I want to talk a little bit about catchers gaining strikes for their pitchers. In other words framing pitchers and how we like to go about it.
JD is going to work with me in terms of demonstrating the different techniques. He needs to be able to catch the outside of the ball. So, to a right handed hitter an inside pitch we do not want to catch the ball in this fashion. So, the ball comes in and we are asked if we are going to catch the outside of the ball. That allows JD’s glove to stay in and strikes on and it looks much more like a strike than if you were to catch the ball with the glove here.
The pitcher is in exact same location but the gloves in a different spot. On an outside pitch to a right hand hitter, again he is going to catch the outside of the ball. He will turn the glove just a little bit. This portion his glove will be in the strikes on. The ball on the same location with the glove turned this way looks like a ball or can look like a ball based on how much your glove is hanging of that strikes.
A pitcher is up on the strike zone, we are going to catch the top of the ball. So, as the ball comes in, he is going to catch the top. The bulk of the glove would be in the strike zone and on the low pitch he is going to catch the bottom of the ball. So, as the ball come sin we are going to receive it this way and if we do that with what we call framing the pitch, just like the picture frame, we are going to frame from the top down, the bottom up, and form the outside end. So, we are going to frame the outside of each pitch.
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So, let us take a look at how we work framing, just very slowly as we begin to work our catchers. Okay, JD I want you to drop down. We want to work each location on a plate. I will try my best to get pitchers where we need them. Again, catching the out side the ball on an outside pitch, a little, too high to frame. If we do not have the opportunity to frame a pitcher there is no sense to create one. The pitcher is way out of the strike zone, so we do not frame it. If there is a high pitch we will catch down, and a low pitch we will catch up. So we just walk our catchers through it and again every time you do this, is one time closer to him doing it the exact where you want it in the game.
So it gets out around the ball, catches the outside of the ball, there is a high pitch and low pitch. I find out that the young players absolutely loved to be challenge. Whatever you can do to challenge and I love it and if means working some and another player works like this rapid fire drill, they will eat it up and it will keep to their attention and keep them working to our becoming a great player.
Okay let us watch the rapid fire drill. This time he is going to drop the ball, hopefully right in front of me. Ready? Frame. Frame. Okay, not bad.
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