We already knew Patrick Bailey was the best pitch framer in baseball. But he might be even better than we realized — and an even more valuable fielder than we realized.
Statcast just introduced an update to its framing model, which adds a greater level of detail to how a catcher’s receiving skill is evaluated, including the called strike probability for each pitch based on its distance inside or outside the strike zone.
Bailey has saved the Giants 18 runs with his pitch framing this season, No. 1 by far among all catchers. And over his career the gap is only magnified. Since Bailey’s rookie season in 2023, he’s saved way more runs with his framing than anyone else.
Best framing catchers, 2025
Best framing catchers, 2023-25
(since Bailey’s rookie season)
There are two sides to pitch framing: Stealing strikes on pitches outside the zone, and not losing strikes on pitches inside the zone. Bailey is the best at both.
But his approach to receiving pitches starts with one fundamental principle.
“The most important thing is: Strikes have to be strikes,” Bailey said. “From every perspective. If a pitcher executes a pitch and it’s in the strike zone, it needs to be a strike. And as a catcher, that’s my biggest priority — if it crosses the plate in the zone, I need to present it to the umpire in the best way possible.
“At times, when you’re doing that consistently, you get a couple of balls called a strike. But at the end of the day, for me, a strike’s gotta be a strike.”
With Bailey behind the plate, a strike is essentially always a strike. He has a +8 framing run value on his pitches received in the strike zone this season, the best among big league catchers. Then, he’s also the best catcher at turning balls into strikes, with a +10 framing run value on pitches received outside the strike zone.
Make sure you’re presenting every pitch in the zone as a strike, and the stolen strikes will come. That’s how Bailey operates.
Look at the called strikes — and strikeouts — he piles up on pitches around the boundary of the strike zone. We’re talking about hundreds of extra strikes a year compared to other catchers, which pays huge dividends to the Giants’ pitching staff.
Catching with Bailey’s mentality means that every pitch must be framed. Bailey won’t risk losing a strike because of a lackluster presentation, no matter where he thinks the pitch is heading out of the pitcher’s hand.
“In my head, when it comes from release, I think everything’s a strike,” Bailey said. “Everything’s a strike, and then that way, you’re never second-guessing and you’re never not making your right move.”
Bailey is extremely consistent at getting called strikes across every pitch location. That’s what really separates him from other catchers.
We already saw that there’s a clear gap between Bailey and even the other top framing catchers. But compared to an average MLB catcher … or the worst framing catchers … the difference is huge.
Here he is, for example, compared to the worst framing catcher this season, Edgar Quero of the White Sox. Whether the pitch is a baseball’s width out of the zone, right on the edges or a baseball’s width inside the zone, Bailey gets called strikes far more often.
Bailey is still getting the call on 48% of the borderline pitches he catches, compared to the Major League average of just 42%. And for his career, Bailey has maintained a called strike percentage of 51% in the borderline regions of the zone. An average big league catcher during Bailey’s time in the Majors has gotten a called strike on only 45% of those pitches. The catchers at the bottom of the framing leaderboard, like the Nationals’ Riley Adams, barely get borderline strikes 40% of the time.
There is no weakness to Bailey’s pitch framing. He is exceptional at framing pitches on every edge of the zone — top, bottom, inside, outside — and on the corners. He can frame any pitcher, whether it’s a side-to-side painter like Logan Webb or an up-and-down power pitcher like Justin Verlander. He can frame any pitch type, whether it’s a fastball, breaking or offspeed pitch. And his skill can neutralize the other team’s best hitters. (All this data is available on the new Statcast framing leaderboard, by the way — you can see Bailey’s framing value broken down by pitcher, pitch type and opposing batter.)
Check out some of Bailey’s best frame jobs of the season by called strike probability. All of these were called Strike 3s on pitches that were at least an inch outside the strike zone:
“At the end of the day, you’re just matching the plane of the pitch,” Bailey said. “Sometimes [with a pitcher like Webb] you’re riding the sinker back in the zone, sometimes you’re matching the shape of your move with the glove to the sweeper. I think it’s the same way with north-south guys [like Verlander] — you’re still matching the plane.”
Bailey’s elite pitch framing is a testament to the Giants’ catcher development. San Francisco rebuilt Bailey’s catching approach from the ground up after drafting him in the first round out of North Carolina State in 2020. That included Bailey learning the knee-down catching style that’s taken over the Major Leagues in the last five years because of the pitch framing benefits it yields.
“You could go watch my video from NC State,” Bailey said. “Basically, when I got here, I changed everything with how I caught.”
Thanks to his work with Craig Albernaz, the Giants’ catching coach when Bailey came up, and Alex Burg, who was San Francisco’s bullpen catcher Bailey’s rookie season before taking over as Major League catching coach for Albernaz, Bailey’s versatility in his catching setup and movements behind the plate has become the foundation of his masterful pitch framing.
And of course, Bailey now has Buster Posey — who was one of the elite all-around defensive catchers of his era, and whose 2016 framing season is still as good as any we’ve seen in the Statcast era — as his president of baseball operations.
Posey’s message to Bailey, as he told The Athletic before the start of this season, was: “Lead the staff.” In every way, not just pitch framing. Bailey has taken that to heart.
“We have to be adaptable to what the pitcher needs,” Bailey said. “Because at the end of the day, our job is to get the best out of our pitchers.”
Everyone knows how important catchers are as a team’s field general, and their value probably isn’t fully captured by defensive statistics. But the updated framing numbers from Statcast do help with that by giving a boost to the elite defensive catchers around the Majors. Like Bailey.
There’s an argument that Bailey is the most impactful fielder in baseball. By Statcast’s Fielding Run Value, which combines all of the individual Statcast defensive metrics into one overall value stat, Bailey ranks No. 1 among all MLB fielders — not just catchers — both in 2025 and since his debut.
His pitch framing is by far the biggest component of that fielding value. And so Bailey approaches receiving the same way a savant like Joey Votto would approach hitting.
“Every pitch is different,” Bailey said. “It’s kind of similar to hitting, where you’re timing up pitches, you’re matching shapes. It’s just, as a catcher, you know what’s coming.”
