Advancing on dirt balls can dismantle a playoff inning before the crowd understands what changed. A slider hits the dirt with a runner on second, skips off the packed clay and shoots toward the first-base side. His lead grows by two hard steps before the catcher even leaves his stance. Less than a second separates a harmless bounce from ninety free feet.
That is the part of catching the box score barely captures. A clean block produces no out, no assist and usually no replay package. Yet the play can keep a runner from third, preserve the force at second or let a pitcher keep chasing a strikeout below the zone. In October, those details shape entire at-bats. The 2026 Division Series has barely begun, so postseason-only blocking totals remain too small to crown anyone honestly.
A better question is which catchers entered October with the strongest demonstrated ability to keep difficult pitches close. Baseball Savant’s regular-season data points to two clear standouts still playing: Freddy Fermin of San Diego and Austin Wells of New York. Their value starts with a simple skill. They make bad bounces die before a runner can exploit them.
The hidden run value of a ball in the dirt
Traditional scoring treats a pitch that gets away as either a wild pitch or a passed ball. That tells us who received the blame, but it says almost nothing about how difficult the play was. Statcast attacks the problem differently. Its catcher-blocking model assigns each pitch a probability of becoming a wild pitch or passed ball.
Location, speed, movement, catcher position and handedness all feed the calculation. Catchers earn far more credit for smothering violent, unpredictable bounces than routine dirt balls. Baseball Savant then converts Blocks Above Average into run value at roughly 0.25 runs per block. A pitch that almost every major-league catcher stops barely moves the metric, while smothering one that usually reaches the backstop carries far more weight.
That distinction matters when studying advancing on dirt balls because opportunity alone can fool us. One catcher may work with command artists who rarely miss below the zone. Another might spend six innings receiving sweepers, splitters and sliders designed to disappear beneath a hitter’s bat. Raw passed-ball totals flatten those environments into the same column.
Look closer at the 2026 leaderboard. Alejandro Kirk led MLB with 15 Blocks Above Average, followed by Carlos Narváez at 13 and Tyler Stephenson at 12. Cal Raleigh and Dillon Dingler finished at 11, and none of those five catchers remains in the Division Series field. Next comes Fermin at 10, with Wells directly behind him at nine. That creates a fascinating October setup because the two strongest regular-season blockers still playing also catch pitching staffs capable of weaponizing the bottom of the strike zone.
Modern blocking starts before the baseball hits the ground
For decades, catchers learned to rise into a traditional two-knee setup whenever runners reached base. The logic felt straightforward: stay athletic, widen the base and prepare to move laterally. Modern receiving changed that picture. Many catchers now work from one knee even with traffic on the bases.
The position lowers the target and can strengthen pitch framing around the bottom edge. It also demands a different blocking sequence when the pitch dives into the dirt. Great blockers do more than put their bodies between the ball and the backstop. They read trajectory early, move the hips, seal the five-hole and angle the chest so the rebound dies nearby.
Even when a pitch technically stays in front, a ten-foot ricochet gives a fast runner plenty of room to advance. Wells offers a useful example. Statcast’s catcher-stance tracking shows that he used a knee-down position on roughly 95% of measured pitches in 2026, yet he still produced positive blocking value. The stance did not prevent him from saving bases; it demanded sharper anticipation and cleaner control of the rebound.
Those mechanics grow even more valuable in October. Pitchers do not stop burying breaking stuff because a runner reaches second. Often, the count gives them more reason to do it.
The strongest blockers still playing
Season-long metrics cannot predict the exact bounce that decides a playoff game. They can identify which catchers spent six months preventing more advancement than the average receiver facing comparable pitches. Fermin and Wells separate themselves here. Their numbers tell slightly different stories, but both arrive at the same result: fewer runners taking free bases.
