Best season of all time: Catcher (in the rye) version

[Blackout]

1933 Mickey Cochrane .322/.459/.515 30 doubles 4 triples 15 HR 112 RBI 157 OPS+

1935 Gabby Hartnett .344/.404/.545 32 doubles 6 triples 13 HR 91 RBI 151 OPS+ MVP

1936 Bill Dickey .362/.428/.617 26 doubles 8 triples 22 HR 107 RBI 158 OPS+

1950 Yogi Berra .322/.383/.533 30 doubles 6 triples 28 HR 124 RBI 135 OPS+

1953 Roy Campanella .312/.395/.611 26 doubles 3 triples 41 HR 142 RBI 155 OPS+ MVP

1970 Johnny Bench .293/.345/.587 35 doubles 4 triples 45 HR 148 RBI 141 OPS+ MVP

1997 Mike Piazza .362/.431/.638 32 doubles 1 triple 40 HR 124 RBI 185 OPS+

1999 Pudge Rodriguez .332/.356/.558 29 doubles 1 triple 35 HR 113 RBI 125 OPS+ MVP

2003 Javy Lopez .328/.378/.687 29 doubles 3 triples 43 HR 109 RBI 169 OPS+

2007 Jorge Posada: .338/.426/.543 42 doubles 1 triple 20 HR 90 RBI 154 OPS+



honorable mention to Buck Ewing 1888, Joe Mauer 2006, Gary Carter in the mid 80s, Todd Hundley in the mid 90s etc. etc.

[brett]

Johnny Bench was definitely better in '72. 166 OPS+. Much higher on-base% and better relative rates as well. The league hit .250 that year and even his relative BA was almost as good at 1.08 compared to 1.11 (the league hit .265 in '70).

League OPS in '70 was .760 and in '72 was .685.

He also drew 100 walks in '72 and 23 IBB and was voted as the leagues most dangerous hitter in many polls.

The thing that brings '70 up was that he played in 158 games catching 139 and even playing centerfield twice.

[Blackout]

i'm having a tough time deciding.

[Blackout]

Johnny Bench was definitely better in '72. 166 OPS+. Much higher on-base% and better relative rates as well.

yeah and his defense was better.

but he hit 84 XBH, the league leader and played 11 more games

[leecemark]

--I would have gone with Bench 72, but 70 is close enough I guess. They may be the 2 best seasons by a catcher.

[Colorado Express]

Torre sneaks out my vote just barely over Campanella, Dickey and Piazza.

[BoSox Rule]

Joe Torre played 161 games in 1971, every single one of them at 3B.

[Blackout]

oops my bad i was looking at 70.

dammit

[Captain Cold Nose]

oops my bad i was looking at 70.

dammit

I can remove Torre. Unless you'd like to substitute another year for him. It's just his name in the poll.

[RubeBaker]

What, no love for Pudge here? His numbers were comparable to Piazza, but Pudge actually did win the MVP. The dealbreaker for me is the defense. Pudge won the gold glove, and threw out 55% of the fools who tried to steal on him.

[Blackout]

I can remove Torre. Unless you'd like to substitute another year for him. It's just his name in the poll.

what about buck ewing 1888

for bill :)

[Blackout]

What, no love for Pudge here? His numbers were comparable to Piazza, but Pudge actually did win the MVP. The dealbreaker for me is the defense. Pudge won the gold glove, and threw out 55% of the fools who tried to steal on him.

his numbers were NOT comparable on offense to piazza but he was much better defensively.


with that said 185 OPS+ > 125 OPS+

[yanks0714]

What, no love for Pudge here? His numbers were comparable to Piazza, but Pudge actually did win the MVP. The dealbreaker for me is the defense. Pudge won the gold glove, and threw out 55% of the fools who tried to steal on him.

Probably called for fastballs 95% of the time too. Plus his MVP was a farce. Jeter was the real MVP. And truth of the matter is IRod's numbers are NOT really comparable to Piazza's.

So, no love for Pudge here.

[1905 Giants]

Not to offend any players who won it, but how much is an MVP award really worth in terms of these debates? We've all heard arguments (some logical, others horrible) about why some of the MVPs were, as posted above: "farces". In a statistical comparison, MVP awards shouldn't really carry that much weight.

[Blackout]

Not to offend any players who won it, but how much is an MVP award really worth in terms of these debates? We've all heard arguments (some logical, others horrible) about why some of the MVPs were, as posted above: "farces". In a statistical comparison, MVP awards shouldn't really carry that much weight.

very true, in Pudge's case he wasn't deserving of the top 5.

[dgarza]

1. Mike Piazza 1997
2. Javy Lopez 2003
3. Johnny Bench 1970
4. Joe Torre 1970
5. Ivan Rodriguez 1996

6.-11. Smokey Burgess 1954
6.-11. Cal McVey 1877
6.-11. Mickey Cochrane 1933
6.-11. Gabby Hartnett 1930
6.-11. Rudy York 1937
6.-11. Ivan Rodriguez 1999

[Proctor, CF]

1950 Yogi Berra .322/.383/.533 30 doubles 6 triples 28 HR 124 RBI 135 OPS+




Yogi wasn't half bad in '54 either, when he won the MVP, as he did also in '51 and '55.

[Blackout]

yeah and in 1956 too when mickey won MVP

[csh19792001]

And truth of the matter is IRod's numbers are NOT really comparable to Piazza's.

