An imperfect part of the game of baseball is the strike zone. That’s where catcher framing and their ability to steal strikes is so vital to a pitching staff and team. These fine margins can be the difference between swinging a count in your favor or the batter having a favorable hitter’s count. Let’s take a look at all the catchers from the 2024 season and their success (or lack there of) with stealing strikes.
Cal Raleigh leads all off baseball with the most strikes called out of the zone but if you move down the list you notice Austin Wells leads with a +81 with his net calls. Another name that stands out is Luis Campusano who has the most net negative calls in all of baseball but still stands with the 13th most stolen strikes.
Not all strikes out of the zone are created equally. How many of the strikes out of the zone were taken for a called strike three? 759 of them to be exact. The leaders? Cal Raleigh (25), J.T. Realmuto (24), William Contreras (24), Tyler Stephenson (21), Christian Vazquez (21), Gabriel Moreno (20) and Jose Trevino (20).