One of the smallest gaps on the baseball field is only getting narrower and more valuable as both sides scrutinize the data to gain an edge at the strike zone, putting batters and catchers ever closer together. Hitters are scratching back to buy themselves an infinitesimal amount of extra time to recognize a pitch, and catchers are reaching forward to frame strikes nearer the plate.
It was there Tuesday, in that sliver of space and time where pitches and games can be won, that Cardinals catcher Willson Contreras extended his mitt and Mets designated hitter J.D. Martinez uncoiled his swing.
Bat met bone, and the Cardinals’ season painfully changed.
In the second inning, Martinez’s swing crashed into Contreras’ left forearm and drove through to his wrist, fracturing at least one bone as it went. Contreras screamed in pain, wheeled toward the Cardinals dugout and eventually surrendered to the ground. He left the game and started what will be months of recovery from a fractured forearm. Contreras stood at his Busch Stadium locker late Tuesday night after the 7-5 loss to the New York Mets with his arm in a splint and a sling, and he explained that surgery is a possibility in the coming days to stabilize the arm and aid healing.
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“This is the most painful I’ve been through, for sure,” Contreras said after chronicling the bumps, bruises and injuries of a catcher. “When I got to sit down in the dirt, it was numb. I knew it wasn’t right. I was trying to recover to see if I could catch. But once I turned, I did some motion. I felt some cracking in it. I knew it was bad.”
A question facing Major League Baseball is whether it will be worse.
A topic of discussion within the industry is the dramatic increase in catcher interference calls just like Contreras’ on Tuesday. Chasing an old practice of framing pitches but empowered by new metrics that precisely measure that skill, catchers throughout the majors are creeping closer and closer to the plate. Contreras worked with the Cardinals during the spring of 2023 to position himself closer to that plate than he had been with the Cubs for the express purpose of improving the calls he got on lower pitches.
Many catchers and teams are doing it for an obvious reason: It works. It pays off. But it’s not without risk.
“The risk is high. We just experienced it,” manager Oliver Marmol conceded Tuesday night. “It’s a huge risk, and it’s been talked about. Even in the offseason, it was a topic of discussion because there was an increase in them. The more catchers are evaluated on framing, the closer they’re getting to the hitter to get that low pitch.”
Said Contreras: “I think the best way to frame is to get closer.”
It does not take long to search for the leaders in all of the latest or greatest stats — from baseball card standards like batting average and home runs to the modern metric alphabet soup of xwOBA, OPS+, DRS, BABIP, wRC or ISO. But try finding catcher interference. It’s not a common column on any of the stat sites. It’s not even all that well-known an event. The batter gets first base. The catcher gets an error, right there on the scoreboard. But it happens so rarely, why track?
Or, rather, it did.
As recently as 2002, there were fewer than 10 catcher interference calls in the majors. From 2012 to 2014, the yearly total did not surpass 25. There were 26 catcher interference calls this past April alone. Back in 2015, there were 33 catcher interference calls total in the season. Contreras’ was the 33rd of this season. In the span of just five years, the number of catcher interference calls in the majors has doubled, and in 2022, a new record was set with 74. That high was surpassed in 2023 — more specifically, in August of 2023, on the way to 96.
The increase parallels improved framing metrics, wider access and, yes, salaries.
“He’s close to the plate trying to steal strikes, (and) as pitchers, we appreciate that,” starter Miles Mikolas said. “If we knew he was going to get hurt, I’d rather throw a ball than have Willy get hurt. ... I don’t think any amount of strikes is worth a player’s health. Guys are getting paid and going up and down (to the minors) based on their framing metrics. The closer you can get, the better the framing metrics you can get. We’ve kind of forced these guys to scooch up as far as they can so they can steal low strikes and give the umpires a better view.”
Out of the game after pitching into the fifth inning and allowing six runs in the fifth inning, Mikolas said he thought about a solution:
Draw a line for safety. Widen the gap and erase the encroaching reward from metrics.