So, no love for Pudge here.

His numbers in 99' or his numbers at their peaks? Pudge was definitely the more valuable player in 99'.

There's some love for Pudge here.

I agree on Jeter being the deserving MVP, nonetheless....

During their respective peaks, Pudge and Piazza were about equal in value. Re-posting this.

Stolen-base strategy would make a good column by itself, but let's get back to our catchers. We want to use the SB and CS values we just computed to estimate how many runs a catcher's arm saves or costs his team. We'll do this by charging the catcher .16 runs for each stolen base he allows, and crediting him .49 runs for each time he catches someone stealing (or Catcher Pick-Off, CPO, which we'll treat the same as a caught stealing). Here are the five most- and least-valuable catcher arms since 1998 (including this year through Sunday's games):

Rank Catcher SB CS CPO SB Runs Prevented
1. Ivan Rodriguez 96 101 18 43
2. Henry Blanco 93 84 2 27
3. Mike Matheny 159 94 7 24
4. Brad Ausmus 174 95 2 19
5. John Flaherty 225 108 4 18


141. Darrin Fletcher 273 76 0 -7
142. Dave Nilsson 107 19 1 -8
143. Todd Hundley 204 48 0 -10
144. Eddie Taubensee 232 46 0 -15
145. Mike Piazza 371 88 0 -18

No surprises here. Rodriguez ends up at the very top of the list by a wide margin, while Piazza sits at the very bottom, with over 60 runs separating them over the three-plus years considered.

So is the 60-run defensive advantage Rodriguez enjoys enough to make up for Piazza's offensive superiority? We can evaluate the offensive production of the two by using Total Baseball's Batting Runs (BR), which measure how many runs a hitter contributed beyond what a league-average hitter would produce in the same number of plate appearances. Adding the Stolen Base Runs Prevented (SBRP) measure from the previous table to Batting Runs gives us a more complete statistical picture of the two players:

Piazza Rodriguez
Year BR SBRP Total Year BR SBRP Total
1998 43 -1 42 1998 15 18 33
1999 28 -4 24 1999 19 18 37
2000 41 -11 30 2000 27 4 31
2001 9 -2 7 2001 5 3 8
Total 121 -18 103 Total 66 43 109

When you combine the value of their arms with the value of their bats, Rodriguez gets the edge for the past three years, the edge for each of the past two full seasons, and the edge so far this season. So yes, it is possible that the Rodriguez's superior arm is enough to make up for Piazza's superior bat.

Another excerpt on Piazza's defense:

Piazza's career CS% of 23% is far and away the worst of any real catcher in modern history. None of the other 10 worst even caught 1,000 games, Piazza caught 1629.

Here's another record:

Most Stolen Bases Against (Season)
155 1996 Mike Piazza (LAN)

And believe it or not, they're probably very close in career value, too. For all that hitting, Piazza's awful catching almost entirely negates the edge he should have on Pudge, who could never take a walk.

Pudge is way ahead in career WARP and they're almost even using career Win Shares.

[yanks0714]

His numbers in 99' or his numbers at their peaks? Pudge was definitely the more valuable player in 99'.

There's some love for Pudge here.

I agree on Jeter being the deserving MVP, nonetheless....

During their respective peaks, Pudge and Piazza were about equal in value. Re-posting this.

When you combine the value of their arms with the value of their bats, Rodriguez gets the edge for the past three years, the edge for each of the past two full seasons, and the edge so far this season. So yes, it is possible that the Rodriguez's superior arm is enough to make up for Piazza's superior bat.[/I]

Another excerpt on Piazza's defense:

Piazza's career CS% of 23% is far and away the worst of any real catcher in modern history. None of the other 10 worst even caught 1,000 games, Piazza caught 1629.

Here's another record:

Most Stolen Bases Against (Season)
155 1996 Mike Piazza (LAN)[/SIZE][/FONT][/FONT]

And believe it or not, they're probably very close in career value, too. For all that hitting, Piazza's awful catching almost entirely negates the edge he should have on Pudge, who could never take a walk.

Pudge is way ahead in career WARP and they're almost even using career Win Shares.

We're well aware of Piazza's poor throwing arm. But in all other aspects of catching Piazza was decent to good. You are making his arm the singular one purpose thing to describe his defense. He's good at pouncing on bunts and dribblers. No problem with catching fouls. He's known as a wall blocking the plate. And one thing I read is that he calls a good game behind the plate. Teams felt good enough about him to keep trotting him out as the catcher for years.

Several things I want to point out about IRod that you ignore. His is infamous for not getting together with his pitchers to review the opposing hitters. He is known for calling for more fastballs witha runner on first. The hitters know this. They can wait on a fastball. Of course, a fastball gives Pudge a better chance of throwing the runner out as opposed to something slower. It helps Pudge throw out apotential base stealer but does it help his pitcher and team to do that? I doubt it.
One more thing. Pudge has been suspected of steroids. Remember, him at one time looking more muscular, hitting for much more power? Once he stopped that, he came to camp looking drastically different and his power was gone.
And nowadays, what's this batting style he's adopted of swinging for everything. Hacking, never taking a walk. How many outs is he costing his team doing that?

[KCGHOST]

It is hard to go with Piazza because he was so awful as a defender but his 1997 year might have been the best offensive year for any catcher.