My 14 YO son loves to work behind the plate. And strives to learn and get better. He's taken a HS-level catching class in the winter for the preceding 2 years (this year the instructor did not teach it and being an hour away, we took a pass on the replacement instructor). But for both years, the former instructor, who is well known and a former professional catcher, could not over-emphasize the importance of two things: 1 - not making a strike into a ball, and 2 - selling marginal pitches for strikes. To do both, he emphasized the catcher going his/her utmost to stick a pitch, stay low, avoid swaying, and only frame a select few pitches and only a tiny bit to try and get the marginal pitch by letting the umpire get a really good look at it. Anything more is counter-productive. He went on to say that a good HS catcher can sell 3-5 marginal pitches a game and just doing that can mean the difference of a win or loss in a tight game. Of course, they also worked on blocking picking, when to do both, and footwork for throw-downs, etc. But he really emphasized the importance of those two points. In fairness, he also thought pop times were very overrated.
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