SURPRISE, Ariz. — One morning this spring, Cam Gallagher paused for a moment and squatted into a crouch on the carpet near his locker, extending his glove low and outward. The impromptu demonstration caught the eye of teammate Ryan O’Hearn, who peered over in amusement from a few feet away. Yet for Gallagher, a 26-year-old Royals catcher, this was the easiest way to explain his secret skill.
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“If a pitcher is going to mostly be down in the zone and we’re going to get those strikes,” Gallagher said, “we have to master these.”
One beat later, Gallagher held his crouch, mimicking his movements behind the plate. He pushed his glove forward, pretending to receive a low pitch out front.
“There’s not one way to do it,” he said.
Gallagher was here, demonstrating the value of receiving and pitch-framing because both advanced metrics and the Royals’ staff have rated him exceptional at the craft. In the minors, he graded out well above average at turning borderline pitches into strikes , and in a small sample of major-league starts, he has done the same.
It’s one reason Royals general manager Dayton Moore felt confident anointing Gallagher as the club’s backup catcher entering spring training. And it’s why he could see even more time if catcher Salvador Perez undergoes Tommy John surgery and misses the entire 2019 season.
Gallagher, a second-round pick in 2011, offers limited upside at the plate, posting a .671 OPS in 2,095 plate appearances in the minors and a .607 OPS in 35 games with the Royals. Yet it’s his most valuable skill — his framing — that could make him a compelling option as either a long-term replacement or part of a platoon with the left-handed-hitting Meibrys Viloria.
“It’s beneficial for me because I know I do pretty well in that category,” Gallagher said. “It’s definitely something that I pay attention to quite a bit. You look at certain situations: It’s a 1-1 count. Whether you get a strike, it’s 1-2 versus 2-1. If there are runners on base, that’s a big situation and a big change in batting average for the hitter.”
The pitch-framing skill, of course, is an age-old concept in Major League Baseball, dating back decades if not more. Clubs have long extolled the virtues of receiving and quality presentation behind the plate. When Royals manager Ned Yost served as a backup catcher with the Milwaukee Brewers in the early 1980s, the team published a manual that included tips on how to properly frame a pitch.
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“Every pitch in or near the strike zone should be caught with a minimum of body movement,” the manual read, according to a 2015 Fox Sports story that first noticed the old tips. “We tell our catchers to shrink the strike zone with their hands. We liken it to picking fruit off a tree.”
Catchers of all ages and generations have heard similar instruction points. Yet it wasn’t until Baseball Prospectus published a study from researcher Mike Fast in 2011 that the sport awakened to the true value of turning balls into strikes. Eight years later, the cult of framing has turned catchers like Tyler Flowers and Jeff Mathis into coveted assets. It also caught the eye of Gallagher, who became fascinated by the numbers.
Even before metrics put a value to his receiving, Gallagher always sensed he was good at framing. He possesses soft hands and good instincts. When the Royals started using a system to measure their catchers in the minor leagues, the numerical data confirmed his hypothesis.
“It’s the part of the game I take the most pride in,” he said.
The Royals caution against reading too much into framing numbers, which can be unreliable in small samples and sometimes inconsistent over longer periods. Gallagher, however, likes using the data as a teaching tool. At all levels, the club uses a point system to grade catchers. Gallagher will study the results and crosscheck the numbers against video from the game.
“You get feedback after every game,” he said. “You see what pitches were called strikes that were actually outside the zone — or pitches that were in the strike zone that I caught that were called balls.
“You look at the tapes and see maybe if there was another way I could catch it better.”
For now, most framing data on minor-league catchers is not publicly available. Yet Gallagher has shown off his knack during short stints in the majors in 2017 and ’18. Last season, he was tied for 19th in Catcher Strike Zone Runs Above Average, according to statistics compiled by Baseball Info Solutions.
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Gallagher was 3.0 runs above average despite catching just 152 1/3 innings — and every catcher ahead of him caught at least three times as many innings. One of those catchers was Flowers, who tied with the Dodgers’ Yasmani Grandal and Houston’s Max Stassi at 10 runs above average, the most in baseball.
Gallagher is familiar with the numbers, he says, because he likes studying the framing skills of other catchers. He has watched video of Flowers, specifically, to pick up ideas and techniques.
“He’s one of the best framers in the game,” Gallagher said. “He’s one of those guys who starts with his glove down, and he works up. He gets a lot of balls that were below the zone called strikes.”
"I'm not trying to manipulate the zone, I'm trying to be the guy that catches this pitch literally right where it is at the bottom corner."@Braves' catcher Tyler Flowers talks pitch framing and more with John Smoltz. pic.twitter.com/o353cB2GR7
— MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) March 15, 2018
The Royals’ catchers, in fact, have spent much of the spring focused on that very technique. Most mornings, the team’s catchers huddle with catching coach Pedro Grifol and use a pitching machine to work on receiving, framing and presentation. The idea, Gallagher said, is to master the low strike. If a catcher can meet a baseball out front, he can make a low pitch appear in the strike zone. The skill is often subtle yet important.
“I try to make everything that’s close look like a strike without being too dramatic,” Gallagher said.
By now, essentially every club in baseball has embraced the value of framing to some degree. Yet some skeptics remain. One of those is Yost, who has objected to the framing statistics for Perez. Across multiple seasons, Perez has graded out as one of the worst framers in baseball. In 2018, for instance, he rated eight runs below average, which put him tied for 112th among 117 catchers who saw time in the majors.
The Royals have theorized that framing statistics are biased against large catchers and that Perez’s size can cause trouble for umpires. Yost also wonders whether there are other factors involved.
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“The eye test matches the framing numbers for Gallagher; they don’t for Sal,” Yost said. “Sal is a much better framer and receiver than the numbers give him credit for. That’s why I don’t buy into it.
“The umpire has so much to do with it. The catcher can absolutely frame a ball perfectly and he can get a deduction because the umpire called it a ball. It’s all bullshit.”
For now, Yost’s skepticism persists. Yet there is one way to test the theory. For years, the Royals have started Perez, one of the worst framers in baseball, according to the numbers. This year, they could turn to Gallagher, who could project among the best.
Gallagher might not offer the power or the blocking or the arm of Perez, but he does provide at least one intriguing skill. And the 2019 Royals may be poised to see just how valuable it is.
(Photo: Mark Cunningham/MLB Photos via Getty Images)