Pirates catcher Francisco Cervelli will be shut down for the rest of the year, manager Clint Hurdle tells reporters including MLB.com’s Adam Berry (via Twitter). Hurdle says there simply isn’t enough time for the backstop to make it back from his quad injury.
While the Bucs don’t need Cervelli to make a push for the postseason — that ship sailed a while back — it’s disappointing for his season to end this year. The veteran has been out since mid-August (apart from a one-game effort to return) and has missed out on a chance to work with the club’s young pitching staff down the stretch.
Cervelli’s absence also means he won’t have a chance to bounce back from his rough finish to the year. Over his final 17 games, Cervelli posted only a .132/.220/.151 slash with twenty strikeouts. Of course, Cervelli was much better at the plate over the full course of the season. But he has produced less than the league average with the bat over the past two years and tanked recently in the framing department (after previously ranking among the game’s best).
All said, the Pirates haven’t made out quite as well as they hoped when they inked Cervelli to a three-year, $31MM extension early in the 2016 season. While the team can still expect to get value out of the 31-year-old over the next two campaigns, he’ll need to boost his performance to warrant the $22MM he is still owed.
These framing numbers seem to vary so much year to year and catchers often will have huge dropoffs in this area rather than gradual decline. Makes you question the source of this data.
It’s a silly “stat” with far too many variables, yet for some reason its what people judge catchers defense on most now. Balls and strikes are called by human beings, which makes “framing” dependant on them and not how good the catcher is at moving his glove.
The pitch framing concept is really an insult to Major League umpires. Granted, they make mistakes, but the stat sets an expectation for the catcher to trick the ump into believing balls are actually strikes. I was an umpire for several years, and I never based a call on the catcher’s frame. I knew it was a ball or strike before it hit the glove which is what’s taught in umpire school.
I disagree. I think the fact that umpires not being perfect is inherent to the profession and if that can be exploited by a catcher, it should be. And it is clear that there are some catchers are going to be better at exploiting that weakness than others. How that is measured effectively is a good question but it shouldn’t be insulting that umpires aren’t robots because they’re not robots.
As far as being able to call it before it hits the mitt, that doesn’t make much sense to me. With a ball traveling 90-100 mph, it has a fraction of a fraction of a second to get to the plate (where you make the call hypothetically) and hitting the mitt. With movement of major league pitches, guessing whether a pitch will be a strike any sooner than it essentially hitting the mitt would be about as error-prone as Joey Gallo in that you would guess wrong 30-40% of time on it being a strike and it wouldn’t be (not a perfect simile but you get what I mean). Basically, a catcher should be able to influence a good umpire and that’s part of the game, a good part of it in my opinion.
“Framing” is the worst thing in baseball.
The “skill” of fooling a 60 year old guy with a union job, wow.
And so much fun for the fans who pay $100 or more for tickets, food, parking, etc. to watch great hitters walk back to the dugout on bad calls because a catcher “skillfully” moved his glove ever so slightly.
Who wants to watch catchers who can hit and throw out baserunners with cannon arms when we can watch guys “frame”?
Robo-umps, please.
Or they could trade him, and get what you can. It’s not like next year is going to be any different than the last 2, so why pay him 11 mil for a singles hitter.
The Pirates seem to put pitch framing above everything in their evaluations concerning catching, hitting does not seem to matter at all, witness Stewart still catching. In fact, hitting does not matter much at all, when you look at lineups that don’t include a single .300 hitter and you can expect that most of them will be in the starting lineup on opening day including Cervelli.
It’s not just the pirates, a lot of teams are devaluing hitting in catchers and putting a greater emphasis on game calling/pitch framing/defense/etc
Get rid of the bum. Signs a big contract and then constantly gets hurt. If he doesn’t want to play dump him.
Just because he’s hurt doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to play. And why rush him back when they’re not in contention?
lol pirates cant win. They complain when they don’t pay and complain when they do pay and the guy gets hurt. Ignorance is amazing
They should sign guys that aren’t going to get hurt. (Sarcasm font)
Bum? Cervelli led the MLB with 26.7 RAA and 10.7 oStr%. I do think next season him and Diaz should platoon. It would keep Cervelli healthy, and maybe insert more offense with Diaz.
Some statistics are invented solely so a player can “lead” in something when all other relevant stats say otherwise.
Relevant stats like batting average, rbi, and fielding percentage?
Why blame Cervelli?…I still say it lies with Huntington!
You mean Nutting?
Yeah Nutting!!
make sure they re sign stewart! lol
That’s fine. Diaz should get most of the starts the rest of year anyway. Same with Luplow. No more Jaso. More Moroff. More Frazier.
I kind of like the mini-tank they are doing now. Once they fell out of contention in mid-August, they fell way out. Only two games up on the Reds who haven’t played a meaningful game since late April. They’ve moved up 7-8 draft slots so far and could end up with a top 6 or 7 pick before it’s over.
Explains why they keep using Jaso, at least.
Some of you might not think pitch framing is important, but it really is. I don’t think that the numbers always tell the story, but pitch framing is a real skill. I went from watching Russell Martin everyday to Miguel Montero. Try telling me there is no such thing as pitch framing.
Even this week, Wilson Contreras caused a run against and got himself and his pitcher thrown out because he butchered a pitch. The ump probably should’ve called it, but Contreras made it very hard on him.
If I may veer off course for one comment, our Pirates may have the worst owner, but we have the best television announcers in the MLB.
Now back on course…
sell the Pirates Bob…
to an owner who has a passion for the game and for winning…
it’s about far more than making money.
Was never a huge fan of his, but did a heck of a job the year before extending. When reasonably healthy and on the field is a pretty good player… but between injuries and suspension.. hasn’t done that a lot. Bad extension IMO, Good ‘risk’ just bad price.