ALL-TIME TOP 100: Catchers

ALL-TIME TOP 100s: Catchers

Today, I will be starting a new series of postings. Frequently, I have asked readers to give me ideas for topics and also that if they want to do some research and write something up, that I would be happy to consider posting it for them. Well, in recent weeks, Justin Ahern has done a lot of research on a topic that he was curious about, and that I found very interesting. So basically, he did the research, plugged in the numbers and came up with lists for the Top 100 players at each position in major league history.

So, thank you very much to Justin Ahern. The topic is very interesting and for him to do so much work and number crunching really helps me out a LOT! So, thank you!

If you have any questions for me, or if you have any questions for Justin, please e-mail me and I will be sure to forward your thoughts to him.

BACKGROUND AND PROCESS

Now, Justin noted that Bill James completed a project to rank the players by positions using Win Shares and other numbers. Here are the six categories that Bill James used to determine his ranking:

1.) Win Shares - Career Totals

2.) Win Shares - Top 3 seasons

3.) Win Shares - Top 5 consecutive seasons

4.) Win Shares - per 162 games played

5.) A Time Line Adjustment (points based on player's year of birth)

6.) Subjective Rating

When Justin did his research, he used each of the above criteria, except for the Subjective Rating because "if I wanted to do a subjective rating, I wouldn't have spent all of this time crunching numbers. People can do their own subjective rating. I just wanted to see what the numbers said." Justin pointed out to me that he thought that defensive players like Ozzie Smith and Bill Mazeroski were players hurt most by not including the subjective rating. This does make sense, and yet, I feel it important to point out the defense is included in Win Shares, so that does factor into this still.

I really like the way this is done. I think that career totals are important because it shows productivity over the entire career, longevity. We are also able to judge by their best years, how good they were at their best. The Top 5 consecutive seasons shows an extended period of peak performance. The "per 162 game" category adjusts for things like time missed for injury, etc. And finally, the Time Line question is one that I asked Justin about as well. He said, and I completely agree, that hitting is much tougher now than it was at any prior time in history. Win Shares does factor in the player's era. Now, this is not a big category, so it's effect on the overall score is minimal in comparison to the other categories.



Another thing that I like about Justin's research is that he chose to "normalize" each category. He explains:

I "normalized" all of the categories to a max score of 50. The way that James did the rating is that whatever they guy got in that category, that was his score. He did no normalizing. Babe Ruth accumulated 756 win shares in his career. That is the highest total ever. For this he received 37 points in James's system. In Will Clark's 3 best seasons he accumulated 44, 37, and 34 win shares so in James's ratings he got 38 points for that. Why should Clark get more credit for 3 great seasons that Ruth gets for having the greatest win share total ever? I don't think he should and that's why I normalized them. Ruth now gets 50 points for his 756 career win shares and Clark now gets 36 points for his 3 season run. I think that is a fairer way to evaluate them. Ruth had the most career win shares, the best score for top 3, and the top win shares per 162 games played. He gets a 50 in all 3 categories and every other player gets rated against Ruth's scores in those categories. Honus Wagner had the best 5 year stretch so he gets the 50 point score in that category and everybody else is evaluated against Wagner. I used the same time line adjustment that James used. I saw no need to change it.

So, there you have it, the criteria of this analysis. Again, I find it very interesting to see how Justin's analysis rates the players. I was very interested in seeing how current players rated in comparison to the old-timers. My plan with this series of postings is to post a position a day at least four days a week for the next couple of weeks. At the end of this analysis, we will list out the Top 200 players of all-time, regardless of position. I will post the Top 100 in order and only give their total points combining Justin's five categories (With four categories where the top score is 50, and the age category, where the highest "score" was 17.9, the highest possible score a player can get is 217.9.) You will notice in some cases that we have actually ranked a few more than 100. Justin wanted to plug in the numbers of players like Joe Mauer, Shannon Stewart, David Ortiz, and Doug Mientkiewicz and others to see how far they are from hitting the Top 100.



