Catchers, Steal Pitches for Your Pitcher

OK. We spoke of the three critical elements of development for becoming a solid defensive catcher. Not only does it bear repeating, but it is important to get the message across to that young catcher enough so that he can recite the mantra in his sleep; “STEAL STRIKES, BLOCK PITCHES, THROW PEOPLE OUT!” Lets start with the first, and what we believe to be the most important, skill of all and that is to STEAL PITCHES.

While we have actually had a select few parents complain the term, “STEAL PITCHES” as being too negative a connotation (being PC is not what catching is about folks) the fact of the matter is we do need to understand that learning how to “steal” pitches is a subtle skill that comes with a ton of practice and concentration. There are some umpires that are in tuned to what the catcher is trying to do, and if he’s been in and around the game long enough, he would call exactly what he sees, and recognize that “stealing strikes” isn’t about showing him up, but in fact it’s about helping the umpire see what actually happened. We have had one umpire tell our catcher that there would be “NO FRAMEING ALLOWED!” in the game. Obviously he’s not one of the better umpires in a one square block area, let alone in our region. There is always the danger that after spending countless hours learning how to “steal strikes” this particular umpire would actually “punish” the pitcher for what is recognized as good fundamental catcher receiving skills at every level of baseball. Needless to say we have all levels of skilled players and all levels of skilled umpires. That’s what makes the game so interesting.

So what does it take to steal a strike? Well the first technique serves two (2) purposes; the first and most important thing is to receive the ball as close to the plate (without incurring catchers interference), thereby “sticking” the pitch as close to the corners, knees and arm pits as possible before it travels outside the critical one ball width wide, and one ball width high strike zone and steal that strike from being called a ball. We try to get our catchers to understand that one ball high and one ball wide strike zones are probably the most that you could steal consistently for strikes for your pitcher, and given the trend that many umpires have taken from major league baseball, seeing strikes being called three (3) to four (4) ball widths outside “the black”, isn’t unreasonable. When we start getting two ball widths outside that zone the probability for stealing strikes drops significantly. What generally happens here is that a two-ball width or more pitch requires more than a slight “cupping of the outside part of the ball on the corners, the top of the ball on the upper strike zone and the top of the ball on the low pitch. It more than likely will require a drastic movement of the shoulder on the catching hand side, toward the plate and a “slide” with our hand and elbow parallel to the ground in a 3-o’clock and 9-o’clock position on the throwing hand side. Those two actions are enough to set the umpire off when he knows what he is doing, let alone the one like we have - that doesn’t!

What must be learned in this case is that we need to get as close to the plate as we can and not cause catchers interference. We must not “reach” with the glove to give the pitcher a strong target. The end result of that set up brings on three probable results; the first is catcher’s interference which we should be able to control, the second is hands of stone due to our “locked-out elbow” and third, and very important one, is we would have move our feet back one half of whatever our arm length may be thereby “creating” more pitches needing to be blocked than necessary. We “try” to get our catchers to get their glove hand just slightly in front of their knees, almost creating letter “V” at a 45-degree angle. This position will be very critical to two other skills that we must have, balance to throw and short, quick movement to get to our knees to block pitches. We’ll deal with more of that technique when we talk about blocking and throwing.

With our glove just slightly in front of our knees and our pointing finger at 12 O’clock and our palm facing the pitcher as the pitcher winds up to throw, our forearm is in a very muscle-tight position and of course that will create muscle fatigue if held there for a long period of time. Fortunately we don’t have to do that for very long. As the pitcher is about to release the ball, we will ¼ turn our glove so that the forearm rotates to a flat position and our forearm muscles relax and become capable of making a ¼ turn to block a ball in the dirt or to catch any other pitch around the plate. So lets move “around the clock” for a moment to try to visualize a ball caught in various positions across the plate.

Lets think of an analog clock resting directly in front of your catcher as he is squatting down. Now lets draw an imaginary vertical line and horizontal through the circle. As we “see” these two lines, we also see four (4) quadrants – Quad 1- upper left, Quad 2- upper right, Quad 3- lower left and last, Quad 4- lower right. This analogy works well with very young catchers and helps them respond to their end result of catching every pitch either in practice or in the game.

If the ball is caught in the upper left quad, or Quad 1, we want to emphasis the need to catch the “outside of the ball” with our pointing finger at 12 O’clock and our elbow at 6 O’clock and as with ALL pitches, we should hold that catch solidly for a one second count, and not take the ball out of the strike zone immediately. Why the hold? Well there are some umpires that will call the pitch in their mind BEFORE the ball crosses the plate, some as it crosses the plate and there are many that give themselves time to have the pitch, the path of the ball and the final catch register before they call it and that one second hold helps confirm the call in the umps mind, one way or the other. One note here; it’s important to emphasis this hand position in this quad because one of the most damaging injuries a young catcher can get is a jammed thumb that results in catching the ball in that quad with a 3 O’clock – 9 O’clock, thumb pointing down position. Once that thumb joint is bruised, no amount of padding can relieve the anticipated pain on every hard thrown fastball our young man has to receive.

