Your 2018 Giants: Posey's Framing Decline

I was wondering about whether a catcher's framing ability had any effect on Watson, so I dug into the pitch framing numbers on StatCorner.  Below was what I found.

ogc thoughts

Watson had great seasons from 2013 to 2015, but then had declines in 2016-2017, so I wondered if there was any connection with his catchers, since his K/9 was roughly the same, but his BB/9 jumped between him being great and being merely good.

Watson did his best/great with catchers who had per game averages of at least 0.8 per game.  His catchers included Russell Martin, Chris Stewart, Francisco Cervelli, Yasmani Grandal, Elias Diaz, Austin Barnes.  When Martin, Steward, Cervelli, Grandal, and Barnes caught him, he did really well with a low ERA in his seasonal catcher's results when they had at least 0.8 extra strikes per game.  He was great from 2013-2016 with Martin and Cervelli behind the plate and doing great; Cervelli wasn't so great in 2017, in fact, he was pretty bad, losing over a call each game.  When the per game average was lower, it was generally not good.

Posey's Down Season

That would seem to mean that Watson should do pretty well now with Posey behind the plate, as he's been the reported king of pitch framers over the years, but for whatever reason, Posey did not get as many calls as he had in previous years, and his per game average fell from 1.75 in 2016 to 0.14 in 2017.  Overall, the runs saved declined by roughly two wins.  So our pitching decline was strongly influenced by Posey's poor season in 2017 framing pitches.

Posey will need to find that magic again in 2018 for the Giants pitching staff, but my quick research on the leaders in pitch framing since 2013 found that catchers go from elite to near zero around the time they turned 30-32.  Cervelli had a huge decline at age 30, Yadier Molina at 31, Russell Martin at 32.  Posey was 30 last season.  Russell never recovered, declining further.  Yadier and Cervelli had their first negative year in 2017, but Yadier had his big decline in 2014, was slightly better in 2015-2016, but fell under zero in 2017.  Tyler Flowers is still great at age 31 (but he's only been catching full time for four seasons, Posey for 7 mostly full seasons).  Grandal was 28 last season, Barnes 27.  Posey was basically at zero in 2017, at 1.6 RAA.  Just anecdotal, plus there's only 11 years worth of data, though I could go back further than 2013, if I had the time.

We did not hear about any injury or anything like that affecting Posey.  Other than Father Time ticking him over to 30 YO.  Plus, Hundley was pretty bad at it in 2017 and during his career, so it is not like he could pick up the slack, like Chris Stewart did in Pittsburgh, as backup.

Catchers have up and down seasons, much like BABIP, so it is possible that Posey could bounce back upward, much like how Molina did, but it looks like Posey has stopped being an elite catcher at pitch framing, and hopefully he don't keep going down, but instead stabilizes or improve slightly, like Yadier did in his early 30's. 

Possible Other Factors:  Umpires Better?  Or Just Trend?

Another factor: somehow the framing has been becoming less and less effective.  Could the umpires be catching on, given all the publicity about it?

In 2013, 8 were at 14.9+, 10 at 10+. In 2014, 7 were at 15+, 14 at 10+. In 2015, 3 were at 15+, 11 at 10+. In 2016, 3 were at 15+, 5 were at 10+. In 2017, 3 were at 15+ and 10+ (i.e. nobody 10-15).   So it seems like catchers are not as good at it as they used to be, as the best ones were getting lower and lower. 

Or could this just be an ebb and flow situation?  Looking at the per game numbers, seem like there are a lot of catchers still get the strike calls, but most were not playing full-time.  Using 0.80 as a threshold, there were 18 at 0.80 and above in 2017, 20 in 2016, 32 in 2015, so it looks like a definite downtrend in terms of quality catching.  Things are not stabilizing or getting better.

Now, the above trend was for every catcher.  Using 5,000 samples as a minimum, so we are looking at catchers who still caught a lot of the time, then there were only 4 above 0.80 in 2017, 6 above 0.50 (appears to be the threshold for at least 10 RAA, which is worth roughly one win).  6 above 0.80 in 2016, 9 above 0.50 (Posey actually let all with 1.75 average calls per game).  9 above 0.80 in 2015, 13 above 0.50 (Posey was at 1.22, 5th in the majors).   And 11 above 0.80 in 2014, 14 above 0.50 (Posey was 1.41, 7th).  By all of these measures, catchers have been getting worse and worse, overall, at stealing extra strikes with pitch framing. 

That's all I got.  Anyone got better ideas and/or theories?