It’s hard to take the phrase “Catcher of the Future” at face value. By now, most every fanbase has had their share of future Johnny Benches or Pudges turn into marginal backups or minor league utility men.

There’s an unfair standard to which young catchers’ development gets held, perhaps in part because we don’t distinguish them nearly as much as we should from position players. When we talk about the five tools for a player – run, field, throw, hit and power – there’s at least some notion that if the hit tool is good enough, you can get by with passable grades on the other four.

But catchers have a whole other set of tools to master as they ascend in the system, and they are not optional. They need to be good receivers who can both block pitches and frame them. They need to have effective arms, not only throwing hard, but accurately and they need to do this while moving out of their crouch and past a batter. And they need to be able to work with the full staff pitchers to call a game, and work their way through each at bat.

And yet, we as fans hardly notice any of those skills for catchers in the system until their offensive stat lines pop off the page. But ultimately, it’s some of the more immeasurable factors that truly elevate young catchers into legitimate professionals.

A confession here: I’ve walked around for several years with a cockamamie theory that you can either be a good framing catcher or you can be a good blocking catcher, but you can’t be both. As an indication of how long this notion has floated around my head, it was former radio analyst Alan Ashby’s frustrations with then-backup José Molina’s inability or unwillingness to drop to his knees to keep pitches in front of him. My belief was that these skills were somewhat binary. You chose one or the other.

When I shared this theory with catchers at spring training this year, most of them dismissed it out of hand. Some more politely than others.

“I think if you go out there as a catcher and you can only do one thing well, you do yourself a disservice,” said Blue Jays backup catcher Luke Maile. “I was told coming up that you never want to give somebody the opportunity to have a knock on you. Whether that be blocking, whether that be receiving or throwing, you have to expect to be competent there at a minimum … but the way I took it that is ‘Why not be great at them?’”

“The technique is something that doesn’t take forever to learn, it takes forever to master.”

Mastering those techniques physically is just one part of the catcher’s development. Speaking to catchers, they tend to be thoughtful and focused, and the mental side of the game is a key.

“You take so much pride in your defence, because you feel that you can impact the game so much,” said Joe Siddall, Sportsnet analyst and former MLB catcher. “You impact your team and especially your pitching staff.”

“I’ve always said catchers need to be part psychologist too, because you need to know the guy on the mound: You need to know his strengths, his weaknesses, and you need to know the hitter’s strengths and weaknesses.”

Even while discussing the physical skills, four-time all-star Russell Martin turns instinctively back to the mental and social side of the game.

“The most important part in catching is the relationship you have with you pitchers,” he said. “If you have a trusting relationship, they’re going to go out and perform. It’s just one less thing for them to worry about.”

Speaking to the younger catchers, one gets the impression that the skills aren’t isolated, nor is there a single skill on which they focus. They may begin by referring to one aspect of their game, but those sentences flow into each other, and, not unlike on the field, a discussion of receiving a pitch transitions seamlessly into a discussion of throwing.

“The (skills) I’m trying to build up, it’s a continuous process,” said Danny Jansen, the Jays’ top catching prospect. “It’s pitch calling, it’s the mind part of the game. Then, if you go physical, it’s probably throwing … of course you’ve got receiving and blocking that you always want to fine tune. You’re never going to settle for where you are.”

Moreover, the longer you talk to them, the more additional subtle skills enter the discussion. Max Pentecost spoke of his experience in the Arizona Fall League, and the importance of “reading swings,” especially given the high quality of players in that league.

“Bat path, their timing, simple swing, big swing. Slow bat, fast bat. You know, they’ve got scouting reports, but you can even tell when batters start to make adjustments,” Pentecost explained.

Young catchers learn these skills while on the move from level to level, and organization to organizations. Several of them noted how they have melded what they’ve learned from a number of sources.

“The beauty about being a catcher is that you’re a hybrid,” said Jansen. “You’re a watered down version of whoever taught you. You literally take pieces from everybody.”

To a man, all the catchers highlighted the fact that with all the work they do in bullpens and working with pitchers, the offensive side of their game requires an extra commitment of time and energy.

“You’ve got to make time to hit, and you will sacrifice a little bit of time to hit,” Jansen said.

“Right now, it’s (coming in) really early in the morning,” said Pentecost. “I usually try to get here, eat breakfast, and then go and get some of my hitting in before everybody gets here.”

“It can definitely be a challenge,” said Maile. “Really, all you’ve got to do is spend a little more time than most people. And time being, just literally the amount of hours you have to stay if you need some extra work in the cage and you didn’t have the chance to hit with the regular players because you’re catching bullpens.”

For the veteran Martin, this just part of the job.

“Hitting is definitely secondary when you’re a catcher, just because of how important pitching is, and you know, time doesn’t run out in baseball. You need pitching to get 27 outs,” Martin said. “But you can look after all that stuff and easily make time to hit.”

Even still, the challenges at the plate for catchers go beyond their ability to prepare. For as mental as the position is, Maile noted how the bumps and bruises can affect a player’s overall performance.

“The biggest challenge is just the physicality of the position. I’ve had streaks where the ball looks like a beach ball coming in, and then all of a sudden, you take a foul tip off your finger, and the bat feels totally different for the next two weeks and you lose it.”

Back to my Molina/Ashby theory of catching. If there was one of the Jays’ catchers who was willing to hear it out, it was Martin, a noted pitch framer and fan of the Molina school of receiving. I explained how I thought Molina would hold his ground and wait until a pitch was at his ankles before giving up on it as a strike rather than dropping to his knees to block it, as would have been the standard and custom in Ashby’s time.

Martin had just noted that blocking was and remains the hardest skill for him to work on. Similar to what Joe Siddall had told me earlier, a lot of this had to do with anticipation of the pitch, and knowing the likely shape of the incoming pitch.

As Martin nodded in polite, unconvinced agreement, he added one further skill to the mix, the one that bridges framing and blocking: Picking.

“I believe in my ability to pick the ball. Sometimes I get in trouble when it’s a really short hop, I tend to just pick it instead of putting my body out,” he said. “I feel like over time, it allows my body to stay fresh. If you’re blocking every pitch that’s going to be an easy pick, I feel like it just wears your body down.”

“All the Molinas, they all can pick it, every single one of them. Sometimes, somebody will see it, and it looks like it’s lazy,” Martin continued. “Sometimes, you misjudge one, and it gets by you, and then you look like an idiot and you get criticized for it. But if you get in the blocking position and it caroms off, it’s like ‘oh, well at least he got in the blocking position.’”

And in that moment, I felt my theory was almost validated, even as it was mostly dispatched.