MLB’s New Age of Catchers Is Worth Being Excited About
The next generation of catchers began making names for themselves in 2025. We break down some of the young backstops defining the next era.
| | 
2025 was a special season for catchers across Major League Baseball. It’s not just Cal Raleigh’s historic 60 home run season or Will Smith’s epic 11th inning home run to win Game 7 of the World Series for the Dodgers — the league is seeing a renaissance of young backstops like never seen in the 21st century.
With Drake Baldwin, 2025 saw the first catcher to win a Rookie of the Year Award since Buster Posey, a Hall of Fame hopeful who is now the president of baseball operations for the San Francisco Giants, win it in 2010. Three catchers received vote shares for the award between the AL and NL for the first time in history.
11 primary catchers recorded at least 3.0 fWAR this year, the most to do so in any season since 2014. Nine of those players were in their age-27 season or younger. This has been a theme around the league for the last two seasons.
In 2024, catchers in their age-27 season or younger posted a combined 46.6 fWAR. In 2025, they followed it up with another 44.6. These are the two best seasons posted by young catchers since the start of the century. Here are some of the fresh faces making it happen behind the plate.
Drake Baldwin
In his Rookie of the Year winning season, Baldwin established himself as one of the best young hitters in the game. At age 24, he slashed .274/.341/.469 for a 125 wRC+ in 446 plate appearances. He also posted a 91.7 mph average exit velocity, 15.2% strikeout rate and 75.3 mph average bat speed. With a 19.5% Whiff rate throughout the year, he was the only hitter with a 75+ mph average bat speed and sub-20% Whiff rate (min. 400 plate appearances).
Baldwin dominated against four-seam fastballs throughout the season. He hit .319 with a .651 slugging percentage in his 110 plate appearances ending against them. Among the 261 hitters with at least 100 plate appearances ending on four-seamers, Baldwin ranked 22nd in hard-hit rate (62.5%) and 11th in xBA (.319) and tied for eighth in RV/100 (2.5).
Behind the plate, Baldwin tallied seven Blocks Above Average, tied for the sixth-most among all catchers.
Dillon Dingler
In perhaps one of the most unexpected breakouts at the catcher position in 2025, Detroit’s Dillon Dingler managed a 4.1 fWAR season, tying with Smith for third highest among all catchers. In Dingler’s first full season in the big leagues, he hit .278/.327/.425 for a 109 wRC+ in his 469 plate appearances.
Above all else, Dingler stood out as one of the best defensive catchers in baseball. His +12 Fielding Run Value ranked tied for fourth and the position and tied for 14th among all position players. He was also the only qualifying catcher to rank in the 85th percentile or higher in Framing, Throwing and Blocking.
At the plate, Dingler optimized his batted ball profile – which allowed for this breakout to happen. His groundball rate landed at 36.2%, down from the 44.4% in his brief big league stint in 2024. His fly ball rate also rose by six percent, and his line drive rate by three percent.
Shea Langeliers
In his fourth season in the Athletics organization, Shea Langeliers finally paid dividends after being a return piece in the 2022 trade that sent Matt Olson to Atlanta. Langeliers hit .277/.325/.536 for a 132 wRC+, his first season posting a wRC+ above 110. His .526 slugging percentage ranked eighth among all qualifying position players.
The A’s catcher had his big breakout in the second half of this season, where he hit .328 with a 1.018 OPS, and tied with teammate Nick Kurtz for the most fWAR in the American League in his final 57 games.
Between the first and second half of the season, Langeliers increased his average bat speed from 72.8 mph to 74.7 mph, a near two mph increase. This caused him to increase his average exit velocity by 10%, and his average launch angle by 7 degrees.
Hunter Goodman
Rockies fans will want to forget a lot from the 2025 season, but the emergence of Hunter Goodman was one positive takeaway from an otherwise dreadful year. After brief stints with the big league club in 2023 and 2024, he logged 579 plate appearances this year while slashing .278/.323/.520 for a 118 wRC+.
In his first two seasons, Goodman hit 39.6% of his batted balls to the pull side, just a couple points above the league average. In 2025, that number jumped to 48.7%, tied for the 12th-highest among the 251 qualified hitters. When pulling the ball, Goodman hit .458 and slugging .916, the fourth- and 10th-highest rates among the 104 hitters to pull at least 150 batted balls.
Goodman also made improvements behind the plate in his first full season. In 2024, he registered -5 blocks above average, tied for the ninth worst among the 79 players to catch at least 500 pitches that season. In 2025, he climbed to +3 blocks above average.
Ben Rice
Although he isn’t a full-time catcher, it’s hard to ignore the season Ben Rice just had for the Yankees. The 26-year-old hit .255/.337/.499 for a 133 wRC+, but that only tells some of the story. He also ranked tied for ninth among qualified hitters in exit velocity, tied for seventh in hard-hit rate, and eighth in xwOBA.
Rice took a step in in 2025 by improving his batted ball direction. In 2024, only 25% of his flyballs were hit to the pull side, a rate below the MLB average. This year, he upped it to 32.4%. He also upped his pull rate on line drives from 40% to 57.6%. Because of this, Rice’s average on line drives and flyballs went from .393 to .441, and his slugging percentage went from .875 to 1.000.
After his first full season, Rice has established himself as someone who has the potential to be one of the great hitters in the game. Impressively, his offensive numbers actually got better when he was behind the dish. In his 29 games as a catcher in 2025, Rice logged a .879 OPS, his highest at any defensive position.
Carlos Narvaez
Moving from a current Yankee to a former Yankee, Carlos Narvaez was traded from the Yankees to the Red Sox hours after Boston acquired Garrett Crochet from Chicago. Narvaez went up to surprise a lot of the Fenway faithful for his rookie year performance. He hit .241/.306/.419 for a 97 wRC+.
Where Narvaez really stood out in 2025 was with his defense. He was one of seven catchers to tally at least 10 DRS and one of 12 to post 10 defensive runs above average. He did this by exhibiting some of the league’s best framing in blocking skills, both of which he ranked in the top 15% on Statcast.
But Narvaez’s biggest strength is his throwing arm. His 32 runners caught stealing led all catchers in 2025, and it’s tied for the third-highest over the last eight seasons. Narvaez gunned down 29% of the 83 attempted runners against him this year. It’s the fourth-highest rate among the 29 season with at least 75 steal attempts against since 2016.
Kyle Teel
Speaking of the Crochet trade, return piece Kyle Teel shined his his first season in the White Sox organization. Just two years after being drafted in the first round out of Virginia, Teel hit .273/.375/.411 for a 125 wRC+. He became the 19th rookie catcher, and third in the last 50 years to post a .375 OBP or higher in at least 250 PAs.
After a typical rookie slow start, Teel went on a run to end the season. From August 18 on, he hit .299/.406/.487 for a 153 wRC+ in 138 plate appearances. Among qualifiers, he ranked tied for seventh in OBP, and tied with Raleigh for 17th in wRC+.
The catcher position is in good hands at the Major League level for years to come. Along with the players listed above, the Orioles Samuel Basallo, the Cardinals Ivan Herrera and the Marlins Agustin Ramirez are among the other backstops beginning to make names for themselves.
Written by
Daniel Curren is a writer with Just Baseball. He loves sabermetrics, baseball history, and the Hall of Fame.