How Elias Díaz Can Improve His Framing

Elias Díaz was a solid framer in 2024. According to Baseball Savant, his two framing runs ranked 18th among all catchers. It was just the second time he’d been above average in his career, and a huge improvement over the combined -11 he put up in the two previous season. However, Díaz had a very clear strength and a very clear weakness. He’s an excellent framer at the top of the zone and a below average framer at the bottom. On balance, that worked out just fine last season, as his value at the top more than offset his problems at the bottom. It’s also not fair to ask any catcher to be good in every quadrant of the zone. There’s just too much area to cover. Courtesy of Baseball Savant, here are Díaz's called strike rates in every part of the zone, along with those of Patrick Bailey, the best framer in baseball right now (and maybe even the best ever).

Díaz is actually a bit better than Bailey at the top of the zone, but the difference at the bottom is very stark. Moreover, it's pretty easy to spot why Díaz struggles at the bottom of the zone. Below are screengrabs from two called strikes on sinkers right at the bottom of the zone. I watched tons of that exact kind of pitch, called strikes on sinkers at the bottom of the zone, in order to compare the two catchers, and we'll use these two pitches to demonstrate. Bailey is on the left and Díaz is on the right. This picture is taken from the moment their gloves were at its lowest, and just one more reminder: like Díaz, Bailey is actually best at framing pitches at the top of the zone. He just also happens to be great at the bottom too.

You can see that Bailey is a little lower here, mainly because he’s leaning forward. Leaning forward is pretty important on low pitches because the ball is always sinking on its way to the plate. The earlier you catch it, the higher it will be when you catch it, which makes the pitch look better to the umpire. However, there’s not a huge difference here. Both catchers, knowing that a low sinker was coming, flashed a target to the pitcher, then got low and buried their glove in the dirt. The setups are nearly identical. What I’m trying to say is that so far, when he’s trying to frame a low strike, Elias Díaz looks a lot like the best catcher in baseball.

So where does Bailey go from here that’s so great, and where does Díaz go that’s so ugly? Here are both pitches, back-to-back. See if you can spot the difference.

I won’t make you watch that whole clip a dozen times. I doubt you'll catch it the first time, so if you didn't, let me zoom in and slow it way down for you. As you'll see, it's all about the timing.

The big difference is that Díaz moves his glove much earlier. Bailey’s whole goal is to catch the ball with his glove moving upwards. In order to achieve that, he keeps his glove on the ground until the last possible moment. Honestly, I’m not a catcher, and I don’t know how anyone trains themselves to wait until the last possible second like that with a 95 mph fastball bearing down on them, but Bailey is incredible at it. He snatches the ball out of the air naturally and slams it into the middle of the zone. He's playing chicken with a deadly projectile, and he's winning.

Díaz can’t make himself wait until that last moment. He gets moving early and he ends up above the ball, which means he has to dip his glove back down in order to catch the ball. The umpire sees his glove moving down to grab the ball, which makes the pitch look even lower. Here’s a GIF that shows both gloves in the last dozen frames before the ball hits the glove. See how Bailey’s is moving up and Díaz’s is moving down?

That's it. Not only does Díaz have to completely change the direction his glove is moving, but he also has to turn his wrist unnaturally. The fact that Bailey can do this so smoothly makes it even more convincing.

Now that I’ve shown this to you, I’m not sure that there’s a solution. Big league catchers drill on this stuff all the time. It’s entirely possible that Díaz just isn’t capable of keeping his glove down any longer than he already does. We’re talking about the difference in skill between the best framer in the world and the 18th-best. Díaz is already very good at it; just not as good as the literal best in the world. However, if he does have room for improvement, maybe this kind of side-by-side video will help him figure out the next step on his journey to world framing domination.