Catcher - Defensive Plays

Defensive Plays

The defensive plays expected of catchers, aside from managing the pitcher by calling for pitches and catching them, include:

1. Preventing wild pitches and avoiding passed balls. Although the pitcher has a responsibility to throw with reasonable accuracy, catchers must be mobile enough to catch (or block) errant pitches. By doing so, a catcher prevents baserunners from advancing while the loose ball is retrieved. An errant pitch that eludes the catcher and allows a baserunner to take one or more additional bases is called a wild pitch. (Techniques for blocking wild pitches are described in the previous section.) A pitched ball which would require only ordinary effort to be caught or blocked by the catcher — but is nonetheless misplayed, allowing a base runner to advance — is called a "passed ball".
2. Fielding high pop flies, often hit at unusual angles.
3. Fielding weakly hit fair ground balls (including bunts) in front of home plate in order to throw to a base to complete a groundout or a fielder's choice play. The catcher must avoid hitting the batter-runner with the thrown ball, implying that he must move to a position in which he has a clear throw to the infielder at first base.
4. Guarding home plate on plays in which a baserunner attempts to score a run. The catcher is often obliged to catch a ball thrown from a fielder and to tag out a runner arriving from third base. Naturally, the runner's objective, in this situation, is to elude the catcher's tag and touch the plate. The catcher's best strategy is to block the runner's path so as to prevent the runner from reaching the plate at all. A catcher may only obstruct a runner's path to home plate when he, the catcher, is in possession of the ball. Collisions between runners and catchers are common. Note that, without the ball in hand, the catcher must allow the runner to score uncontested. If he drops it the runner is safe. Although contact between a runner and a catcher is allowed in the major leagues, often little league, high school, and college runners are required to slide into home plate.
5. Preventing stolen bases by throwing to second base or third base to allow an infielder to tag a baserunner attempting to reach the base. A catcher who is very good at preventing stolen bases is said to have a low stolen-base percentage; a poor one has many bases stolen while he catches. (A pitcher who is slow to deliver is often more at fault for stolen bases than the catcher is.) Ideally, a catcher should be able to get the ball from his glove to that of the player covering second base in under two seconds. This is referred to as a catcher's "pop time", the time elapsing between the popping sound of the pitch striking the catcher's mitt and the similar pop when the ball arrives at the glove of the fielder covering second base.
6. Rarely, a catcher can make a successful pick-off throw to a base to surprise an inattentive or incautious baserunner. Especially at the higher levels of baseball (where this play almost never results in an out), the catcher's snap throws are mainly for psychological effect. If the runner knows that the catcher often attempts snap throws, the runner is likely to take a smaller lead from his base before each pitch, which will allow the infielders an extra fraction of a second to throw the runner out at the next base if he attempts to advance (as, for example, when a ground ball is hit). Yadier Molina of the St. Louis Cardinals is known for using pickoffs with success, particularly at first base.
7. Rarely, a catcher will run to first base or third base to participate in rundown plays at those bases.
8. In certain game situations, typically a ball batted to the shortstop or third baseman with no runners on base, the catcher may be expected to back-up first base in case the first baseman misses or mishandles a throw.
9. In certain game situations, when a runner is on first and the batter bunts the ball or hits the ball softly in which causing the third baseman to rush in to get the ball and throw to first base, the catcher must cover third base so that the runner from first base does not advance to third base on the play and this then forces the third baseman to cover home plate.

Any failure by the catcher can have dire consequences for his team. Passed balls are possible whenever one or more runners are on base. A failure to catch a ball thrown from the outfield on a play at home plate, or a failure to tag a runner, means that the defensive team fails to record an all-important out and, instead, it allows a run. On an attempt to prevent a stolen base, a catcher's bad throw might careen past the infielder and skip into the outfield, allowing an additional advance by the baserunner.