The Two-Catcher Feed-and-Score Blocking Station: Make Blocking a Number

Ask most coaches how good their catcher is at blocking and you'll get an adjective: "pretty good," "needs work," "soft." Ask them for a number and the room goes quiet. Blocking is one of the most important defensive skills a catcher owns — it protects runners on base, it lets a pitcher throw his best breaking ball with confidence, and it quietly decides close games — yet it's usually the least measured thing on the field. The Two-Catcher Feed-and-Score Blocking Station exists to change that. It turns a fuzzy skill into a plain, honest percentage your catchers can chase every single practice.

Why this drill matters

Blocking has two problems in a normal practice. First, it's low-rep: a coach on a bucket flipping balls to a line of catchers gives each kid a handful of blocks and a lot of standing around. Second, it's un-scored: nobody writes anything down, so a catcher never actually knows whether they're improving or just getting tired.

This station attacks both. By pairing catchers and letting one feed while the other blocks, you double or triple the reps in the same window. And by making the feeder the scorekeeper, every round produces a block percentage — the share of balls in the dirt the catcher kept in front. That single number is the whole game. It's measurable, it's repeatable, and it's exactly the metric that matters, because a catcher's job isn't to catch balls in the dirt — it's to keep them from getting past.

The organizations that have pushed catching into the modern, data-informed era all lean on the same idea: if you can count it, you can coach it. Driveline Baseball's catching research emphasizes blocking as a *containment* skill measured by whether the ball stays in a recoverable zone, not by style points. This drill bakes that philosophy into a station any two catchers can run themselves.

The mechanics behind a good block

Before you score anything, the technique has to be sound, because the number only means something if the movement is right. A quality block has a few non-negotiables:

• Chest to the sky, chin down. The catcher drops to the knees and rotates the chest slightly upward so the ball hits a soft, angled surface and dies in front. A vertical, stiff chest launches the ball back toward the mound or off to the side — outside the kill zone.
• Glove fills the five-hole. The glove drops straight down between the knees. The glove isn't there to catch the ball; it's there to close the gap so nothing sneaks through.
• Beat the ball to the spot. On balls to the side, the catcher's first move is to angle the body so the block sends the ball back toward the plate, not toward the fence.
• Deaden, don't deflect. Soft, collapsing posture kills the ball's energy. The goal is a ball that trickles to a stop within a bat's length — close enough to pounce on and stop a runner.

The "kill zone" you mark on the ground — plate out to about a bat's length in front, a body-width to each side — is the physical definition of success. Ball dies inside it, that's a make. Ball squirts out, that's a miss. No debate.

How it fits into practice

This is a station-based drill, so it slots naturally into a rotation. While infielders take ground balls and hitters hit, your two or three catchers own a corner of the field with a plate, some cones, and a bucket. It runs for about 20 minutes and needs zero coach supervision once the kids understand honest scoring — which makes it a gift on a day when you're short on staff.

Use it in-season as a maintenance rep (two rounds each as part of pre-practice) and off-season as a development block (four rounds each, chasing personal bests). Because the feeder is also giving one coaching cue between rounds, catchers are learning to *see* blocking, not just do it — which pays off when they have to self-correct in a game.

A quick note on the feeder: this is a skill in itself. A good feeder throws a consistent short hop from 15–20 feet on one knee, mixes locations as the blocker improves, and — most importantly — scores honestly. Drill into them that a short hop *caught* on a bounce is a miss, not a make. The temptation to be generous to a buddy is real, and it will quietly ruin the number. "Score it honest" is the phrase that keeps the whole drill trustworthy.

How to progress it

The drill has four gears, and you move up only when the block percentage holds:

1. Learn — middle-only feeds, safe balls (tennis, Incrediball, dimpled dirt balls), slow tempo. Target 80% kept in front. This is where 12U and newer catchers live, and it's where you build the fearless chest-first habit without bruising anyone.
2. Spread — feeder randomizes middle/left/right. Now the catcher has to read direction and angle the body. Hold 80%.
3. Game speed — real baseballs or softballs, brisker tempo, and a live "runner on third" so there's a stake: the block has to be contained *and* recovered. Target 85%.
4. Compete — partner vs. partner over a 15-ball round, highest block % wins. Competition under a countable number is where catchers find another gear.

Because every level is scored the same way, a catcher can watch their block percentage climb across a season — and you have a real answer the next time someone asks how good your catcher is at blocking.

Safety first

Blocking means putting your body in front of a ball on purpose, so gear is mandatory: mask, chest protector, shin guards, and a cup, every rep, no exceptions. For 12U and any newer catcher, start with soft blocking balls and controlled feed velocity. The goal at every age is to train *technique*, not to test how much a kid can take. MLB's Pitch Smart guidelines and USA Baseball's coaching education both stress age-appropriate volume and protective equipment for catchers, who already carry a high defensive workload. If a catcher starts flinching, turning the head, or short-arming the block, slow down, soften the ball, and rebuild the fearless posture before adding speed.

Sources

• Driveline Baseball — catching development and blocking-as-containment research
• USA Baseball — coaching education and catcher fundamentals
• MLB Pitch Smart — youth workload and protective-equipment guidance
• American Sports Medicine Institute (ASMI) — youth catcher workload and injury-prevention guidance