CLEARWATER, Fla. — Soon after he was traded to the Phillies, J.T. Realmuto received a call from Gabe Kapler. The manager told Realmuto that he would hear from various Phillies coaches. Bob Stumpo, a former 33rd-round pick from West Chester University who is now the club’s blocking coach, texted Realmuto. So did Craig Driver, the receiving coach who made the jump from Yale University to the majors last year.
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A day later, as Realmuto completed his overnight drive from Oklahoma City to Clearwater, Dusty Wathan called. Wathan is the third-base coach who oversees the Phillies’ ambitious big-league catching program. They had inherited Realmuto, considered one of the best catchers in baseball. The organization understood the obvious gains that could come with extricating Realmuto from Marlins Park. And they knew they were getting a cerebral catcher blessed with natural athleticism — someone who was also open to refinement through new ideas.
“There’s three different guys who told me they work with the catchers,” Realmuto said. “I’m like, ‘Holy smokes.'”
That was his introduction to the catching lab the Phillies have built. The imperfect unit is emblematic of the Phillies in year two of their data-driven approach to on-field issues. They tested some new strategies last spring. They found progress during the season — without Jorge Alfaro’s defensive improvements, the Realmuto trade may not have happened — but the tinkering is constant. The things a good catcher does have never changed; but how one reaches that point is different when everything can be measured.
The Marlins, a rebuilding club, had more pressing issues in recent seasons than the most granular ones. Realmuto, a converted infielder, benefited from Miami’s penchant for instruction and development. He absorbed the basics. He had veterans like Jeff Mathis and A.J. Ellis as teammates and mentors to teach game calling. He was blessed with agility to block balls in the dirt.
But, after the introductions to the Phillies’ coaches, Realmuto did a little research. He knew one part of his game that could improve was pitch framing. He knew the Phillies had emphasized it last season. He arrived Tuesday at the complex with a willingness to try something different. He came armed with questions.
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“I think,” Wathan said, “he trusts that we know what we’re doing.”
How can one of the best catchers in baseball improve by just a little more? It begins with an open mind.
“It was just different for me,” Realmuto said. “Man, they are really invested in this, which is refreshing for me. It’s always good to hear new ideas. Everybody explains things differently and everybody interprets things differently. So it’s good to have multiple people with ideas and ways to work. I think it’s definitely going to benefit me a lot. I mean, it already has. They’ve opened my eyes to some things I can work on and get better at.”
A little before 8:30 Friday morning, Stumpo calibrated the pitching machine to shoot baseballs at 70 mph and toward the bottom of the strike zone. The first part of the drill required Realmuto and the other assembled Phillies catchers to “attack” the pitch with a gentle upward swipe of the glove — a subtle enough motion to make it appear a little higher to a hypothetical umpire. After a few reps, the machine was set to fire balls into the dirt to practice blocking. Then, in the third stage of the exercise, Stumpo randomized the machine. The pitches were all low, but some would need to be framed and others blocked — the best way to simulate game action.
The entire drill was recorded by a camera atop a small tripod positioned a few feet onto the infield grass. A few hours later, during the formal workout session, the catchers participated in another receiving drill. That, too, was recorded. Sometimes, the drills include wrist weights and weighted balls to quiet movements by the mitt hand. The steadier the target, the better it looks to an umpire.
This time last spring, Stumpo and Driver were experimenting on their own. They were bullpen catchers but also more than that because the Phillies wanted to exploit every possible resource under Kapler’s direction. The receiving drills, Driver said, were developed from a compilation of playing experience, ideas from other instructors or organizations, and just intuition. They tried a bunch of things last spring that never stuck.
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“Just one year of experience for all of us, we feel more comfortable with it,” Wathan said. “We’ve seen the effects of it. How much better Alfaro got last year as the season went with his receiving numbers. Stealing strikes. Not losing balls. All of that just reaffirms what Driver and Stumpo are really doing.”
The Phillies work on catching drills at spring training. (Matt Gelb/The Athletic)There were growing pains last season as evidenced by the frequent mishaps from Phillies catchers.
“It was definitely a transition,” backup catcher Andrew Knapp said. “It took me longer than I thought it would to figure out what I needed to do. Pretty much after the All-Star break is when I felt actually comfortable back there again. It took that long. Just trying to figure out how to get in the right spot for me to have success. It’s different for everyone. So, now, this camp is what I thought last camp was going to be like. Now we just hone in on those couple things and really get consistent with it.”
The club’s internal metrics, Wathan said, aligned with some public-facing ones. Baseball Prospectus’ framing runs had Alfaro fifth and Realmuto 19th last season. The Phillies ranked 29th, 22nd and 30th in framing runs from 2015-17. They were 10th in 2018.
Realmuto, in 2016, was rated as one of the game’s worst pitch framers.
“They really are pretty far ahead of everybody else in that regard, just in the work they do,” Realmuto said of the Phillies. He added: “Those numbers are up and down. They’re hard to buy into fully, but there’s something to them. It’s hard to pinpoint the numbers. But you can see it. That was the area I can improve in the most.”
That’s the idea: The Phillies aren’t remaking Realmuto. The modern spring training is a chance to seek marginal improvements, a time for specialized training and specific skill work. Like pitch framing.
“The value of a run when we steal a strike is greater a lot of times than when a passed ball goes by,” Wathan said. “So if we can steal two strikes a game, it might turn into us saving half of run that game and the passed ball might end up equaling zero (runs) a game.
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“There’s some ways that we are starting to measure how important a passed ball is in certain situations of a game. The blocking part of it is still valuable, especially in situations with a guy on third base. We’re starting to get into the point of: What are we going to prioritize at times? Is it more important to catch a ball, to steal a strike? Or is it more important to prioritize: Where to block a ball and save a guy going from 90 feet?”
Wathan is 45 and spent 14 seasons in the minors without ever hearing the terms “pitch framing” or “pitch presentation.” He’s the son of a former big-league catcher and manager. He did not refine his game using these methods.
But he is a believer.
“I was a quote-unquote ‘traditional, old-school catching guy.’ And I’ve learned so much in the last year,” Wathan said. “I still talk to my dad and my dad’s like, ‘I don’t know about this stuff.’ I said, ‘Dad, this stuff works. I’m telling you.’ It works. The quicker you buy into it, it works.”
Most teams have bought into it. Pitch framing is no secret. Because of that, in recent years, the gap between the best and worst pitch framers has shrunk. Or, as Baseball Prospectus proclaimed this week, “Catcher Framing Is Going Extinct.”
The Phillies do not see that. At least not yet. The deviations among receiving metrics are still more significant than blocking or throwing ones. It’s still an area where a below-average defender has the most to gain. Realmuto agreed.
“We didn’t have to convince him,” Driver said. “He wanted to learn more about it.”
Realmuto’s spring training is about fostering relationships with his new pitchers and absorbing the team’s analytical approach to game planning. He comes with experience in the division and ideas of his own.
But, first, he’ll study the advanced course on receiving.
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“He’s just naturally good at it,” Knapp said. “Now he’s going to educate himself a little bit more, too. That will just raise the level. I’m super stoked to just learn from him.”
Maybe it makes a difference. Maybe not. That is the luxury of Realmuto’s game; it is so polished and so elite that the Phillies can stress the smallest of details this spring.
“If we can sneak a couple more runs a year … say we save one more run a week because he steals a couple of strikes,” Wathan said. “That’s four a month. Maybe that turns into one or two wins and maybe that’s all we need at the end.”
(Top photo: Lynne Sladky / Associated Press)
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