Giants' Patrick Bailey has a secret talent that outweighs all the bad

Giants' Patrick Bailey has a secret talent that outweighs all the bad originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

Patrick Bailey may be struggling in just about every stat category this season.

Except for one, the one that might be the most important for the San Francisco Giants' catcher.

Bailey ranks No. 1 in all of baseball in runs earned through framing.

And in recent years, it's turned out that framing might be the most important catcher skill.

This year was supposed to be different, though. The ABS challenge system is in place. Hitters can dispute pitches called strikes that they think are out of the zone.

But it's not that simple. Each team only gets two challenges, and they only retain the right to challenge if they get them right.

In low-leverage situations, pitches are rarely challenged. Teams save them for deep counts or later in games or multiple players on base.

So that still leaves plenty of room for framing excellence. And make no mistake: Bailey is excellent.

Codify Baseball shared a video that shows Bailey stealing 40 strikes already this season that weren't challenged despite being outside the zone:

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It's a subtle skill, but Bailey is stellar at it.

If the strike zone ever becomes fully automated, it might remove a guy like Bailey from MLB entirely.

For now, though, he's immensely valuable simply through those miniscule movements that make strikes out of pitches that don't even hit the zone.

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