Wear them if you like them dont if you do not like them. I do believe in blocking everything. Regardless of the situation. Its a mental attitude that the catcher needs to have. Letting pitches go because the situation does not reguire a block creates a poor mental attitude toward blocking. Oh now I have to block because there is a runner on. NO you block everything in every situation because you never want anything to get by you. Your job is to protect the umpire , give your pitchers confidence , and show your team that the D starts and ends with you. When you start catching guys that are in the upper 80's to 90's with great movement the reaction time needed to be a good blocker behind the plate decreases dramatically. There is no time to say - oh thats too far off the plate and I dont need to block in this situation. NO you are already in the mindset that nothing gets by you regardless. This is just my opinion. Everyone has one. No I did not catch. But there is no posistion that I respect more than this posistion. And there is no posistion that requires as much dedication and desire to be really good at.
Knee savers I could careless. Wear them if you want to. Dont if you dont want to. But my son was not asking the colleges that recruited him if they believed in knee savers. He already knew that they wanted someone that wanted to block and took pride in the ability to do it.