I am a data scout at SIS and a former player/coach of the University of Michigan-Flint Club Baseball team. Being from Michigan, naturally I am a big Tigers fan, and I have become very interested in one of the more exciting developments in the last two seasons: Dillon Dingler’s pitch framing success.

Since the start of 2025, Dingler ranks fifth among all major league catchers in Strike Zone Runs Saved with 8, and I have noticed that he is particularly good at creating strikes for his pitchers in all quadrants of the strike zone, especially high and low pitches. Per MLB, he ranks among the leaders at framing pitches in the bottom and top “Shadow Zones” (zones roughly two baseballs wide of the strike zone where the call could go either way). Dingler is also first among AL catchers in SDI (Sabermetric Defensive Index) ratings that make up 25% of the Gold Glove vote.

So I decided to dig into the video and found that Dingler’s approach for doing this is very simple, yet effective, and consists of five parts, two of which happen before a pitch is released, and three during the process of a catch and frame. These are helping him get strikes on pitches that aren’t in the zone, even in this era of pitch challenges.

To begin, here is Dingler setting up in a relaxed, upright stance. He uses the modern one-knee-down approach to put less stress on his knees and back while keeping good glove mobility.

You can see that the first time the pitcher looks up at him after beginning his motion, Dingler presents a target for him and the umpire in the middle-away quadrant of the strike zone, not too far outside to be a ball if caught, but also not right down the middle. Then, he puts his glove down right before release to give the umpire a clear view of where the ball will cross the plate.

On this high strike to Joey Ortiz, Dingler does a very good job of staying back and letting the ball travel to him instead of trying to reach up and show the umpire that this pitch is too high to be a strike.

After release, his left hand goes down to the lower middle part of the zone, but he does a really good job of working around an inside fastball to keep the presentation of a pitch going towards the middle-away target that he set up before Kyle Finnegan’s release.

Finally, here is Dingler using his quick wrists to take a ball that is more than a baseball’s width outside of the strike zone and place it on the outside corner to Steven Kwan almost exactly where he had set up before Burch Smith releases the baseball.

Dingler doing this in only his second full season in the big leagues is very exciting to see. Creating a projection of an easy strike call before a pitcher even releases the ball and being able to follow through on that projection almost every time because of his relaxed, quiet, stance and seemingly effortless yet powerful receiving has put Dingler in the ranks of the elite framing catchers in baseball. Looking at the way Patrick Bailey, Austin Wells, and Adley Rutschman create strikes, there are a lot of comparisons to be drawn between them and Dingler.

This combined with an impressive offensive showing at the plate so far this season has given Tigers fans a lot to be excited about in their starting catcher this season With the consistent improvement in his game, this likely will not be near the last time you hear Dingler’s name among the elites of major league catchers.