a part of his pre-game preparation, Molina meticulously studies and prepares for the upcoming game's opposing hitters by creating a complete pitching and defensive plan. Other preparation includes handling ground balls at shortstop and third base, extending his agility for blocking pitches thrown in the dirt. Former Cardinals starter Jake Westbrook said he was "a part of every aspect of the game: starters, relievers, offense, defense." Advanced defensive metrics — known as sabermetrics — show he is a top defender among catchers in MLB history. Molina ranked second all-time among catchers at the end of the 2014 season on Baseball-Reference.com's career defensive runs saved (DRS) with 120, behind only Iván Rodríguez (167), and ahead of Jim Sundberg (114), Bob Boone (107) and Gary Carter (106), the only catchers with over 100 on the list. He was the season leader in the NL every year from 2005–14, except 2008 and 2011–12. Fangraphs tallied his career DRS at 106, with a career-high of 20 in 2010. The sabermetric stat defensive wins above replacement (DWAR) has also ranked Molina's defense highly; he has never had a full season with a negative DWAR, and he had a career-high 2.9 DWAR in 2010. Molina is known for his in-game pitch-calling skills, and pitchers rarely reject signs that he shows for the next pitch. In 2013, Matheny said, "We tell all our young pitchers when they come up to pitch their game. Yadi needs to find out how they work. He's a quick study. But at the same time, they tend to just follow him. We do put them in Yadi's hands." Molina reads opposing hitters and will move fielders with subtle signs and gestures to align them with his pitch calling. La Russa said that "it's not just instinct. It's sense, based on how a hitter's standing, how he responds to the pitch or two before, and he's very creative in how he makes his adjustment based on what he sees with the hitter and knowing what his pitcher can do." Baseball Prospectus estimated in 2013 that Molina saved 35 defensive runs per season through his pitch framing and had moved 301 out-of-zone pitches that were called strikes between April 1 and June 30, 2013. Molina was among the best in the game at throwing out base runners with pickoffs and during steal attempts. As of July 2013, Molina had thrown out 45% of would-be