of teams and players that are just kind of rolling the dice.
“The player safety piece is at the forefront. We’re doing everything we can. We understand the risk, we’re assuming the risk, but it’s calculated.”
The Yankees keep tabs on which opposing batters might put their catchers at greater risk with longer swings or by setting up deep in the batter’s box. But they also emphasize their catchers bringing their mitts up from the ground to catch the pitch instead of keeping their arms outstretched for the entirety of the pitch.
While Trevino is known for his strong framing and defensive work in general, there were questions about Wells’ defense before he arrived in the big leagues. But he has come a long way in answering those early on this year, with his framing particularly standing out.
“I threw to him last year, and I always thought he had the potential to be a really good framer,” Schmidt said. “I think he can do that and I also think he can really call a game because he’s a good hitter. Typically good-hitting catchers are hard to find, but when they know how to hit, you can read swings a little better.”
Schmidt described Wells’ progress even from last September as “immense.”
“You could pretty much tell instantly in spring training, he’s definitely put some work in on his catching and his game-calling,” Schmidt said. “The feel and comfortability he has out there has immensely improved.”
Wells’ bat (.190 batting average, one home run, .622 OPS) has yet to fully take off this season — he has been the victim of some bad luck, though he has started to see better results over the past two weeks — but his improvements behind the plate have given manager Aaron Boone the ability to play either catcher on a given day and feel good about the defense the Yankees will get from that position.
Trevino has also added some offensive impact, which for the Yankees is basically the cherry on top of what they are getting defensively from the veteran in their catching tandem.
“Not only the pitch framing, but I think the game-calling has been really good,” Schmidt said. “It’s fun to work with both of them. They’re both very competitive and both kind of dawgs. It’s fun to have that back-and-forth dialogue throughout the game.”
What we have here is a failure to communicate
About those robo umps.
The calls for them have been coming louder around these parts after two specific episodes. Boone was ejected by Hunter Wendelstedt for a comment that appeared to come from a fan behind the dugout, and then last weekend, Aaron Judge was ejected for the first time in his career for a relatively harmless comment to home plate umpire Ryan Blakney after a called third strike.
But in the aftermath of Judge’s ejection, Anthony Rizzo wasn’t calling for robo umps. The veteran first baseman had a seemingly simple ask.
“Umpires are going to miss pitches. But for the most part, they’re solid,” Rizzo said. “For me, we have all this stuff going on in the minor leagues that they’re testing with this stuff, but they won’t let the players and the umpires get in sync with what the actual strike zone is. They have a completely different system than we see.
“They think we’re crazy, sometimes we think they’re crazy, but at the end, I think we all agree that if we could just see the same sheet of music, it would be beneficial to all of us.”
Rizzo said because the players don’t see the exact strike zone that umpires get graded on, it’s impossible for batters to get their eyes accustomed to it. And when they argue a pitch, the umpires say they got it right and batters say they got it wrong, “you’re fighting a dead battle.”
“All the boxes and technology everywhere is different,” Rizzo said. “We don’t get to see those. They have their zones that they get graded on. … The point is I think they do a great job at all times. Obviously we’re going to disagree because we’re competing at a high level.”
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Luke Weaver gets comfortable
When the Yankees re-signed Luke Weaver in January (after claiming him off waivers in September), it was an attempt to bolster their starting depth. But six weeks into the season, Weaver has found a niche as a multi-inning weapon out of the bullpen.
Weaver had a 2.70 ERA across 23 ⅓ innings, but had been especially impressive of late: 12 ⅔ straight scoreless innings across seven appearances with 16 strikeouts and one walk. Five of those six outings lasted more than one inning, and four lasted at least two.
After an adjustment period in adapting to the new role — after spending the majority of his career as a starter and pitching every five or six days — Weaver seems to be thriving in it.
“It is a little nicer to have something at this point where you got an idea, you know what to expect and then mentally you just kind of check in and check out when you’re done,” Weaver said.
Weaver tweaked his delivery in spring training, using more of a slide step instead of a big leg kick. That also seems to be playing a part in his improved results early on.
“Man, he’s been huge for us,” Boone said. “His fastball has really ticked up in this role. He’s been 95-98 even at times with that four-seam fastball, the cutter and then the really good changeup to go with it and pounding the zone. He’s somebody we have a lot of confidence in.”
