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My opinions on calling balls and strikes:
-Width: Do not make it wider than 1 ball more than the plate including the black. So either call a ball off the plate on the inside corner, or a ball off the plate on the outside corner, but not both. Hitters should be able to adjust their foot placement if you are being a bit generous on one side of the plate, but it's a bit much to expect them to cover a liberal inside AND outside corner.
-For the outside corner, let the catcher's body language dictate whether or not it was a strike. If he goes lunging, spinning, or completely misses it, call it a ball unless the ball was clearly over the white part of the plate.
-On pitches which cross right at the midpoint of the knees, do not call it a strike if the catcher pulls the pitch up or catches it basket-style. If the pitch is clearly high enough to be a strike but he butchers the framing part, call it a strike anyway.
-Don't call a strike on a pitch that is almost too high if the catcher stands up to catch it or stabs upwards with his glove.
Basically, call the obvious strikes, and for those that are not obvious, let the catcher's body language determine what you call it. The occasional comment such as "please do a better job of framing that pitch" will help develop rapport and allow the pitcher to get more strikes. Above all else, do not call a pitch that is out of your strikezone a strike because the catcher did a great job of framing it. The batter has no control over how it is caught.
Those are my thoughts on working with the catcher to call a consistent, "good" strike zone.
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