Update: Catcher Integration

Up until this point, BCTeam has focused solely on hitter and pitcher metrics. Everything from providing insights about how a pitcher utilizes his arsenal and where hitters make hard contact in the zone. It was time to show some love for the hardest working guys on the field and the leaders of their team’s pitching staff.

To do this, we have added a “Catching” tab to player profiles that focus on catcher framing and receiving. This information comes from tagging the catcher’s name while utilizing a Yakkertech (or Trackman) system. The 3 visuals at the top show where catchers are receiving called strikes and where they may struggle to frame pitches and get a strike call.

The ‘Edge Calls’ visual focuses on the “50/50” balls located on the edge of the strike zone and highlights where the majority of called strikes were located in this zone. The ‘Called Pitches’ and ‘Called Strikes’ visuals both show all received pitches (for the selected filter) and highlights where called strikes were located.

The summary tables on this page are broken up into 6 tables: All Pitches, Edge Pitches, receiving RHP/LHP, and facing RHH/LHH. This allows coaches to determine if there are any receiving differences or weaknesses when catching RH or LH pitchers and hitters. These tables are also broken up by each pitch type to show if a catcher struggles with receiving breaking balls or is elite at bringing fastballs back into the zone and stealing strikes.

Each of these tables highlights “Stolen” pitches which means getting a Called Strike on a pitch located outside of the Strike Zone and “Lost” pitches which are pitches called balls located inside the Strike Zone. This creates a +/- system and percentages to help provide context of the catcher’s receiving ability.

This tab also has multiple filter options like being able to analyze how a catcher receives for each of the pitchers on the pitching staff and based off of different pitch metrics like velocity, spin rate, and vertical/horizontal break. Maybe some catchers struggle with a particular pitcher’s sinker movement or bringing in a left-handed sweeping slider back into the zone. We want to provide these insights for players and coaches so that they can work on their exact weaknesses in practice rather than just guessing on where catchers struggle to receive certain pitches.

If you are a coach and looking for a more custom report that you can generate after each game or during different points of the season we also have that ability with our product, AnalyzR. Below are some custom report options that we currently run for different teams that want to focus on specific aspects of their receiving and framing philosophy behind the plate.

We are excited to finally integrate some catcher metrics into our platform and look forward to building on this integration by providing more in-depth insights on all the different aspects of catching.