NEW ASTROS CATCHER TAKING A STANCE
Chirinos works with Hinch to be what Astros need
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — After he caught the final pitch of his first workday as an Astro, Robinson Chirinos crossed a walkway and stepped onto a field. A.J. Hinch awaited his new catcher. The two men crouched into a squat on either side of home plate.
Behind the plate, Chirinos readied into his normal pre-pitch setup. Hinch, facing him directly, offered advice. The conversation during Wednesday’s first workout for pitchers and catchers continued for more than five minutes. Both player and manager shifted their squats. They mimicked catching pitches.
“He was telling me what he thought and I was telling him the reason I was doing those things,” Chirinos said. “It was a good conversation, and I think the main reason he called me aside was to express what he thinks. I believe he’s going to help me, so let’s see.”
Hinch caught for four teams across seven major league seasons. He does not hide his affinity for the art, nor is he coy of his imposing expectations for the catchers he now manages. Lessons like this are com-
mon, the sort of communication for which Hinch has become renown.
“It doesn’t matter whether you’re a new, first-year guy or a veteran, we expect you to come in with an open mind to get better and learn,” Hinch said. “Robinson Chirinos is a really good major league catcher in a lot of aspects and there are some areas where we think we can nudge him a little bit.”
Plucking Chirinos from the free-agent market in December was an attempt to inject offensive punch into a hole in the Astros’ batting order. Chirinos’ career .438 slugging percentage and pull-happy righthanded swing should pair well with Minute Maid Park’s short left-field porch. Last season, Chirinos hit only one less home run than all of the Astros’ catchers combined.
His presence offers an offensive remedy but creates a defensive enigma.
The Astros place a premium on pitch framing, yet they signed one of the sport’s worst. They traded for Martin Maldonado at the nonwaiver trade deadline last season for his superior effectiveness at thwarting the running game.
Fifty-three of 59 base stealers against Chirinos were successful in 2018. Hinch does not chart caught stealing percentage as an individual statistic — pitchers can be slow to the plate and influence a catcher’s numbers. General manager Jeff Luhnow has labeled Chirinos’ throwing arm as “average to a tick above.”
Baseball Prospectus ranked the 34-year-old Chirinos among the sport’s least effective pitch framers. Pitch framing is, in essence, stealing strikes for pitchers who may just barely miss a spot or throw a borderline pitch.
“It’s such an art and such a hard thing to grasp and get better at,” said Astros minor league catcher Garrett Stubbs. “It’s not just one thing you have to do. It’s not just glove positioning, it’s not just body positioning, it’s a whole array of things. It’s how you set up, when you set up, when you catch the ball, the timing of catching the ball, where the glove is at (and) how you present it to the umpire.”
Last season, Chirinos generated negative 0.011 called strikes above average, according to Baseball Prospectus. Max Stassi, for reference, led baseball with a 0.022 mark. Chirinos’ framing created negative 11.2 runs above average, the fourth worst among 117 major league catchers whose work was evaluated.
The ignominy is not lost on Chirinos. He entered free agency cognizant of his ghastly numbers. One trouble plagued him in particular.
“I told A.J. this (that) last year the pitch I was struggling (with) was the high pitch,” Chirinos said Thursday. “When I signed here in December, I knew from facing all these guys how they like to pitch. That high pitch is a pitch they use a lot. I’ve been working on the last 2½ months getting better on that pitch.”
Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole thrive on hard, rising fourseam fastballs. If Josh James cracks the starting rotation, he also will approach 100 mph and elevate the baseball. Closer Roberto Osuna will approach the mid-90s, too.
“I have to be able to get that strike for my pitchers,” Chirinos said.
Improving Chirinos’ framing, therefore, is paramount. The Astros have an established track record of doing so. Mike Fast, their former director of research and development, was Baseball Prospectus’ pitch framing expert before he joined the organization in 2012.
In his 2013 All-Star season, Jason Castro produced a 1.3 runs framing and 0.001 called strikes above average. Three years later, when Castro departed the club, he was rated as baseball’s thirdbest pitch framer. His called strikes above average sat at 0.029.
“It’s just cleaning up a lot of extra movement,” said Stassi, a sixyear member of the Astros’ organization who has seen incremental framing improvement. “You’re just really trying to catch the ball and present as clear as possible, that’s the big thing in the past. I had some unnecessary movement where balls were almost taken out of the zone or I wasn’t in a strong position. That’s the only real adjustment I’ve made and that the organization preaches.”
Hinch has hinted at moving Chirinos’ setup closer to the plate, diminishing the distance a pitch travels into his mitt.
“You have to beat the ball to the spot,” the manager quipped Friday.
Chirinos is now setting up with his chest square. In the past, he said, he had been somewhat hunched over to place his glove lower in the strike zone — hence the issues on high pitches.
“I have to be something in between, where I’ll be able to get that down pitch but also that high strike,” Chirinos said. “That’s kind of the thing I’ve been working on, having myself in a better position to cover everything.”
Friday afternoon, after another day adjusting to his new normal, Chirinos sat alongside the five other Astros catchers. They circled around a pitcher’s mound. Bullpen coach Michael Collins, who will handle more catching instruction this season, joined. Hinch knelt before them all, commanding attention. Chirinos nodded and listened intently.
“Even as a guy in his mid-30s, he’s not stuck in his ways, he’s open to different ideas,” Hinch said. “He wants to be perfect. And when you’re handling a pitching staff like we’re going to have, we expect you to be good.”