Blue Jays Catcher Alejandro Kirk's Frame Jobs Consistently Trick Umpires

Stephen Douglas | Apr 19, 2024

The Toronto Blue Jays are off to an 11-9 start this season. Former All-Star catcher Alejandro Kirk is not off to a hot start at the plate with a .192/.295/.212 slash line, but he's done some of his finest work behind the plate this season as he's constantly baiting umpires into calling balls strikes with a lightning-fast frame job.

As you can see in this helpful compilation, Kirk is expertly moving his glove from outside the zone to inside the zone, just like you're taught in Little League. The fact that human umpires are still tricked by a simple frame job in 2024 is a bit troublesome. Baseball has been around for well over a century and we're still getting faked out by a glove moving a few inches? Get it together, folks!

Alejandro Kirk leads MLB catchers in pitch framing runs this year and maybe you can see why (these were all called strikes). pic.twitter.com/Jhzt5EgSLQ

— Codify (@CodifyBaseball) April 18, 2024

Shockingly, Angel Hernandez was not featured heavily in that video despite the fact that he worked a Blue Jays game this year and really put on a show. Heck, that clip doesn't even include Hernandez's strikeout call of Gleyber Torres from April 7th. Not to mention Kirk was also the catcher when Hernendez made one of his worst calls of the season. But enough about Hernandez.

Kirk deserves credit for his excellent work. If it works at all, it's worth trying every single time. You do whatever you can to help get your pitchers a few extra strike calls per game.