Way back in July, when the Cardinals were good but unsure how good they would be, Adam Wainwright turned in a strong start against the Angels. Edward Mujica, however, blew a save and took the loss, the Angels walking off in the bottom of the ninth. It was an uncharacteristic show of weakness from a guy who to that point had been a dominant closer, and afterward Mujica knew exactly what he’d done wrong. For the first time since joining the Cardinals, Mujica shook off Yadier Molina. The first time he shook Molina off, the Angels hit a tying homer. The second time he shook Molina off, the Angels won. Mujica swore to follow Yadier from that point forward.
One of the exciting things about pitch-framing research is that we’re able to quantify a part of catcher defense that, before, we just had to guesstimate. We might’ve had a sense of who was good and who was bad, but we didn’t know what that meant. Now, we’re closer than ever before to understanding catcher value, but we’re still dealing with a massive blind spot. We don’t know how to quantify good and bad game-calling. True, pitchers get the final say, but pitchers and catchers work together, and some catchers have better plans than others. They say Molina’s the best, that he gets in the hitters’ heads. This October, Molina has taken very good care of Wainwright. Monday night, Wainwright and Molina had one particular disagreement. Moments later, the Dodgers had the only run they’d need.
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