Kyle Hendricks entered his Sunday Night Baseball start on June 19 against the Pirates never having registered a double-digit strikeout game in his 57 starts. He was a good-though-not-great pitcher with a 3.05 ERA at that point, most often described by those who follow the sport as a No. 5 starter.
There’s a reason for that: Hendricks pitches with a fastball averaging 87.6 mph, a velocity higher than only five of the 145 pitchers who made at least 15 starts in 2016 (and two he’s ahead of are knuckleballers Steven Wright and R.A. Dickey).
But though Hendricks doesn’t have the velocity to dominate, he has something else that helped him get through games on a regular basis and played a major role in his striking out 12 Pirates in six one-run innings that night: the guiding glove hand of his catcher.
Pitch-framing or presentation or whatever you wish to call it has been a part of baseball forever. But in the last few years, there are tools that allow us to recognize its value.
We can now take any pitch and tell you how often that pitch is called a strike based on the pitch location and the count (the two most important variables). We can then take each pitcher and look at how often he’s getting called strikes, compared to other pitchers on the same set of pitches.
And those tools make a case that Hendricks has benefited more from the work of his catchers than any pitcher in the majors this season.
By those measures, Hendricks has gotten 65 more called strikes than the average pitcher on the pitches he threw. That’s the most extra strikes of any pitcher in the majors. Two much more established pitchers, Madison Bumgarner and Johnny Cueto, who get to work with master pitch-framer Buster Posey, rank 2-3.
Cubs catcher Miguel Montero isn’t Posey, but he’s very good. Despite starting only 64 games, he ranked third in the majors in extra strikes gotten (119) behind Posey and Dodgers catcher Yasmani Grandal (seven of the top nine teams in this stat reached the postseason). Of Montero’s extra strikes, 48 came from pitches thrown in 15 starts by Hendricks.
Hendricks’ other catcher, Willson Contreras, also is a good pitch-framer, though not in Montero’s class. In looking at Contreras’ effectiveness on a rate basis (rather than raw totals), he ranked 18th out of the 76 catchers who caught the most (Montero ranks third, David Ross ranks 10th). In 12 of Hendricks’ games, Contreras netted his pitcher about 12 extra strikes, though 10 of those came in Hendricks’ last three starts.
There are two components to getting extra strikes. One is getting calls on pitches that are inside the zone, but very close to the edges. The other is getting calls on pitches that are a little bit outside the strike zone, but that the catcher can make appear to be in the zone with quick hand movement.
For Hendricks, it’s about a little of both. Hendricks gets the third-highest called strike rate among starting pitchers on pitches in the strike zone and the second-highest called strike rate on pitches outside the strike zone. Montero says that’s because Hendricks has mastered hitting the catcher’s mitt.
“The key is to catch it clean and let the umpire get a look,” Montero said. “[Kyle] is in the strike zone. He hits his spot. If I’m sitting on the edge of the strike zone, he hits it. The key is to catch it cleanly. I might steal pitches, but I’m not trying to steal it.”
Said Hendricks: “He definitely gets some calls for me, especially as the game goes on. It’s easier said than done. To be that smooth you can’t make it blatant or else umpires will know. It’s a very subtle move. It’s an art, really. And Miggy just has that feel with it.”
How did Montero’s “feel” come into play in that Sunday Night Baseball start?
The first example is Andrew McCutchen’s at-bat in the first inning. On 0-1, Hendricks threw a pitch at the knees, a pitch called a strike 38 percent of the time. Montero reached down to catch it, but did so in a way that allowed him to move his glove up as he squeezed it. Hendricks got the call, moving the count to 0-2. Three pitches later, McCutchen, in a defensive mode with two strikes, waved at a pitch a little off the outside corner for strike three. Inning over.
Zip ahead to the fifth inning, with Hendricks facing Sean Rodriguez. On a 2-1 count, Hendricks threw another 88 mph fastball, just off the outside corner at the knees, a pitch with a 15 percent strike probability. Montero snapped his wrist up as he caught the pitch, making it look a smidge better than it was and plate umpire Jim Wolf called it strike two.
The count went to 3-2 and this time Hendricks offered a fastball off the outside corner that hit his target and again Montero made a quick, subtle snap-move to bring the pitch into the zone. The pitch had a 27 percent strike probability for an average pitcher. In this case, it was 100 percent. Wolf rang Rodriguez up for strike three, Hendricks’ career-high 10th strikeout of the game.
“The command that Hendricks has shown so far tonight has gotten him a couple of pitches just off the edge,” Sunday Night Baseball analyst Aaron Boone told viewers.
Hendricks finished with a dozen strikeouts in a 10-5 Cubs win. Beginning with that start, he’d pitch to a 1.55 ERA over the next 3½ months. He credited his win that day to the best changeup he had all season, and if you watch highlights of that game, that’s a fair assessment.
But another key, perhaps a more subtle one to his success that day and the rest of the way, was getting some of the best pitch-framing in the majors this season.