Freddy Fermin gives San Diego insurance below the zone
Among the catchers still playing, Freddy Fermin owns the strongest 2026 blocking résumé. His performance stands out not through reputation or a few memorable stops, but through thousands of tracked pitches. Baseball Savant credited Fermin with 10 Blocks Above Average across 2,888 blocking opportunities. An average catcher facing that same collection of pitches would have been expected to allow about 21 combined wild pitches and passed balls.
Fermin allowed only 11, and Statcast translated the difference into roughly two blocking runs. San Diego acquired Fermin from Kansas City on July 31, 2025, sending Ryan Bergert and Stephen Kolek to the Royals. The move put a defense-first catcher behind a staff with some of baseball’s most difficult late-inning pitches. By the following spring, MLB.com reported that Padres pitchers had quickly embraced his preparation and commitment to every pitch.
That relationship becomes especially important when Mason Miller takes the ball. Statcast shows that Miller threw his slider about half the time in 2026. Hitters batted only .132 against it, slugged .163 and missed on more than half their swings. Those results depend partly on location because Miller wants hitters chasing the slider where they cannot drive it, which often means finishing beneath the strike zone.
Here, dirt-ball prevention connects directly to bullpen strategy. With a runner at second and two strikes, Fermin allows Miller to bury his best breaking ball without turning every miss into a baserunning invitation. The catcher does not merely clean up a difficult pitch after it arrives; his presence expands the area where San Diego can safely attack.
Fermin also controls runners with his arm. Statcast measured his average 2026 pop time to second at 1.88 seconds while crediting him with four throwing runs and two blocking runs. That combination asks baserunners to solve two different problems. They must beat his throw on a clean pitch, then remain cautious when they gamble on a bounce.
Austin Wells gives the Yankees freedom to chase strikeouts
Austin Wells finished only one block behind Fermin, but the size of his workload makes the comparison compelling. New York asked him to handle considerably more blocking chances while maintaining positive value. Wells faced 4,031 blocking opportunities during the regular season. Statcast estimated that an average catcher would have allowed 34 wild pitches or passed balls from that mix.
Wells allowed 25, giving him nine Blocks Above Average and two blocking runs. His broader defensive profile sharpens the picture. Wells finished 2026 with seven framing runs and seven total catcher runs despite negative throwing value. His defensive impact came primarily through receiving pitches rather than controlling steals.
That matters behind Carlos Rodón. Rodón threw his slider 25.5% of the time in 2026, according to Statcast. Hitters managed a .144 average against the pitch, while its whiff rate reached 38.9%. His changeup generated another 38.7% whiff rate.
Both offerings become more dangerous when Wells can receive them aggressively near the lower boundary of the zone. Rodón does not need to guide every two-strike slider toward a comfortable catching height. A catcher who fears the backstop can subtly alter a pitching plan: targets rise, chase pitches become less ambitious and misses drift toward areas where hitters can do damage.
Wells gives New York more freedom. When a runner threatens to take an extra base on a bounce, that freedom can separate a perfectly buried slider from one left six inches too high. His offensive season brought its own struggles, but behind the plate, Wells continued to manufacture value that rarely appears in the nightly highlights.
The rest of the field shows why blocking needs context
Fermin and Wells stand apart by the regular-season Statcast measure, but no serious catcher evaluation should stop with blocking. Dodgers catcher Will Smith, for example, finished with three Blocks Above Average across 1,988 opportunities. Atlanta’s Drake Baldwin recorded two in 2,803 chances. Those marks trail Fermin and Wells, yet both catchers bring other skills that affect game calling, framing and lineup construction.
That distinction matters because catcher defense consists of separate jobs. Framing steals strikes, throwing attacks the running game and blocking shuts down the ninety-foot gamble after the baseball leaves the pitcher’s hand. Each skill influences MLB postseason strategy differently. A missed frame may alter a count, while a poor throw can surrender a stolen base.
