Orange County Register

Dan Turkenkopf at Beyond the Boxscore has a nifty chart showing which catchers were best at blocking pitches in 2008. He used MLB GameDay data to identify how many “blockable pitches” each catcher had, then subtracted wild pitches and passed balls to come up with Catcher Block Percentage.

The top catcher in all of baseball? Jeff Mathis, who blocked 94 percent of his 312 opportunities. That works out to 26 more blocks than the average catcher would have made.

Mike Napoli was 31st out of 46 catchers who met the minimum playing time to qualify. He blocked 83 percent of his opportunities, which works out to about five fewer blocks than an average catcher would have given up.

And Angels fans still steamed at A.J. Pierzynski can celebrate. He was worth about 10 fewer blocks than an average catcher, placing him 45th of the 46 catchers.

More Angels news:

Report: Mathis, Napoli shopped to Boston

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