Makes sense, Knizner is clearly not good enough (but he should be given enough of a chance to actually play and prove himself) and the Cardinals next best prospect is at least a year away. And it's not like there are anyone out there ready to take the job.

I'm convinced he could OPS+ around 70 and still be valuable. Not necessarily the ways we can measure it; but handling the staff, controlling the running game(even if by reputation), influencing simple minded, egotistical umps, etc. I mentioned this elsewhere, but this guy does valuable things that we don't measure well and catching over 2000 games is mighty impressive.

I'm glad to see him still in baseball and then await his induction into the HOF. WAR be d*mned, this guy is going in 1st ballot.

Cards press release refers to 2022 as Yadi’s “final season “

I'm glad to see him still in baseball and then await his induction into the HOF. WAR be d*mned, this guy is going in 1st ballot.

According to BB-Ref, Molina’s most similar player is <drum roll> A. J. Pierzynski. Do the voters know?

First ballot HOF? Really? I've never understood the love for Molina.

First ballot HOF? Really? I've never understood the love for Molina.

He's a reasonable candidate on the merits. Light by BBRef WAR (but not embarrassingly so, and with good narrative extras). Easily qualified by Fangraphs' version.

Molina is going in on the first ballot.

like it, hate it ... resistance is futile.

I'm a Reds fan and honor bound to root against Molina with every fiber of my being. That said, how many guys in history were the regular catcher for four pennant winners?

- Yogi Berra - I think 10 pennant winners as the regular catcher, though he played some catcher on four more.
- Bill Dickey - Seven or eight pennant winners ('43 is close).
- Jorge Posada - Six pennant winners.
- Roy Campanella - Five pennant winners.
- Elston Howard - I think five pennant winners though he caught some games for five others.
- Wally Schang - Five pennant winners.
- Johnny Bench - Four pennant winners.
- Johnny Kling - Four pennant winners.
- Buster Posey - Two or three depending on how you view 2010 when he caught 76 games. He's got a good chance to add to the total this season.


He's a little light on both the traditional numbers and the newer metrics (though 22nd in JAWS amongst catchers so not that light). Regardless, he's going to sail in because of what his teams did.

Kind of funny how deceptively tough that is -- "catcher for four pennant winners" doesn't sound that rare, but I immediately thought of Javy Lopez, and due to his knee injury in 1999 he can only claim two (95 and 96). And he was the starting catcher for a decade on a team that won the division every damn year.

For each year of the Giants' 1921-24 run, Frank Snyder started over half of their games at catcher.
Mickey Cochrane was the regular catcher on four pennant winners (1929-31, 1935).

Mickey Cochrane was the regular catcher on four pennant winners (1929-31, 1935).

Five - also in 1934.

John Roseboro - 1959, 1963, 1965, 1966 Dodgers.

Yadi has four other NLCS appearances as well. The one commonality to all those teams is Yadi. Not Pujols or Rolen or Edmonds or wainwright or berkman or Beltran

If he plays next year that means Pujols will go in before Yadi hits ballot.

Is this another stat to be used solely to benefit Molina? Posada was the regular catcher for 6 pennants & 4 World Series winners, and still leads Molina in WAR.

Five - also in 1934.

Totally whiffed on that.

Not much he can do to add to his resume at this point for the HOF but nice to see him staying around in St Louis. 18 years so far, will be 19 in 2022. 2080 games behind the plate so far, a long way to catch Boone & Fisk (2225 and 2226 games) let alone I-Rod (2427). Funny. I remember in the 80's how people talked about there being so much money in baseball that players would retire early to enjoy their wealth rather than stick around - yet for the most demanding position physically the top 6 all played in 1980 or beyond (over 2000 games is also Gary Carter and Jason Kendall).

At just 42 WAR you'd need to add a pretty big catchers bonus to get him to HOF level, but Molina might make it - get 20 years service plus move into the #2 slot all time for games caught and he'd have a shot. Pass I-Rod for #1 and I figure he'd be a lock but that would require 4 more years I figure. Still would love to see it (not a fan of I-Rod).

According to BB-Ref, Molina’s most similar player is <drum roll> A. J. Pierzynski. Do the voters know?

How well did AJ handle a pitching staff? Stifle the running game? What were his framing numbers? Gold Gloves?

