Vazquez, as you surely know, is a tremendous defensive catcher. Since his return to Boston he’s shown that he’s lost little if any of the defensive chops he displayed during his rookie season in 2014. On Friday night he back-picked a runner at first base (arm, check) and on Saturday he made an excellent catch on a fouled bunt attempt by Kevin Pillar (reaction and instincts, check). In both starts he was behind the dish for good outings by Rick Porcello and David Price, as Boston’s pitching held the high-powered Blue Jays offense to just five runs in the first two games of the series.

None of this is to say that Swihart couldn’t have been back there for those outings (or made that catch or that throw), or that Vazquez is the missing ingredient that will turn Clay Buchholz and Joe Kelly into Cy Young front-runners. It’s hard to deny that he’ll help, though, and on a team with major weaknesses in the starting rotation, it’s fair to look for any advantage possible in that area. If Vazquez can do enough defensively to turn this rotation from a net negative into something that can at least remain competent enough to let the rest of the team’s strengths—hitting, defense, relief pitching—shine through, he can hit like a poor man’s Madison Bumgarner and nobody will notice.

Swihart should remain in the organization’s long-term outlook, as there are obvious reasons why he was the one you were hearing about as a prospect. The dude can hit, and throwing a Jason Varitek-type comp on him isn’t crazy—and his defense is passable. But the Red Sox want to win now and there’s a decent argument to be made that Vazquez’s glove work outweighs the difference between Swihart and Vazquez at the plate, particularly on a team that’s full of offensive thump early in the order.

***

There are many facets to catcher defense, some of which we still don’t understand or can’t measure. One of the things we do understand, however, thanks to years of PITCHf/x research—much of it done right here at Baseball Prospectus—is that pitch framing is extremely important. A good pitch framer can save upwards of 20 or 30 (or more) runs over a poor one, and the most notable difference between Swihart and Vazquez defensively are their respective pitch framing abilities.   

It’s early in the 2016 season, of course, but in just three starts Vazquez already ranks ninth in the majors in Framing Runs. Swihart is off to a subpar start, his -0.006 CSAA about equal to the figure he put up in 2015. In short, in a full season Vazquez could add two or three wins over Swihart in pitch framing alone. But how? 

Vazquez is just soooo quiet back there, and he’s blessed with the ability—call it hand strength, call it barely perceptible hijinks—to ever-so-slightly coax pitches back toward the edges of the strike zone, at least in appearance. Vazquez presents pitches as strikes as well or better than anybody in baseball, whereas Swihart scores closer to average. The difference is easier to explain with pictures than words.

Here are two fastballs from David Price that end up in almost the same location—the one on the top (Swihart) is called a ball and the one on the bottom (Vazquez) is called a strike:

Note with Vazquez there’s very little movement. He subtly shifts his glove toward the strike zone after catching the ball, but it’s hardly noticeable. Swihart’s form, on the other hand, isn’t bad. There’s more movement than Vazquez and he stabs at the ball slightly, but he’s just going up against a guy who is in another class.

Here’s another pair of fastballs that miss the plate just outside:

Focus on the difference between Swihart’s and Vazquez’s head movement. Vazquez’s head doesn’t budge while Swihart’s—along with his body—shifts slightly outside with the pitch. Excessive head movement is a no-no for catchers, unless that catcher is trying to match Ryan Doumit for framing futility. 

Here are two high breaking pitches that both miss their intended location:

Notice again how Swihart’s glove, head, and body all dart up quickly with the pitch, almost like he’s surprised by it. That pitch looks high, even though PITCHf/x says it crossed the plate near the top of the zone, and you can see why the umpire abstained from a strike call. Vazquez moves as little as humanly possible to catch his pitch and he presents it as a perfectly reasonable strike.

Check out where Vazquez’s body is when that last pitch is being delivered compared to where it is when he catches it:

Did he move? I don’t think he moved.

***

One of the burdens of managing a talented roster is coping with the eventual logjams that crop up at certain positions, and making sure everyone gets a fair shot can become difficult if anticipated injuries or underperformance never transpire. This is a good burden to have, mind you.

