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Catcher ERA

So I was writing more Whicker bait a post about catcher ERA with the presumption that the difference between Napoli's CERA (4.45) and Mathis' (3.66)  would be completely explained by the different pitchers they caught. Mathis was Santana's catcher, Napoli caught most of Garland and all of Adenhart, etc. But what I found actually surprised me.

Yes, Napoli caught by far the lesser half of the Angels' staff. His expected CERA should have been something like 4.50, while Mathis' should have been something like 4.00. But even when lining up their CERA for each individual pitcher, Mathis was better than Napoli for everybody but Saunders, and even that was close.

Now, I assume this is a fluke. The sample sizes are small, CERA is a pretty lame stat to begin with, etc. But I mostly listen to games on the radio, so I wanted to see whether any of you who watched games in person or on TV had any explanation for this besides just calling it a fluke. Is it possible that Mathis actually is much better at calling games? If it is possible, does this matter at all, or is the difference in offense far more important?

Here's the chart:

Pitcher ERA Napoli ERA Mathis ERA Edge
Weaver 4.33 5.24 3.77 Mathis
Garland 4.90 4.99 4.7 Mathis
Santana 3.49 4.44 3.18 Mathis
Moseley 6.79 7.09 5.59 Mathis
Saunders 3.41 3.29 3.52 Napoli
Adenhart 9.00 9.00 N/A N/A
Lackey 3.75 3.83 3.61 Mathis

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