Perusing the Baseball Savant leaderboards is a great way to kill time if you are a baseball fan. This week, I stumbled upon pitch framing data that I had not seen on the site before, so I decided to dive right in. Turns out, there is some good news for Reds fans.
Since he started his career with the Reds, Tucker Barnhart has built a reputation as a strong defensive catcher. He provides good stolen base prevention, blocking abilities, and has good rapport with the pitchers, understanding their strengths and weaknesses. While current defensive metrics available to the public are far from perfect, one area that Barnhart has always struggled in is pitch framing, the ability to get incremental strike calls on borderline pitches.