The Mets watched J.D. Martinez unleash a violent hack directly into Willson Contreras’ forearm on Tuesday, a gruesome scene that left the Cardinals catcher with a fracture that required surgery and the Mets continuing an open dialogue with their own catchers.
In an era when pitch framing is both accepted as a reality of the game and highly valued — the difference between a pitch being called a strike or a ball is enormous — the Mets, like every other team, believe in the need for their catchers to reach forward and present pitches as strikes as best they can.
To do that, the catcher may have to set up farther forward than catchers had in decades past.
“It’s something we talk about every day,” Mets catching and strategy coach Glenn Sherlock said Friday before opening a series with the Braves at Citi Field. “Catcher depth has become something that’s a big part of everybody’s catching program. That’s something we’re talking about.”
Martinez’s swing will cost Contreras months of the season and highlighted an area of the game that can be hard to decipher.
Advanced data throughout the game has shown how catchers can best frame pitches as strikes.
With pitches that are low in the zone (or just below it), a catcher is better off catching the ball as soon as he can; the longer the path to the glove, the more the pitch appears low (and thus a ball) when it is caught.
“There’s a correlation between catchers that are closer to the plate as opposed to further away from the plate as far as framing numbers go,” Sherlock said.
Mets catchers entered play with the cumulative 13th-best frame rate in MLB, according to Statcast, with Francisco Alvarez and Tomas Nido among the game’s standouts but Omar Narvaez receiving worse marks.
They also entered with three combined calls of catcher interference, a result of the catcher reaching too far forward.
Narvaez has been hit twice.
Alvarez, who crumpled to the ground in pain after being drilled in the glove hand against the Pirates last month, survived his scare but tore a thumb ligament running the bases two days later.
The Mets aspire to keep their catchers out of harm’s way but in a position where they can convert the most pitches to strikes.
A relatively new development, Sherlock said, is advanced scouting reports regarding opposing batters’ swings.
In years past, he said, the Mets would be wary of hitters who simply had been involved in catcher interference calls.
Now each hitter’s swing is being studied even if that hitter doesn’t have a history of hitting gloves.
“What we’ve been doing this year to try to help that is: We’ve watched a lot of video and try to see who the catcher interference guys are and the guys that have that type of swing — the guys that are deep in the box, the guys that have the big backswing,” Sherlock said. “Now we have more information that’s leading to bat-path information and telling us where their bat is going. That helps us as far as catcher depths go.”
When a batter has a long swing or a particularly exaggerated backswing, Mets catchers are expected to scoot back.
Whenever possible, though, the catchers are expected to reach forward to steal strikes.
Last season, MLB hitters posted an OPS 137 points better (.983 compared with .846) with a 1-0 count instead of an 0-1 count.
The difference between a pitch being called a strike or a ball is significant, which is why teams continue to preach a tactic that can get catchers into trouble.
“We certainly don’t want to get catcher interferences,” Sherlock said. “Definitely don’t want a catcher getting hit, or hurt.”
The Contreras horror has led to more conversations, but the Mets (and likely every other team) still see the benefits in grabbing pitches rather than waiting for them.
The Mets are not abandoning the strategy.
“He was extremely close,” Sherlock said of Contreras. “That was hard to watch.”