For each position, I have asked Justin to give me some thoughts on what he found interesting about the rankings. Maybe there was a player that surprised him with how high or low he ranked. Maybe there was a name that he didn't know well. I will do a quick summary of my thoughts on the same types of things, and maybe do a little research on a couple of the players that I know very little about. Might as well make this a learning experience too, right?



With no further ado, let's get to the analysis:



THE CATCHERS



Here are the Top 100 Catchers of All-Time.



Rank Player YearBorn Total
1 Mike Piazza 1968 146.65
2 Johnny Bench 1947 144.18
3 Yogi Berra 1925 142.20
4 Gary Carter 1954 134.44
5 Mickey Cochrane 1903 130.64
6 Joe Torre 1940 129.18
7 Bill Dickey 1907 129.07
8 Carlton Fisk 1947 128.08
9 Roy Campanella 1921 124.77
10 Ted Simmons 1949 124.15
11 Bill Freehan 1941 123.98
12 Ivan Rodriguez 1971 123.88
13 Gabby Hartnett 1900 121.00
14 Gene Tenace 1946 120.63
15 Roger Bresnahan 1897 115.26
16 Jorge Posada 1971 114.95
17 Elston Howard 1929 113.23
18 Thurman Munson 1947 112.22
19 Lance Parrish 1956 110.22
20 Darren Daulton 1962 108.59
21 Buck Ewing 1859 108.54
22 Mickey Tettleton 1960 108.16
23 Darrell Porter 1952 107.30
24 Jason Kendall 1974 105.92
25 Tom Haller 1937 105.18
26 Javy Lopez 1970 104.87
27 John Romano 1934 100.79
28 Tim McCarver 1941 100.23
29 Sherm Lollar 1924 99.86
30 Jim Sundberg 1951 98.51
31 Manny Sanguillen 1944 97.57
32 Earl Battey 1935 96.95
33 Mike Scioscia 1958 96.13
34 Del Crandall 1930 96.09
35 Ernie Lombardi 1908 95.14
36 Joe Ferguson 1946 94.24
37 Terry Kennedy 1956 93.82
38 John Roseboro 1933 93.39
39 Terry Steinbach 1962 92.90
40 Bob O'Farrell 1896 92.22
41 Todd Hundley 1969 91.23
42 Charles Johnson 1971 91.22
43 Walker Cooper 1915 90.76
44 Tony Pena 1957 90.38
45 Bob Boone 1947 90.27
46 Ray Schalk 1892 89.97
47 Rick Ferrell 1905 89.44
48 Muddy Ruel 1896 88.61
49 Ed Bailey 1931 88.60
50 Harry Danning 1911 88.49
51 Chief Meyers 1880 88.03
52 Johnny Kling 1875 87.30
53 Benito Santiago 1965 86.97
54 Johnny Edwards 1938 86.79
55 Butch Wynegar 1956 86.59
56 Duke Farrell 1866 85.77
57 Charlie Bennett 1854 84.79
58 Smoky Burgess 1927 84.42
59 Andy Seminick 1920 84.14
60 Steve O'Neill 1891 83.69
61 Stan Lopata 1925 83.43
62 AJ Pierzynski 1976 82.23
63 Bubble Hargrave 1892 82.16
64 Gus Triandos 1930 81.88
65 Spud Davis 1904 81.54
66 Jack Clements 1864 80.98
67 Ernie Whitt 1952 80.88
68 Jody Davis 1956 80.51
69 Rick Dempsey 1949 80.30
70 Johnny Bassler 1895 79.92
71 Shanty Hogan 1906 78.47
72 Deacon Bcguire 1863 78.09
73 Mike LaValliere 1960 77.43
74 Chief Zimmer 1860 77.25
75 Jason Varitek 1972 77.14
76 Frank Snyder 1893 76.68
77 Frankie Hayes 1914 76.42
78 Gus Mancuso 1905 76.34
79 Hank Severeid 1891 76.12
80 Cliff Carroll 1859 76.03
81 Jim Hegan 1920 75.84
82 Al Lopez 1908 75.73
83 Jerry Grote 1942 75.70
84 Don Slaught 1958 75.70
85 Ron Hassey 1953 75.45
86 Mike Macfarlane 1964 74.99
87 Doggie Miller 1864 74.53
88 Bo Diaz 1953 74.27
89 Sandy Alomar Jr. 1966 73.01
90 Brian Harper 1959 72.86
91 George Gibson 1880 72.10
92 Steve Yeager 1948 72.06
93 Hank Gowdy 1889 71.72
94 Babe Phelps 1908 71.69
95 Phil Masi 1916 71.53
96 Jimmie Wilson 1900 70.15
97 Rollie Hemsley 1928 69.56
98 Del Rice 1922 69.18
99 Alan Ashby 1951 68.21
100 Earl Smith 1897 67.94
101 Luke Sewell 1901 67.92
102 Charlie Moore 1953 67.36
103 Heinie Peitz 1870 66.97
104 Jack O'Connor 1869 66.68
105 Birdie Tebbetts 1912 65.53
106 Ivy Wingo 1890 65.22
107 Mickey Owen 1916 60.39
108 Wilbert Robinson 1863 59.25
109 Victor Martinez 1978 54.59
110 Joe Mauer 1983 51.01