AJ was a reasonably good hitter for a catcher... it's why he stuck around for so long despite being poor defensively and disliked by pretty much any player who ever interacted with him. If he had been a capable fielder and less of a dick, he might have gone to more than two All Star games. Team management seems to agree, since AJ earned less than half of Yadier's career salary... which is reflective that AJ's WAR is less than half of Yadier's.

Their similarity score is reflective on their batting numbers, and is more of an indictment of Similarity Scores than it is an indictment of Yadier.

Is this another stat to be used solely to benefit Molina? Posada was the regular catcher for 6 pennants & 4 World Series winners, and still leads Molina in WAR.

Not if you consider pitch framing. They were polar opposites on that. I look at the career walk rates for Roger Clemens. Exactly 2.8 per 9 for each of the Red Sox, Blue Jays, and Astros. Up to 3.2 during his years with the Yankees.

Every time it comes up some people say catch framing shouldn’t be a thing, it’s cheating, etc. and maybe one day soon the robot umpires will make it go away forever. But during their careers, it was a thing, and the ability or inability to get extra strike calls led to real wins and losses for their teams.

Exactly 2.8 per 9 for each of the Red Sox, Blue Jays, and Astros. Up to 3.2 during his years with the Yankees.

The value of a walk in linear weights is ~0.29 runs, making the value of 0.4 walks/9 equivalent to ~0.12 runs. I think most in the analytics community would call that "noise."

Lance Lynn averaged 3.4 walks per 9 while pitching for the Cardinals, 3.1 walks per 9 while pitching elsewhere. Mike Mussina averaged 2.1 walks per 9 with Baltimore, 1.8 with The Evil Empire.

Molina/Kendall/Posada - 41.9 WAR primarily defense/41.7 WAR mixed value/42.7 WAR primarily offense. All super close obviously, but only one of them is getting even a sniff of the HOF, funny how narrative works.

Y Molina vs O Vizquel
- Molina clearly a better hitter
- Vizquel longer career, even accounting for position; Vizquel is the all-time leader in games at SS< while Yadier is 4th among backstops
- Vizquel slightly better D (gold gloves and ##s)
- leadership; both defensive anchors on fine clubs, but Vizquel's team did not do as well in the playoffs. Neither player hit all that well in the postseason.

Vizquel is getting about 50% of the vote, despite a few good easy "handles" to hang his case on. Because he frankly wasn't as good as other deserving players. I am not sure Molina is gonna sail in. I am more sure he does not *deserve* to sail in.

Molina/Kendall/Posada - 41.9 WAR primarily defense/41.7 WAR mixed value/42.7 WAR primarily offense. All super close obviously, but only one of them is getting even a sniff of the HOF, funny how narrative works.

Those are bWAR.

Via Fangraphs:
Molina: 55 WAR entirely defense (below average bat, though career wRC+ is 99)
Kendall: 37 WAR entirely defense (though dWAR is a fraction of Molina's; wRC+ is 99)
Posada: 40 WAR entirely offense

Additionally, Molina and Kendall both have/had more than 2000 games as C whereas Posada ended with <1600.

BL: Kendall and Molina were roughly equal offensive players, but Molina is much more valuable defensively, has the (one team + champion) narrative, and is still putting up positive WAR as a 39-year old (Kendall's last four seasons combined (550 games) total up to less than 1 WAR; Molina is at 7.5 WAR over his last 510 games).

OTOH Posada was all bat, no glove... and history has shown that "hitting catchers" need to be better hitters and last longer than 1600 hits and 275 HR to make the Hall.

Vizquel is getting about 50% of the vote, despite a few good easy "handles" to hang his case on. Because he frankly wasn't as good as other deserving players. I am not sure Molina is gonna sail in. I am more sure he does not *deserve* to sail in.

Putting aside whether he deserves it, I think Molina will be treated more favorably by the writers and gets in on one of his first few ballots. Vizquel has the classic compiler problem where voters have to overlook the lack of peak. Molina has an admittedly short peak but was top 5 in MVP voting in two consecutive years and has 10 ASG appearances compared to 3 for Vizquel.

Interestingly vizquel and Molina are top 10 all time for guys with a lot of plate appearances in the fangraphs “clutch” stat. I’ve followed cardinals baseball the whole time since Yadi debuted and there is now doubt he comes through a lot more than most with the game on the line. I don’t think that stat includes old-time ball players but for his generation he’s been the best. Compared to other catchers he’s excellent. I don’t remember anyone saying that about vizquel though.

