This post caught my eye last week:
So part of framing isn’t just pulling the ball into the strike zone, but catching it closer to the plate so the umpire doesn’t see as much of a drop. This immediately made me think of Willson Contreras’s injury.
Now, a minor league catcher is in the hospital after getting hit in the head with a backswing:
Henry was hit in the back of the head by the swing from Syracuse Mets third baseman Pablo Reyes in the seventh inning. He immediately went to the ground upon contact and athletic trainers tended to him.
Officials decided not to continue the game after the injury.
The Bisons said later in the night that Henry was “alert and appropriately responsive” at an area hospital. They called the injury a “scary incident.”
ESPN.com
Batters erase the back line of the batter’s box so they can stand as far behind the plate as possible to give themselves more time to recognize and hit very fasts pitches. Now catcher are creeping closer to the plate to try to get an edge in called strikes. The results at first were more catcher interference calls, and now major injuries.
This has to stop. I always thought pitch framing was a form of cheating, and now that cheating is causing physical harm.
I have a suggestion. Home plate umpires should start wearing small video cameras capable of recording footage that could be used in virtual reality headsets. Once a library is built up, the night before a game behind home plate, the umpire trains on the pitcher/catcher combination for the next game. He sees a pitch, calls a ball or strike, and the VR corrects him when needed. This way, the umpire learns how catchers fool try to fool him. He also learns what the pitcher throws, so he is better at recognizing from that point of view.
Being fooled by pitch framing is a pattern recognition problem. The problem can be trained away, and then catchers can go back to catching at a distance, and CI calls can once again be very rare.
It seems to me that going to the automated strike zone would be a much simpler solution.
Yes, but it’s not ready yet, and catchers are getting hurt today.
Maybe it’s time to move the pitcher’s mound back, farther from home plate. I doubt that any pitchers in 1893 were throwing 100 MPH; certainly not as many or as often as nowadays.
Also, on yesterday’s Mets broadcast, in the context of catcher’s interference, Gary, Keith, and Ron discussed the idea of having a catcher’s box that the catcher has to stay inside.
In regard to the automated strike zone, it seems to me it depends on your definition of “ready”. If “ready” means being perfect, it will probably never be ready. If “ready” means it’s better than someone like Angel Hernandez, it was ready years ago.
And maybe have non-eraseable back lines, erasing them is cheating too.