http://www.sethspeaks.net/110504.htm

It's too slanted towards offense for a catchers list.

Interesting research. I just feel it is important to add no matter how much one looks at statistics, and win shares...there is IMO no true way of proving one catcher is more valuable than another.

As an example, i'll point to an interview I read of Brian Cashman. It was from this spring training, or last spring training...i can't recall which though I believe it was this spring training.

Cashman was asked if there was any Red Sox he could remove from their roster, whom would it be. Cashman did not state Ramirez, Ortiz, Beckett or Papelbon...he stated without hesitation Jason Varitek. Tek is ranked 75th on your list, well below many career hackers like Darren Daulten, Mickey Tettleton, Lance Parrish, Charles Johnson, etc. etc.

When Tek was out of the lineup in 06' the team fell apart. Surely he wasn't the only factor in that slide, but his absence was highly visible and noteworthy.

Jason Kendall in the top 25, really?

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Originally Posted by ohms_law

It's too slanted towards offense for a catchers list.

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wouldn't you take the better offensive player if two players defense were a toss up??

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Originally Posted by Wassit3

wouldn't you take the better offensive player if two players defense were a toss up??

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thats a pretty obvious statement, but how do you quantify their defense and value to the pitching rotation? Have to confirm it is a 'toss up' before one can take the better offensive player.

Yea, exactly.

Todd Hundley made the list, now I know its a fake.

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Originally Posted by yankee hater

Ivan Rodriguez 12th? Sometimes these sabr experiments need to have a sanity check.

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are you saying it's too high?? I think pudge is definetly one of the top catchers of all time...12th may in fact be too low IMHO.

Definately too low. As I said above, this list weights offense too heavily. There is no other position where defensive ability is more important than catcher, which is why it's a historically low offense position. Mike Piazza is a great player, but he should have been a first baseman or corner outfielder, not a catcher. The fact that he's #1 on this list is rediculous.

Definitely too slanted towards offense. Piazza shouldn't be number one.

In his Historical Baseball Abstract, Bill James ranked Piazza 5th. That was after 2000, so Piazza would have a couple more great years, but I doubt James would rank him any higher than 3rd, maybe 4th, even considering 2001-2007. His top 5 were Yogi Berra, Johnny Bench, Roy Campanella, Mickey Cohrane, and Mike Piazza in that order.

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Originally Posted by YEAH DAAAAWG

Jason Kendall in the top 25, really?