Quad 2 is an area that we work on constantly because the most common fault we find with all young catchers is that in this quad, whether the pitch is a fast ball or a slider or a curve, the catcher wants to catch the “front” of the ball, instead of the outside, or the right side of the ball. Invariably when catching the front of the ball the arm will slide on the 3 O’clock – 9 O’clock position and the force of the pitch will carry both the pitch and the glove outside the black and cost our pitcher a strike. We work constantly on verbal and visual clues that register in our players mind on “cutting off” the travel or the path of the pitch, by “digging to the corner at a 45 degree angle and catching the outside of the ball. This type of reinforcement works most of the time, but finding that verbal and mental clue that sticks with the player and gets the message of the method across is different from player to player, so never quit talking!

Quad 3 is a tough one because it gets our glove and our knees wrapped up in a battle of which one is in the way of the other. The most often seen method of catching the pitch in Quad 3 with a young catcher is to throw his left knee far to the left and to catch with his thumb in the 6 O’clock position. That means his elbow is generally locked in between his legs and he is severely off balance and the possibility of a bruised thumb is greatly increased. We try to verbally direct our catchers to catch the pitch in Quad 3 with the nose of the glove (or the fingers of our hand) pointing down to 6 O’clock and our elbow on the outside of the left leg, forcing us to “turn” our left knee in slightly and to keep our weight forward on the balls of our feet instead of on our heels. This is a great time to use a consistent pitching machine for repetitive pitch location and receiving of the baseball in this Quad. Between Quad 3 and 4, (which we talk about last) is that pitch that we beg our pitchers to throw at all the time and more often than not is where our catchers tend to lose strikes for our pitchers; the pitch knee high or just a ball width low. This pitch need to be softly drawn up into the strike zone by catching the top part of the ball with our arm in the 3 O’clock – 9O’clock position and to keeping the umpire from seeing the ball at all by rolling the glove. Here is where the umpires will be influenced by our guy’s actions by rolling the glove to catch this ball. Rolling the glove must say that the pitch is low and out of the strike zone, correct? Otherwise why roll the glove? Here you have to, once again, catch the top part of the ball and softly draw the ball in to the very bottom of the strike zone.

Quad 4 position is very similar to Quad 2 except for the fact that more often than not this pitch may be severely low and away to a righty and by catching the outside of the ball and digging in on the ball at a 45 degree angle, we will shorten the distance the ball is traveling and once again catching the ball closer to the plate and stealing the strike for our pitcher once again. The general position of or arm is that of the pointing finger at 4 or 5 O’clock and our elbow at 10 or 11 O’clock but always trying to catch the outside of the ball to avoid taking the pitch out of the strike zone by catching the front part of the ball.

So what does all of this do for our pitcher? Well it’s what it does for the team more than anything. We always try to make our catchers the focal point of what it takes to win as a team. We never ignore the role everyone else plays, but the playing of this position effects the outcome of the game in some not-so-subtle ways, especially stealing strikes. For instance, the difference between stealing strikes and not stealing strikes gets our pitcher deeper into the game with less pitches and a stronger finish. Stealing a strike and turning a 1-1 count into a 1-2 count instead of a 2-1 count creates an entirely different position and pitch selection for the pitcher. We are able to control the batters comfort level much better and place the advantage in our teams favor. The fewer pitches our guy has to throw today the faster he can “come back” for his next start. If we have been losing strikes, and the results of that poor catching job creates very high pitch counts early in the game, we have now forced the situation to the bullpen. Forcing us to the bullpen early now has put the team at a disadvantage for the next game or two as well.

We have to remember that we want to control the most frequently executed things that happen every game. For example, we need to control the successful completion of catching and throwing out runners on routine hit ground balls to our infielders because there are far more routine ground balls than there are ESPN highlight plays! Routine fly ball must be caught because there are far more routine fly balls than there are ESPN highlight plays! And from our standpoint we believe that we can have a profound effect on our team’s success when we are ready to catch the ONLY thing that happens 100% of the time in the game…a thrown pitch by our guy on the mound. We have to steal that borderline strike by hook or crook, so we can that big dog in that dugout with the fewest number of pitches thrown as possible!

Next we’ll discuss blocking of pitches. Make sure you put your cup on!

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