Dillon Dingler's second consecutive Gold Glove win shouldn't distract from the big picture

Dillon Dingler, in his second full season as a major leaguer, has already taken home the Gold Glove at catcher twice. This should not be taken lightly, as there are a lot of outstanding defensive catchers in the American League, especially given the individual defensive value the position offers.

However, a small, but somewhat vocal portion of baseball fans, and some Tigers' fans have already begun to reducing Dingler to an elite defensive catcher, forgetting his absolutely critical offensive impact in the first half.

Aggressiveness

Dingler's offensive approach is certainly not a patient one, but this serves his overall offensive profile very well. Because Dingler makes such high quality contact, him swinging more, and even outside the strike zone, makes up for the low on-base percentage and fewer pitches seen per plate appearance.

Dingler produced a solid hard-hit rate of 43.4%, combined with 10.1% barrel rate, and 39.1% launch angle sweet spot rate. These are all well above average or elite marks, and when factoring in his well above average 21.1% pull-air rate, Dingler's power production in 2026 seems extremely repeatable, and almost underwhelming, when you also consider that he made contact with 88% of all pitches inside the strike zone.

But then you consider the fact that this is after the second half struggles, when his chase rate jumped markedly, in addition to his whiff rate. Pitchers vastly changed their approach against Dingler from 2025 to 2026, due to him struggling to make contact with the sweeper (41.2% whiff rate) to absolutely dominating against it (.565 SLG).

As a result, he saw considerably more changeups and curveballs in the second half of 2026 and struggled against both offerings more than he did in 2025. This struggle to time up those pitch-typesprobably had more to do with fatigue and increased workload than a flaw in his approach, so it is likely he will be more like the first-half version of himself going forward than his performance down the stretch.

Defensive merits

While it is true that people discredit his offensive game due to his recent struggles and his standout defense, I want to ensure proper credit is still given to the slightly more tantalizing portion of his game. Pound for pound, no catcher is more defensively important to their team than Dingler was in 2026.

Even with the implementation of the ABS strike zone, Dingler was still the best framing catcher in the MLB, with +9 framing runs above average. His 1.86 average pop time and 87.9 mph average throw speed make it increasingly difficult for potential stolen base threats to succeed, as was on clear display in Justin Verlander's retirement game. More credit needs to be given to Dingler as a hitter, but there is no mistaking his irreplacability as a backstop.

If there is a single takeaway to be had from Dingler's second straight Gold Glove award, it is that Dingler is, at his best, all-around a top 10-15 position player in the American League, and not simply the best defensive catcher.

The Tigers stumbled into an absolute gem from Al Avila's 2020 draft class, and Dingler has overtaken so quickly passed Torkelson as the best player the Tigers took that year. Expect great things going forward, and hope Harris and the rest of the front office can properly serve Dingler by finding him a good backup tandem between Eduardo Valencia and potentially someone else to get him the rest he clearly needed late in the season.

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