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Kendall was a terribly underrated player. He was very durable, and provided a great OBP. At his peak, he was outstanding.

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Originally Posted by ohms_law

Yea, exactly.

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my point being obviously if defensively two players are a toss up then the better guy in most people minds should be higher ranked. That being said it seems obvious to me that the writter of this article in his opinion felt that the defensive differences between the top 12 players on hs list were not large enough to counter the much better offensive output of the players he chose. Why complain a list is offensively slanted unless you have a way of showing that the defensive differences between the players bottom 88 and the top 12 are large enough to infact override the better offensive players contributions. Since you made the complaint Ohms what is the break even point where by a poorly performing offensive catcher, say a 200 BA 280 OBP guy is equal to a above average defensively skilled cather but outstanding offensive guy (320 BA 400+ OBP)? at what point are they both contributing equally to their teams? does the low offensive performer have to throw out 100% of the base stealers, have no passed balls? and commit no throwing errors in a season?? give me some numbers.

OK, but who are we talking about here? How's defensively equal? Mike Piazza was only a catcher because he put on pads and squatted behind home plate. You're not saying that he was defensively equal to Johnny Bench or Joe Torre are you?

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Originally Posted by ohms_law

OK, but who are we talking about here? How's defensively equal? Mike Piazza was only a catcher because he put on pads and squatted behind home plate. You're not saying that he was defensively equal to Johnny Bench or Joe Torre are you?

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I think it is obvious that the writter of the article isn't making that claim, he is however saying in his opinion piazza is better offensively enough to make up for his lesser defensive capabilities in comparison to those two players.

If this was about any other position than catcher, I would agree.

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Originally Posted by ohms_law

OK, but who are we talking about here? How's defensively equal? Mike Piazza was only a catcher because he put on pads and squatted behind home plate. You're not saying that he was defensively equal to Johnny Bench or Joe Torre are you?

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Joe Torre, probably. Torre played more at 1st and 3rd than he did catcher.

well... yea, maybe. I don't know. I think Torre was still probably a better defensive player (all around) than Piazza.

Agreed on the lack of importance placed on the non hitting aspect of the position. I'm also going to point out the obvious fact that there's no way to put into numbers every other aspect of the job. How do you measure the preparation of a true catcher?
I-Rod can (or could) throw out fast runners from his knees. Piazza could throw out, maybe, if he was standing, had forward momentum, and a strong breeze behind him, a hobbled monkey with a blindfold on and a refrigerator tied to his back.

Here's #21 on the list.

Tettleton is on this list? Are you kidding me? Not only is that crazy talk, but he is 22nd!! That is just insane. In 14 years he played only 669 games at catcher. Only one year did he even play more than 100 games at that position, and I'm sure that he was not among, or even near the top 20 in the league defensively any of those years. To even place him on this list just doesn't make any sense. I don't even think the guy is among the top 25 offensive catchers in history...

I'm not gonna give this ranking system any respect at this point, until someone can make me believe that Mickey belongs up there.

Yeah, when I saw Tettleton, I immediately also thought, Matt Nokes.

Tettleton played the majority of his career at catcher - 872 games at catcher, 361 at DH, and 267 games at first and outfield. jcbarr, where are you getting your numbers? He played 872 games at catcher, and had two years where he played 100+ games. He definitely makes sense to be placed on this list. It makes less sense to place Joe Torre on this list than it does Tettleton. 22 is probably high, but he was a very good hitter.

One way of getting around the complaints about players such as Tettleton would be to only calculate Win Shares based on the stats accumulated at catcher. It would be interesting to see if it affected the list very much.

Hitting home runs alone does not make you a good hitter. I know that BA isn't the end all stat, but a career .241...I don't see how you can make an argument for any guy who hit that poorly for his career. He never even approached .300.

His OBP was steady but he struck out way too much.

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Originally Posted by jcbarr

Hitting home runs alone does not make you a good hitter.

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No, but hitting home runs and getting on base does.