One dirt ball with a runner on second can immediately produce a runner at third and force the entire defense to adjust. The official scorer might record nothing more dramatic than “wild pitch.” With the runner suddenly ninety feet closer to home, however, the pitcher loses his safety net. An ordinary ground ball can become a run, and a medium-depth fly ball can become enough.
That is why blocking carries more strategic weight than its box-score footprint suggests.
Pitch design makes the catcher part of the arsenal
Modern pitching staffs do not treat every dirt ball as an accident. Many of the most effective two-strike pitches are intentionally aimed at territory hitters cannot cover cleanly and catchers must rescue. Miller’s slider demonstrates the idea, while Rodón’s slider and changeup do the same. Across baseball, pitchers chase whiffs below the strike zone because hitters must expand with two strikes.
The more violent the movement, the more demanding the receiving assignment becomes. That is why preventing advancement on low pitches belongs beside pitch design and bullpen leverage when teams map postseason matchups. A manager who summons a high-octane reliever also inherits the receiving challenge attached to that pitcher’s arsenal. One skipped slider can erase the advantage created by winning the matchup.
Elite blockers rarely look frantic. Their bodies start moving before the baseball reaches the dirt, and the glove gives with the bounce rather than stabbing at it. Their chest absorbs the impact and sends the ball toward an area they can recover quickly. Those mechanics produce something pitchers can feel even when fans never notice it: trust.
A pitcher who trusts his catcher can throw the slider where the swing disappears. He does not have to steer it toward the plate simply because a runner reached second. The sequence often looks ordinary in the scorebook: strike three, ball in the dirt, runner stays put. Yet the catcher has preserved both the strikeout and the baserunner’s position with the same piece of work.
The next saved base could decide the series
As the Division Series tightens, advancing on dirt balls becomes more dangerous because every baserunner carries greater leverage. Managers reach for pinch-runners earlier, hitters fight deeper into counts and relievers lean harder on breaking pitches designed to disappear beneath the strike zone.
Fermin enters that environment with the strongest regular-season blocking record among the catchers still playing. Wells follows closely, backed by a larger workload and a Yankees staff that asks him to handle difficult secondary pitches. Smith and Baldwin sit further down the Statcast leaderboard, but short postseason series can turn a small skill gap into a huge moment with one unpredictable bounce.
Postseason-only leaderboards therefore deserve restraint. Four or five games cannot reveal who owns the best blocking skill, but they can reveal who executed when a season narrowed to one pitch. Watch the runner at second the next time a two-strike slider dives into the dirt. His first movement tells the story as he reads angle, distance and the catcher’s control before deciding whether to commit.
If the baseball dies underneath Fermin or Wells, the runner retreats. The catcher gathers it, and the pitcher gets another baseball before walking back toward the mound without giving the play another thought. Hours later, the box score may offer no clue that a base disappeared.
Baseball Savant can measure the difficulty, while coaches can identify the mechanics that made the block possible. More important, the pitcher remembers that he can bury the same pitch again. For the catcher, that remains the quiet battle behind advancing on dirt balls: kill the bounce, hold the runner and preserve those ninety feet before they alter the inning.
READ MORE: The ALDS Pitching Advantage: Comparing the Bullpen Depth of the Surviving American League Contenders
FAQs
What does advancing on dirt balls mean in baseball?
It happens when a runner takes an extra base after a pitch skips away from the catcher or becomes difficult to control.
Which MLB catcher had the most Blocks Above Average in 2026?
Alejandro Kirk led MLB with 15 Blocks Above Average during the 2026 regular season.
Which postseason catcher had the strongest blocking numbers?
Among the catchers still playing in the article’s Division Series field, Freddy Fermin led with 10 Blocks Above Average.
How many Blocks Above Average did Austin Wells have in 2026?
Austin Wells recorded nine Blocks Above Average during the regular season while handling more than 4,000 blocking opportunities.
Why does catcher blocking matter more in the postseason?
A blocked pitch can keep a runner out of scoring position and let pitchers keep attacking below the strike zone with their best chase pitches.
