Deserves his own thread. He established himself as the starting catcher with a breakout power season last year, that upon close examination was actually building over some time. I think he is a legit 15 Homer threat, and can go get 20 if he stays healthy and gets close to 500 PA
The big knock on him has always been his pitch framing. Nick Piecoro wrote an article about him a couple days ago.
Castillo set to improve
Quote:
His morning work on Thursday was focused on his receiving skills, a part of his game that has come under assault by advanced defensive statistics. Castillo does not rate well in pitch-framing metrics – that is, whether it’s a pitch in the strike zone that’s called a ball or vice versa, he has consistently rated near the bottom of major league catchers in being on the favorable end of umpire’s calls.
“I’ve been working really hard at it,” Castillo said. “I don’t worry about just being on the top of the list, I want to get myself and the pitching staff more calls.”
Among 28 catchers with at least 5,000 framing chances, Castillo rated fifth-worst in the majors, according to Baseball Prospectus. Castillo was at minus-11.1 runs below average. The Dodgers’ Yasmani Grandal (25.6 runs) and the Pirates’ Francisco Cervelli (19.0 runs) were tops in the majors.
Castillo believes that in addition to catching the ball cleanly and quietly behind the plate – “The less movement I need to do to get the ball the better,” he said – he thinks he might benefit from keeping the umpire in mind more.
“The better angle that I present it to the umpire, I think the more calls I’m going to get,” he said. “It’s all about angles. … I need to create a little angle with my body, be more square toward the plate.”
I think this is a great example of how sabermetrics can help a player. Were it not for his rankings in pitch framing metric, this is not something he or the staff might have even been aware of, let alone make it a focus for improvement.
It will be interesting to see if the work and adjustments pay off. No guarantee they will, but it's great to see him trying to address this.
BEEF ! (My favorite nickname on the team by the way)