Swihart and Vazquez both deserve to start on major-league teams, but for now the Red Sox are pulling a 180 and switching their two young catchers around, sending Swihart back to Pawtucket with apparent plans to have him take fly balls in left field. The hope is that they won’t damage Swihart’s development (or trade value), and that he’ll take to a more versatile role and be back with the big club when called upon—nobody ever said Swihart and Vazquez can’t coexist. Of course, it doesn’t always work out that way.

For now, the Red Sox will move forward with Vazquez and Ryan Hanigan at backstop, and the pitching staff will be out of excuses. Along with superior framing abilities, Vazquez possesses a top-notch arm, excellent all-around instincts and a command of the game you hear pitchers constantly raving about. It’s a puzzling early-season decision by Boston—what happened in two weeks to prompt such a dramatic change?—but it could be a lot worse. At least Swihart’s being exchanged for a good player, and if Sox pitching improves tenfold over the summer, it certainly won’t all be attributable to the work of the baseball gods.

Vazquez is really good back there.

Photo by Bob DeChiara/USA Today Sports Images

Left with insufficient time to find a legitimate replacement for Vazquez, the Red Sox were forced to push 34-year-old Ryan Hanigan into the starting catcher spot, a role he might have been better suited for three or four years ago. It also forced the Sox to acquire a new backup in Sandy Leon, whose minor league batting statistics automatically categorize him in the defense-first catcher bucket. He’s not surprisingly hit a cringe-worthy .174/.269/.174 in limited playing time. Then, after an errant pitch decided to ricochet off Hanigan’s right hand, the Red Sox were forced to call-up 23-year-old catching prospect Blake Swihart, probably a year before they wanted to make that move.

The loss of Vazquez has obviously changed the entire complexion of Boston’s catching outlook for 2015, but let’s focus more closely on how it has impacted one part of a catcher’s responsibility: pitch framing. As Matthew Kory outlined in early April, the Sox were bound to miss Vazquez’s pitch framing skills, as he was worth 14.1 framing runs in just 3,170 framing chances in 2014. Among catchers who racked up at least 3,000 framing chances in 2014, here’s where Vazquez ranked:

Vazquez, pitch for pitch, was one of the best framers in the majors in 2014 — and because framing ability stabilizes so quickly, we don’t have to chalk up his success to small sample flukiness. But Vazquez won’t frame a single pitch this season — darn it — so let’s focus on how the rest of Boston’s catching trio has fared framing pitches, and what we might expect out of them going forward.

Hanigan, as Kory discussed, was expected to be a good pitch framer headed into the season, at least somewhat mitigating the absence of Vazquez. From 2009 through 2012, Hanigan was worth at least 18.7 framing runs per 7,000 pitches (FR/7,000) in every season, and in 2011 his 27.3 FR/7,000 ranked sixth in all of baseball (min. 3,000 framing chances). Hanigan’s framing numbers declined in 2013 and 2014, but he remained a plus pitch framer, posting an FR/7,000 of 8.8 in those two seasons.

This year, though, the results have been surprisingly subpar. According to BP’s framing metric, Hanigan has actually cost the Red Sox five strikes, or -.8 runs, or -4.8 runs when extrapolated over a full season’s worth of work. (StatCorner has Hanigan as a plus framer — though only narrowly – in 2015.) Your inclination is probably to question the sample size, but here’s what Jonathan Judge, Harry Pavlidis, and Dan Brooks recently said about the quick stabilization of framing stats:

“After only 10% of the season (about three weeks) a catcher’s 2014 CSAA sports a .81 correlation to his final number. After 30% of the season (about 2 months), the correlation is over .9. This isn’t just for full-time catchers either: this data set includes catchers like Humberto Quintero, who had a mere 35 framing opportunities last year. CSAA is not only a skill, but one that manifests itself quickly and with effect.”

What are some potential reasons for Hanigan’s decline?

Photo by Tommy Gilligan/USA Today Sports Images

1) Aging – Framing pitches, like most other baseball skills, is a young man’s game. According to the BP framing article linked to earlier, “framing ability peaks around age 25, declines gradually until about 32, and then starts falling off a cliff, although certain catchers (the Jose Molinas of the world) hold on to the ability longer than most.” It’s possible that a 34-year-old Hanigan, who displayed signs of mild decline as a 32- and 33-year-old, has fallen off the proverbial pitch framing cliff.

