It's that time of year again.  I've finally gotten around to running the 2009 Catcher Block Percentage rankings.   As annual traditions go, it isn't up there with Thanksgiving, Christmas, or the Running of the Bulls, but hopefully you still enjoy it.

For those who aren't familiar with the stat, I look at how well a catcher stops runners from moving up on balls in the dirt.   Each wild pitch or passed ball saved is worth .27 runs (based on run expectancy and the timing of the events). Full methodology is described here.

This year I've made a few adjustments.  First, I've included 2 strike balls in the dirt with first base open as opportunities.  That was an oversight from previous years.  Second, I'm using a bit more Pitch F/X information in the analysis.

Results and more details can be found after the jump.

Because Pitch F/X basically gives us the flight path of the ball, we can determine where the pitch would have hit the ground and decide whether the ball was in the dirt based on that location.

I used a formula provided by Harry Pavlidis and an estimated catcher position catcher of 3 feet behind the front of home plate to divine which balls were likely in the dirt.

There's not a tremendous amount of overlap between the pitches the stringers classify as in the dirt and those the formula identifies. I'm not certain which is more reliable at this point in time, so I'll present the numbers for both.

One effort I'd like to kick off next season is to score pitches in the dirt at home and see those compare to both the stringers and the formula. I'll probably be looking for volunteers sometime during the spring to help out with that.

Anyway, on to the numbers.

First we'll look at those pitches the stringers scored as in the dirt. These are all the catcher with 100 or more opportunities. Clicking on the column headers allows you to sort.

And now the numbers based on Harry's formula. Same rules as above.

Let's wrap this up with some observations:

• Gregg Zaun was a nice pickup for the Brewers.
• The Royals will save about 7 runs with Jason Kendall behind the plate instead of the John Buck / Miguel Olivo combination. Too bad they'll lose more than that on offense.
• Russell Martin had a poor year across the board - costing his team 3-5 runs with his blocking ability
• We've found one part of the game where Joe Mauer isn't awesome. There's always been concern with his height affecting his catching, and it looks like there might be something to that theory
• There are a lot of catchers I've never heard of. Shows what becoming a parent can do to you. Who are Ryan Hanigan, Eli Whiteside and Rob Johnson (besides the QB for the Bills?)