I will say when I look at all the stats Jason Kendall keeps coming out as a worthy Hall candidate. I don’t remember thinking that when he played but the numbers are really good across the board.

Methinks that Vizquel's latest sexual harassment disgraces will lower his voting % significantly this year.

This is per BREF, so probably verboten, but here are the rankings for the Cardinals in combined catcher wins above average for all of MLB since 2004:
25, 18, 26 (champs!), 20, 18, 3, 4, 10, 1, 3, 14, 21, 3, 20, 25, 12, 23, 16

Obviously a very nice stretch there from 2009 to 2013, with a nice little bounce back in 2016. Otherwise, color me unimpressed. Molina was below replacement level in 2006, yes, he was the starting C for the WS champs, but they won despite him, not because of him.

For shits and giggles, compared to Kendall:
10, 4, 2, 8, 3, 23, 12, 3, 3, 13 (with Oak), 4, 7/29 (OAK/CHC), 5 (MIL), 25, 24 (KCR)

Molina's teams averaged 14th (13.9) in WAA with him as their primary catcher, Kendall's averaged 10th (9.9) in WAA (ignoring the split year). Based on 2017/18/19 the difference in 10th and 14 is between 1 and .3 WAA. Maybe that's too close to call, and BREF isn't adequately accounting for Molina's skill set, but you'd think having a no doubt HOF anchoring your team would lead to a better overall ranking.

Another comparison - with Jeter:
6,4,3,1,5,3,8,10,8,9,4,12,11,4,22,23,22,*,30 - 10.2 average ranking. 6.2 average over his 1st 14 years, whereas Molina really only has that 5 year peak.

0.4 walks/9 equivalent to ~0.12 runs. I think most in the analytics community would call that "noise."

A tenth of a run per game is "noise"? That's 16 runs a year or 183 runs over the course of Posada's career.

"rankings for the Cardinals in combined catcher wins above average for all of MLB since 2004:
25, 18, 26 (champs!), 20,"

nice set of ##s

I had forgotten how poorly Molina hit in 2006. Yes, backstop for a WS winner, nice narrative. In reality, he did more to prevent his team from getting to the playoffs than he did to help them. The team won a division with a win total of 83. The team scored 781 runs in 161 games. Molina scored 29 runs and made 13 1/2 games' worth of Outs. Proportionately, that would be scoring 29*12 (approx) = 308 runs; about 2 runs/game on offense. That is a lot of drag. Did he help the staff? Maybe... but the staff was below the middle in team ERA.

Cardinals probably have an easier time winning that division without his weak bat. But he sure did his part once the playoffs started. Hit 308/308/385 in the first round. Ok I guess. Then 348/423/652 in the championship series, and clutch as they get. He hit the 9th inning homer in game 7 to break a 1-1 tie, Then 412/500/529 in the world series.

Attended a few Cardinals games in St. Louis recently, and was struck by how Molina is far and away the most popular player, getting the loudest cheers and most applause. He really has built a nice legacy in St. Louis.

I'm a Reds fan and honor bound to root against Molina with every fiber of my being. That said, how many guys in history were the regular catcher for four pennant winners?

Molina was the regular catcher in 2006, 2011, and 2013. He was not the regular catcher in 2004.

A tenth of a run per game is "noise"? That's 16 runs a year or 183 runs over the course of Posada's career.

You're taking 0.1 run per game from one pitcher over a few seasons and extrapolating it to Posada's career. he's saying the initial Clemens result is well within the realm of noise. Extrapolating it just makes it noisier.

As he says, Mussina had a similar sizer DECREASE in walks rates coming to NY. Why not attribute that to Posada?

A tenth of a run per game is "noise"? That's 16 runs a year or 183 runs over the course of Posada's career.

You're taking 0.1 run per game from one pitcher over a few seasons and extrapolating it to Posada's career. he's saying the initial Clemens result is well within the realm of noise. Extrapolating it just makes it noisier.

As he says, Mussina had a similar sizer DECREASE in walks rates coming to NY. Why not attribute that to Posada?

Entirely possible that a catcher is better at framing one pitcher than another. It is clear SOME of what is being attributed solely to pitchers should be attributed to catchers.