2) The league getting better – One of the possible theories Rob Arthur posited in an article at FiveThirtyEight, when discussing the rapid decline of pitch framing deity Yadier Molina, is the league’s improvement as a whole in pitch framing over recent years. Instead of Molina’s – or Hanigan’s – skills actually deteriorating in any meaningful way, perhaps the rest of the league has simply gotten better at framing pitches. As teams have afforded more catching opportunities to no-bat, all-frame specialists, Hanigan’s once standout framing skills look more pedestrian by comparison.

3) Switching teams – Maybe moving from one team to another — like Hanigan did in jumping from the Rays to the Padres (albeit briefly) to the Red Sox this offseason – triggers an adjustment period for pitch framing, as catchers need time to learn how to frame a new set of pitchers. Then again, this year’s pitch framing leaderboard features four team-switchers – Yasmani Grandal, Francisco Cervelli, Russell Martin, and Miguel Montero — among its top 10, so you can probably scratch that theory.

4) Composition of pitching staff – Consider this nugget from a Ben Lindbergh Q&A with Hanigan from a couple of years ago:

From 2008 to present, Hanigan has been above league average in getting strikes on called pitches outside the zone by 2 inches or less:

• Above the zone: 51 percent above average
• Below the zone: 37 percent above average
• Off the edges: 29 percent above average

Perhaps catching a Red Sox rotation loaded with sinkerball types pounding the lower regions of the zone has taken away one of Hanigan’s biggest framing strengths – his propensity to steal the high strike. (We’re just spitballing here, though.)

None of this is to say Hanigan is suddenly a below average pitch framer. He’s probably slightly better than his early 2015 numbers, and after he returns from injury (hopefully by late July) we’ll get a better sense of his defensive value going forward. But it seems clear that Hanigan doesn’t possess the pitch framing prowess that he did three or four years ago, and the Sox shouldn’t count on him for his framing services alone.

Sandy Leon has only received 2,144 framing chances in parts of four major league seasons, and according to BP’s numbers, he’s been almost exactly league average over that period. This year, however, he’s actually cost the Red Sox nine strikes per BP’s framing model, while also rating as the fifth-worst framer in the league, despite limited playing time, according to StatCorner. While Leon might not be that bad in the long-term, he’s currently not making life easier for a Red Sox pitching staff that can use all the help it can get.

That brings us to Swihart, who inherited the starting catcher role after Hanigan went down earlier this month. Is the former no. 1 catching prospect in the minors a good pitch framer?

Swihart was viewed as a good receiver as a prospect, with most reports that touched on his framing-based skills praising them. Further, BP rated Swihart as the third-best pitch framer in the upper minors in 2014, behind only defensive wunderkind Austin Hedges and Tony Wolters.

There’s obviously hope that a 23-year-old Swihart can further refine his receiving skills, as catcher framing doesn’t actually peak until age 25.

Through 500 major league framing chances this season, Swihart’s framing has been exactly league average (StatCorner is less of a fan). That’s good in a sense that he’s holding his own as a pitch framer while also trying to hit major league pitching, manage a pitching staff of his own, and adjust to life in the majors. It’s not so good in that Swihart might not be Vazquez version 2.0, a defensive wizard who came to the bigs preassembled as a pitch framing machine.

There’s obviously hope that a 23-year-old Swihart can further refine his receiving skills. As quoted earlier, catcher framing doesn’t actually peak until age 25, and Swihart has only caught 285 professional games – just six in the major leagues. Working with the likes of Vazquez, Hanigan, and Red Sox coaching while learning the nuances of framing major league pitches should help Swihart, who possesses the physical tools to do the job, become a better pitch framer.

Though the Red Sox could use Swihart’s bat – he’s hit just .148/.179/.222 with 11 strikeouts in 27 plate appearances this season (but, you know, really small sample there) — to help kick start an offense that has surprisingly underperformed early in 2015, his work behind the plate is where they need him to shine. With Hanigan shelved with the hand injury (and declining in framing), Leon showing that his only redeemable quality may be the cannon attached to his right shoulder, and a Boston rotation that needs as many borderline calls as the pitch framing gods will permit, Swihart’s work behind the dish could go a long way in keeping these Red Sox in the playoff race this summer.

All statistics in the article are through Monday’s games.

Top photo by Kim Klement/USA Today Sports Images