Former Angels, Astros and Rays catcher Hank Conger will serve as the new catching coach for the Lotte Giants of the Korea Baseball Organization, per Jee-ho Yoo of South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency. It doesn’t appear that Conger has formally announced his retirement as a player, but the move to a coaching capacity puts an end to his playing days for the time being.
Conger, 32 next month, was born in Washington and went to high school in California but is of Korean descent. He played in parts of seven seasons between the Angels, Astros and Rays organizations, recording a .221/.294/.366 batting line over the life of 373 MLB games (1134 plate appearances). Conger also saw action in parts of five Triple-A campaigns but hasn’t appeared in affiliated ball since the 2017 season, which he spent with the D-backs’ Triple-A affiliate.
Conger was perhaps MLB’s premier pitch framer in 2013-14, and Yoo notes that his new team acquired 25-year-old backstop Seong-jun Ji via an offseason trade. The hope seems to be that Conger can aid in his development behind the plate as he steps into a starter’s role for the first time in his career.
This guy couldn’t throw out Fat Albert stealing 2nd and couldn’t hit, but man could he frame a pitch. Lolol. A lot of ridiculous stats have appeared via sabermetrics, but pitch framing takes the cake as the dumbest, most irrelevant one.
you’re wrong
you’re right (he’s wrong)
Because there is no difference hitting 1-2 vs 2-1. In order for your take to be correct, then there would have to be no difference.
it makes no sense.
I am a catching instructor and the best frame is an undetected frame. the frame is a change to the umpires perception and not a jerk of the mitt.
how much the catcher stretches the strike zone consistently is the true technique.
I hate the phrase “Frame”. It’s a technique that doesn’t work, yet it describes an action that has real value.
No catcher in the big league uses the “Frame” technique.
And you know this how?
Because it’s an incredibly easy technique to spot, it doesn’t fool anyone, let alone major league umpires. Google “Cather Framing Technique”.
You wont spot a big league player using it.
You’re dumb
I just googled who are the best mlb catching framers. The entire mission of a catcher is to frame.
It’s your choice to be narrow minded, but I suggest you keep it to yourself so you don’t look stupid.
The stat is certainly not irrelevant… however I do have a problem with how it’s being used – and that’s is often times being viewed as the be all end all of defensive catcher data. My biggest issue with it is that it has a massive amount to do with the umpire and the pitchers that the C is catching. First the umpire… if he’s got a big strike zone then the catchers ‘framing’ stats are going to be great and if it’s a small zone… the opposite. Then there’s the pitchers side of things – and this is the part I take issue with when it’s used to evaluate catchers… if a pitcher has great command and is hitting his spots the umps more likely to give him the borderline strike — this will show that the C had a good game “framing wise” — whereas if a C is always catching a bunch of rookies who don’t get those breaks and are wild at times — the calls aren’t going to go their way and as a result it’s going to make the catchers “framing” statistics look bad. While some of this might balance out over a season — there’s also the fact that the guys in the rotation are going to be doing the bulk if the P to the catcher. And a Catcher could wind up getting screwed by this metric just by virtue of the way his pitchers pitch. Idk it just seemed like for a while some guys were getting unfairly cast as bad defensive catchers because of this metric when in reality it was their pitchers and there really wasn’t anything they could’ve done about it.
you’re wrong
K.
His Chapelle’s Show dance after home runs was pretty fantastic!
I had to Google that. Yeah!!!
Did he actually throw out ONE of 43 base stealers in 2015? That’s amazing.
could be a neats story if Ji moves over to the MLB at some point.
I was thinking the same thing but then I looked at Ji’s stats in the KBO and he doesn’t really look like anything special. And he’s 25 – so it’s not like he’s some teen phenom or something… still you’re right it would be cool if he eventually came stateside but when first reading the article I was expecting/hoping for something a little bit more exciting than the mediocre statline I saw.
Those who can’t play coach. To think he was the reason, the Angels felt that Mike Napoli was expendable. Good luck to him coaching career.
Will always remember him for appearing in that Domingo Ayala video. Best of luck coaching.
His mom Darva Conger used to be hot.
One of the best catcher FRAMER was TONY PEÑA may some of you don’t remember but in that time sabermetric didn’t exist
Sure it did
Tony Pena may have defined the earliest ideas about “framing”. Guy had a gun, too.
Hey Hank Conger!! Angels need a catcher PDQ. Why did you join KBO’s Lotte Giants Coaching Staff ?