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I know that BA isn't the end all stat, but a career .241...I don't see how you can make an argument for any guy who hit that poorly for his career. He never even approached .300.

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Because despite a low batting average, he did not make many outs, and he hit for very good power. Was Harmon Killebrew not a good hitter?

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His OBP was steady but he struck out way too much.

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So? A strikeout is just an out. I'd rather have a player make few outs, and have the outs he does make be strike outs, than have a player make a lot of outs and only a few of them strikeouts. Yes, there are times when a non-K out is better than a strikeout, but overall, it's just an out, and outs are bad. Tettleton, despite a lot of strikeouts, did not make a lot of outs, and that is good. I'll take a .370 OBP and 30 home runs any day.

Wass, whatever else is said, I award you and Justin an "A" for effort...I for one, have c&p'd your list for future reference...as for the chorus of criticism, well, no good deed goes unpunished...

I'm not going to get in to this argument. It's one that will go on forever and I shouldn't have even brought it up in the first place to be honest.

Looking over his numbers though, his arm wasn't all that bad as far as CS % goes. I still don't think 22 is the right place for Mick, but then again that is all open to interpretation.

You are always going to find flaw in things like this. Basically everyone's definition of "best" is going to be different. Some will take hitting in to account more than defense, and some just have personal preference. It is much easier to rank the best offensive or defensive catchers, but to rank just the "best" catcher, is nearly impossible.

I agree that 22 is probably too high. But Tettleton should definitely be ON the list, and is underrated.

I will agree for him to ON the list. I guess that I'm just more of a perception guy. I remember watching him play and there was always the feeling that he was a Rob Deer type of guy.

Anyhow, looking over some of these guys I have found some pretty interesting stuff. When I saw Gene Tenace, I thought, no way, that guy wasn't that good, but when I took a closer look, he was an OBP machine.

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I agree that 22 is probably too high.

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probably not if they put hundley at 41. He couldn't play a lick of defense and had really only one above average hitting year. **** is dad was 3 times the catcher he was and he's not on the list

In relation to Hundley, he is probably ranked correctly. I'm starting to think that possibly the points adjustment for date of birth is off slightly. Seems like guys like Hundley are getting a little too much credit for their offense in those years. Looking at his '96 season, there were a ton of guys that hit 40 that year, so it really wasn't all that impressive given the time in which he did it. I mean Brady Anderson hit 50 that year.

So in essence we have ranked the top 100 offensive catchers really. When you put it that way and you look at I-Rod, he did have a stretch where he was one of the best offensive catchers in the game. He has come back down in recent years, but for a while he was quite the hitter.

All in all, the list isnt all that bad. Its similar, for the most part, to others "greatest" lists. I disagree with this statement, though....

"He said, and I completely agree, that hitting is much tougher now than it was at any prior time in history." If hitting was so much tougher now, we would not have experienced the offensive explosion of the past 15 years. The mid-60's, when they changed the strike zone (and subsequently pitchers dominated the game), rendered hitting much more difficult than it is now.

Its also not surprising that Piazza is listed #1, if you believe that A) Hitting is so much tougher now, and B) defense doesnt matter much for a catcher, especially throwing.

Piazza's gaudy offensive numbers did come in an era when everyone was hitting...a lot. His horrible throwing came during the same period, when there was little emphasis on the running game. The difference between Bench, Berra and others vs Piazza is that they could have played in any era, as catchers. piazza would have been a first baseman or left fielder at virtually any other time in history....maybe except the 50's, when no one stole bases either.

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Originally Posted by Rongar

Wass, whatever else is said, I award you and Justin an "A" for effort...I for one, have c&p'd your list for future reference...as for the chorus of criticism, well, no good deed goes unpunished...

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But he didn't make that list. He c&p'd it from a different site and posted the link at the bottom.


P.S.

Look at the date this was posted on the site wass linked to:

Friday, November 5, 2004