Well, there's way too much "noise" in there to attribute the difference strictly to Molina. Such "noise" is the argument against a pitcher's winning percentage and starting pitchers have a far greater effect on the game(s) than even the best catcher in baseball. Molina is a better player than whoever the backup catcher is. I would expect his team to do better with him in the game.

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hah. Maybe I am defensive as a poster, hence the username. I did threaten to stab a poster here once

I don't know if it's being defensive, or a general comment on the usage of statistics for argument purposes in general on internet forums (believe me, this board is hardly the worst offender; most posters here are somewhat baseball-savvy) but my take speaks more to the difficulty of quantifying defensive value. If, as JORR states, offense is the one true outcome, inversely, run-prevention is equally important. We can't understand that as readily without watching hundreds of games in the field to really sniff the "eye test", and also the defensive stats we have now are bad or incomplete. defensive WAR would tell you Andruw Jones is a first-ballot HOFer. Most of us would agree watching him, this isn't really the case.

I would probably enjoy taking in a live baseball contest with most of you here. I suspect the beer and conversation would be fantastic, it's only the way the internet is designed that makes most users appear to "hate" other posters.

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1926-1931-1934-1942-1944-1946-1964-1967-1982-2006-2011

Buster Posey

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Fare you well, fare you well
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Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

On fangraphs, I pulled the top 30 WAR seasons individually since 1995.

Piazza - 5 times (1,5,6)
Joe Mauer 5 times (3)
Ivan Rodriguez 4 times (4,7,9)
Buster Posey 3 times (2)
Jorge Posada 3 times (10)

Yadi Molina 2 times (11,23)
Russell Martin 2 times (22,30)
Brian McCann 2 times (26,29)

I checked the next few pages seeing if he had a bunch of years that just missed, and it makes his case look worse. His next years rank 54, 91 and 116.

Pudge and Piazza are already in the HOF. Joe Mauer and Buster Posey have to rank ahead of him with current players. Its hard to say Yadi makes a stronger case than Posada and he has been dropped from the ballet.

#NotMyHOF

Posey plays about 40 games a year at first base, a position that requires much higher skill with the bat to even be considered average.. If you compiled the numbers he only put up as a catcher, they would look quite a bit less impressive. It also speaks to your earlier statement about MVP votes. Even ironman catchers like Yadier can only play 120-130 or so games in the field due to the relative physical toll t takes on one's body. I'd be willing to wager that Posey will not catch 147 games in his age 34 season, which YM did just last year.

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1926-1931-1934-1942-1944-1946-1964-1967-1982-2006-2011

Man it's tough to put Molina in before Maurer and I think Maurer just misses it . Tough call.

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It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

I'd forgotten how good Mauer was when he came in. He also came in with the pedigree of 1.1 out of the draft. 1 pick ahead of Mr Prior.

an interesting thing to look up maybe, what are Lester's stats over his career in games started by Ross vs games started with not Ross. Pitchers are fucking weird. If Lester believes he pitches better with Ross, he probably does.

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1926-1931-1934-1942-1944-1946-1964-1967-1982-2006-2011

Posey has been better than Molina in the short time he's been in the league, and barring some massive fall off he's already built up a pretty strong case for Cooperstown, but the comment about games played at first base makes me think of the 2012 MVP voting and hearing people (admittedly, mostly Giants fans) say one of the reasons they liked Posey over Molina is because of his versatility due to playing so many games at first base. Like they honestly thought being able to take a guy from arguably the most important defensive position on the field and move him to one of the least was something worth putting on an MVP resume.

I'd be willing to concede that correlation could be possible except for the fact that Molina has had Matheny as a manager for the past five plus years and Mike doesn't believe in giving Yadi a day off unless he's physically about to fall apart.

I wonder what his career W-L record is in games hes caught. Probably up there with Jeter, Andruw and Chipper Jones.


Maybe not the HoF but he's in the Hall of "respected by rpb as a winner"

don't even wonder. there are sites that keep track of it for you.

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1926-1931-1934-1942-1944-1946-1964-1967-1982-2006-2011

I'm sure they're both equal to him.

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Do you own a Kevin Millar poster?

Baseball-reference has his most similar player being Tim McCarver, and no similar players are in the Hall. He's well below on most of the Hall trackers. Gotta lean toward no, but yes on retired number.

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I will acknowledge that he should get a contract to sell jorts.

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Yes -- Konerko level.

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All you have to do is jump over him.

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"All crowds boycotting football games shouldn't care who sings or takes a knee because they aren't watching." - Nas

Rodriguez and Piazza were juicers, they should be removed from this conversation. Posey is great, I'd take him over Molina, I'll concede that FF.


Mauer has sucked for four years, when is the last time he's caught? 2011?

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