“I think there should be a line back there for the catchers and just have them stay behind the line,” Mikolas said. “That way no one can get any closer than the next guy, and if you put them back there in a spot that is deemed safe, that might help guys.”
This year, Cardinals batters have swung into three catcher interference calls. Paul Goldschmidt has two of them. San Diego has the most, with four. In 2023, the teams that committed the most catcher interference violations had seven. Two hitters, Oakland’s Esteury Ruiz and Houston’s Kyle Tucker, swung into seven. A game between the Brewers and Dodgers this past fall was decided, in part, by two catcher interference calls.
The catcher? Willson’s younger brother, William Contreras, who helped his older brother this offseason to shift where he starts his mitt and his angles to better frame.
And the hitter? Martinez.
“It’s the last thing you’re expecting to happen,” said Martinez, the Mets’ new designated hitter, after Tuesday’s game in the visiting clubhouse at Busch. “You’re expecting to hit a ball and you hit an arm. And you’re like, ‘What was that?’ I hit meat. I felt I hit meat. I didn’t hit just a glove, where you kind of just point back at the catcher. ... It was just solid. I got to first. I felt terrible.”
A freeze frame of the at-bat before Mikolas attempted to wedge a slider in on Martinez shows just how close the catcher and hitter are.
The back line of the batter’s box vanishes in the first inning.
Catchers can lobby the umpire to notice if the batter’s a bit farther back, but as Contreras said, any trace of white chalk around the cleat is going to keep the batter in place.
Meanwhile, the catcher is trying to get that glove-side angle to get the low, inside call. He wants to get the low pitches called strikes, and he’s getting closer to the plate because he’s not just fighting the umpire’s view. Gravity has a say, too.
The space between Contreras and Martinez vanishes fast.
“He saw the pitch really late and tried to get his emergency swing off, and that’s when he hit me,” Contreras said. “I think if he sees the pitch well, he would try to hit it out in front, and he wouldn’t hit me. I’m not blaming him. He’s doing his thing. As a catcher and I’m trying to get good framing (numbers), I have to risk something. It was really bad tonight. ... I happened to get hit in my arm and break it. Hopefully it doesn’t’ happen again to another catcher because it’s not fun.”
But before that moment, Contreras’ approach had been fruitful.
Setting up nearer the plate did not immediately improve his framing of the low strike for 2023, but coupled with changes to his mitt positioning, his use of a one-knee-down stance and other adjustments, it has for 2024. He ranked outside the top 30 for catchers on converting the low, glove-side edge pitch into a strike before this season. This year, he’s got the sixth-highest percentage, at 41.9%. He’s improved in all three areas of the low strike zone. Which is why he said he’s going to go back to the same spot when he returns.
“There is always a risk to being a catcher,” Contreras said. “It could be different on my knee or getting hit in the head with my concussion. The risk is always going to be there. I’m not blaming any part of my game because this happened tonight. When I get back, I’m going to try to be the same guy behind the plate and keep doing my best.”
The 23-year-old catcher taking over for Contreras as the Cardinals’ everyday starter echoed the veteran who has been a mentor as he, too, tries to improve his framing.
“There’s always a risk in anything,” Ivan Herrera said. “You can get a foul into the wrist. We’re trying to get strikes for the pitcher and get in the best position. It happened to Willson today. It could happen to me, too.”
After Contreras got up from his seated position near the on-deck circle — his left arm stabilized in the grip of the Cardinals’ head athletic trainer — Herrera took over behind the plate. He had two singles, and somewhere in between calling pitches and hitting them, he got back to the clubhouse to check on Contreras.
Contreras told him about the fracture.
Herrera’s head dropped.
“You don’t need to put your head down; you need to pick me up,” Contreras recalled telling the rookie. “It’s not that he needs to, but he’s going to. Because he’s really good.”