Every time it comes up some people say catch framing shouldn’t be a thing, it’s cheating, etc. and maybe one day soon the robot umpires will make it go away forever. But during their careers, it was a thing, and the ability or inability to get extra strike calls led to real wins and losses for their teams.

If umpire errors make a difference on only one player in all of MLB history, maybe Hall voters should ignore it since it was ‘a thing’ for such a brief period.

Entirely possible that a catcher is better at framing one pitcher than another.

Then extrapolating it to 16 runs a year, or 183 for his career, doesn't make sense.

Molina is 5th in career BREF WAR on the current Cardinals team. He's second among active catchers in Fangraphs WAR.

Clemens was just a convenient example. Looking at how all pitchers did in terms of walks and strikeouts with Posada behind the plate, I have him at -241 runs. And Molina +113 entering this season.

http://www.baseballprojection.com/special/catcher2020.htm

Correction, -233 for Jorge and +53 for Yadier using the league and park adjusted data.

Apparently, 2022 will be the final season for Yadi.

Correction, -233 for Jorge and +53 for Yadier using the league and park adjusted data.

It's an interesting list and it doesn't always line up with other estimates. Jim Sundberg shows up at -18, Bob Boone +36. Is JT Realmuto really worse than Ryan Doumit?

The players at the max (Scioscia 265) and minimum (Posada -233) seem plausible but a 50 win difference seems like a lot.

Piazza is at +266 before league and park adjustments! And +157 after adjustments. Is the point here (well, one of the points here) that Shea was a tough place to hit?

Where is Hector Villanueva?

It is consistent with what we have for framing. Fangraphs has Yadier +146, and that’s only for 2008 on, so it’s missing 3 years of regular play. McCann and Martin are around +160. So I see no reason to think if we had complete pitch tracking through history, somebody would be arpund +/- 250.

Since with Retrosheet I can only infer from strikeout and walk numbers, I see 3 eras for pitch framing impact:

1. Up to around 1965, strikeouts were rare. So no matter how good a catcher was at framing you probably won’t see a huge impact. Catchers might have had an impact by turning a 2-1 count into a 1-2, and then getting a hitter to take a swing at a worse pitch before putting the ball in play, but that’s hard to pick up on.

2. 1965 to 2015 - enough variation in strikeouts that we can see big differences between catchers

3. 2015 on - at this point everyone in the game knows about framing and how to measure it. Teams have specialized catching instructors to teach technique. Catchers either make changes to get more calls, or stop being catchers. It makes it harder for the good catchers to stand out when they are no longer being compared to the Doumits. Almost all of the framing god seasons happened before about 2015. Lucroy was a framing god from 2010 to 2014, but once everybody got into the act he’s been just another catcher. Even Yadier dropped off quite a bit at that time.

#41, and Dodger stadium. Scioscia takes a big hit too from the park adjustments.

3. 2015 on - at this point everyone in the game knows about framing and how to measure it.

I'd hope that umpires caught onto some tricks as well.

Lucroy was a framing god from 2010 to 2014,

Brewers team ERA, 2010: 4.59 With Lucroy catching: 4.40
Brewers team ERA, 2011: 3.64 With Lucroy catching: 3.63
Brewers team ERA, 2012: 4.22 With Lucroy catching: 4.27
Brewers team ERA, 2013: 3.84 With Lucroy catching: 4.06
Brewers team ERA, 2014: 3.67 With Lucroy catching: 3.62

You might say I'm not impressed.

Well duh, if you take the data for half of a sample (ERA with Lucroy) and compare it to the overall sample (ERA with and without Lucroy) they're going to look quite similar.

Oh. So what do you think is going to happen if I take the time to figure the ERA for all the non-Lucroy catchers over those five years? Is Lucroy going to look any better? If he doesn't, what's the reason going to be?

Another look at the data in [46]

Kendall's OPS+ is really dragged down by that lack of pop. His OBP was very good, .366 career vs a league average of .340. He was a durable guy who put the ball in play and could steal a base. Sort of a precursor to Russell Martin. He was definitely a fun player to have in the game.

If he doesn't, what's the reason going to be?

I'm not sure about this data set but I'm going to guess teams that valued catcher defense during that era ended up with good pitch framers and other organizations that said "this doesn't matter" who ended up with terrible pitch framers.

Control for the pitchers as well.

Then control for the exact x,y locations of the pitches thrown. Do that and you should get something similar to what Fangraphs shows.