Let's bring you up to speed, in case this has somehow eluded you: the Padres recently acquired Justin Upton, Matt Kemp, and Wil Myers. They also did more than that, too, but, as things stand, those guys project to be the Padres' three starting outfielders, Kemp's hip arthritis and all. (Matt Kemp reportedly has hip arthritis.) Because someone has to play center, it looks like Myers will play center. He'll do so acceptably -- Shin-Soo Choo played center for a team that won 90 games -- but Myers looks like he'll be a liability. The Padres are sacrificing outfield defense for outfield offense.
But that's not the only defensive sacrifice they're lined up to make. Now, before we proceed: who knows, right? Who knows what the Padres' roster will look like in three months? Consider how the Padres' roster looked just last month. A.J. Preller is a busy man. Answer the phone. It's A.J. Preller. He's calling you right now. You missed him. Preller still has moves to make, so we'll just have to see how things look in the end, but given where things are now, the Padres are also going to be weaker behind the plate.
Coming into the offseason, the Padres had both Rene Rivera and Yasmani Grandal. At one point, they were briefly in possession of Ryan Hanigan. They were also a rumored landing spot for David Ross. All those guys have gone elsewhere. The Padres' depth chart reads Derek Norris, supported by Tim Federowicz. Top prospect Austin Hedges remains in the system, but he's not yet ready for the show, nor should he be for a while. The Padres right now would go into the season with Norris and Federowicz receiving.
If you watched the American League wild-card playoff, you might remember the Royals running all over Norris and the A's. One has to wonder what would've happened had Geovany Soto not gotten hurt. Anyhow, while Norris' arm isn't a particular strength of his, that's not the real relative weakness, and runners mostly steal on pitchers anyway. The Royals were going to run. Though Norris got a little embarrassed, it was only a little his fault.
This is about that new and old subject of pitch-framing. I wrote about the Padres and framing here a while ago. By the numbers, it was a strength of theirs. Grandal did a good job of receiving pitches. Rivera did a good job of receiving pitches. The result was that Padres pitchers got to work with a slightly expanded zone, and while that's pretty much never the difference between a win and a loss, little calls add up over time. Some estimates say good framing was worth about 30 runs to the Padres last season. Even if you don't buy that magnitude, cutting it in half still leaves something significant.
And Norris and Federowicz? Probably the worst framer we have on record is Ryan Doumit. Neither Norris nor Federowicz comes close to being as bad as Ryan Doumit. But neither do they, together, come close to being as good as Grandal and Rivera. Rivera's a better overall defender than Grandal is. Padres pitchers certainly shared that opinion. Norris is somewhere in the vicinity of being an average defender. Federowicz as well. The Padres aren't going from real good to real bad. But they're definitely going from real good to something else, and it's going to cost them strikes.
Here's a simple table, of 2014 catching data. Numbers come from StatCorner. You'll see the catchers, their rates of called strikes on pitches taken within the zone, and their rates of called strikes on pitches taken outside the zone. For these purposes, the strike zone is defined as being the zone umpires actually called, and not the zone you read about in the rule book.
| Catcher | Zone Strike% | Out-of-zone Strike% |
|---|---|---|
| Rene Rivera | 90% | 9.7% |
| Yasmani Grandal | 90% | 9.0% |
| Derek Norris | 86% | 7.9% |
| Tim Federowicz | 86% | 6.9% |
The differences are small. The differences are usually small. But they're also present. Rivera and Grandal are better about preserving strikes. They're also better about gaining extra, out-of-zone strikes. The best zone strike rate last year was 91%. The worst was 80%. The best out-of-zone strike rate was 9.9%. The worst was 5.0%. Grandal and Rivera were both near the top, in receiving ability. Norris and Federowicz are certain steps back.
We can put images to this, with the help of Baseball Savant. Here, the Rivera/Grandal combined strike zone:
Now the Norris/Federowicz combined strike zone:
I understand it might be hard to compare those visually, so to make things easier, here's a gif.
This is pure balls and strikes. It makes no adjustment for pitch types, or pitch situations. It makes no adjustment for pitcher identity, or intended target. So this is a little simplistic, but still it gives you a good idea of where Rivera and Grandal really stood out. They set a lot of targets toward the first-base side of home plate. In so doing, they earned a lot of strikes over there, both within the zone and without it. Rivera and Grandal are also good at catching low pitches and selling them. The Norris/Federowicz zone isn't small, but it's small<em>er</em>, which is the whole point. It might seem like nothing, but a season is 162 games long. A fraction of something in one game is 162 fractions in a year.
Simply looking at last year's numbers, the framing-value difference between Grandal/Rivera and Norris/Federowicz is around 20-30 runs. That's an awful lot of runs. If you want to knock it down some, it's still a difference of at least, say, a win. And maybe two. It's such a quiet, invisible factor, but the numbers are what they are, and they're hard to refute. Maybe the Padres will work with their catchers on framing in spring. It seems like they were able to improve Nick Hundley. But being without Grandal and Rivera makes it a virtual guarantee next year's strike zone will be a bit less favorable.
What that is is a loss of some value behind the plate. What that would look like is a loss of some value from the pitching staff. Worse receivers means worse counts. More walks, fewer strikeouts, that sort of thing. Nothing real dramatic, but a season ago Padres pitchers had the twin benefits of good receivers and Petco Park. Petco Park is still there, standing and rather one-sided, but the pitchers will be dealing with inferior backstops. They'll also be dealing with inferior defenders in general, but, this is just part of the A.J. Preller gamble.
Austin Hedges could make things better down the road. He's supposed to be an elite-level defender, already. And maybe the Padres do something else. Their rumored interest in David Ross suggests they might be on the lookout for a defensive specialist. So maybe this picture improves before 2015. But even if it does, the Padres won't have Rene Rivera and Yasmani Grandal catching the pitches. Preller wants his team to be able to hit. It'll definitely be better at hitting.
