Cal Raleigh can frame anyone
What can statcast teach us about Cal’s framing?
One thing that we at LL noticed while watching the MLB playoffs this year was just how shockingly bad many catchers are at framing. We realized just how spoiled blessed we are that we get to watch Cal Raleigh behind the dish almost every game, and watching him steal strikes at an alarming rate. But exactly how good is the platinum glover is at framing? And what methods does he use to abuse umpire’s eyesight?
Framing is the act of lying to umpires, and pretending that a caught ball was actually a strike. For framing, we are mainly concerned with the so-called “shadow zone,” the area immediately around the strike zone. For a ball to be reasonably converted into a strike, it would have to land in the shadow zone. As a part of the wider discussion on robo-umps and automatic ball-strike systems, framing as a concept has come under greater scrutiny. If the league does move to an ABS system as seems increasingly probable (most likely when the current collective bargaining agreement ends after the 2026 season), it will be a lost part of the game. But for now is a crucial part of being a Major League catcher. And Cal Raleigh is one of the best in the game.
Statcast scores catcher framing by using a metric called Catcher Framing Runs. This metric attempts to quantify the number of runs that a catcher saves through framing compared to the league average. The idea is that a ball converted into a strike is worth 0.125 of a run. In the words of founding father Balljamin Baselin, a run saved is a run earned, and Cal is one of the best at saving runs. He finished the 2024 season with 13 Catcher Framing Runs and a strike rate in the shadow zone of 49.1%, good for second best and ninth best, respectively.
So Cal’s really good at framing. We knew that. He’s a gold and platinum glove winner, after all. But where and how he’s good. Let’s see where Cal earns his paycheck.
This is the zone-by-zone breakdown of Cal’s framing. I have included the league average metrics for comparison. First, we can see that Cal is above-average in almost all areas, like we would expect. He is especially better in zones 11, 12, and 13; the zones directly above and to the sides of the strike zone zone. This advantage is due to, I believe, Cal’s framing style. Let’s look at some clips. Interestingly, we can see that he is actually slightly below average at converting low pitches into strikes, though not by much. This may be due to sample size as the Mariners throw into the low shadow zone at a very low rate (29th in the league). Conversely, the Mariners are 8th in the league at throwing into the upper shadow zone, which compliments both the Mariners’ pitch selection and Cal’s framing style.
“What is framing style?” I hear you asking. Well before we look at some video we first have to establish a baseline for framing. Here is Padres catcher Kyle Higashioka, who we might consider to be a slightly above league average framer. He finished the season with 1 Catcher Framing Run, and converted 47.5% of shadow zone pitches into balls. Here he is catching a game last September against the Diamondbacks, and getting former Mariner Ketel Marte called out on a 2-2 changeup in zone 19.
Do you see how he yanks his hand back to the center of the zone after catching the pitch? He does this on every pitch. The object is not to make the umpire think every pitch was middle-middle, but to quickly remove the reference point from the umpire, so he can’t see exactly where the ball was caught. In this case, it works, and Marte has to go sit down after taking ball 3.
So if that’s how a slightly above-average catcher frames, how does an exceptional catcher like Cal do it? Well while catchers like Higashioka yank the ball towards the middle, Cal is more subtle. When he receives a shadow zone pitch, he typically only slightly moves his hands. His method is not to remove the reference point from the umpire, but instead to convince him that a pitch outside the zone was actually perfectly painted on the black. Here’s some examples, including some catcher-on-catcher violence against Austin Wells. Watch both how quickly and how subtly Cal frames these.
To be clear, he does still yank sometimes, but not nearly as often as most other catchers. He took lessons on framing last offseason from Guardians catcher Austin Hedges, and wouldn’t you believe it: Hedges is also a subtle framer (and finished 8th in Catcher Framing Runs)
This style of framing is incredibly successful, especially for Cal since it partially relies on the reputation the Mariners’ pitching staff has of being excellent corner-painters. And they are! Just maybe not as good as some of the umpires think.