Top catching prospects, especially if they can hit for power, are a currency all their own in the MLB. If they happen to be great at framing pitches, that is even better. Here are a few catchers in the minors to keep an eye on.
In baseball in the last number of years, there has been an emphasis on pitch presentation, better known as framing – the way a catcher can alter his body and positioning to allow his pitcher to get calls from the umpire on pitches outside of the zone.
Baseball Prospectus has a great site in general for those who love advanced statistics, and I highly recommend it. One of the areas they’ve been in the lead on is quantifying catching statistics, and they have a whole area dedicated to statistics measuring catcher defense. One of these statistics is Framing Runs Saved, which is a projection of the amount of runs that framing has saved that catcher’s team.
I’ll link to the current leader board (subscription required), but I wanted to highlight a grouping of that leader board. I’ll have a group of minor leaguers here, and a group of major leaguers in another post later. Enjoy!
Next: Royal Presenter