.300/.400/.500 Catchers
Posted by Steve Lombardi on November 7, 2010
I was just thumbing through an old STATS Inc. Baseball Scoreboard book - from 1994. (It's the green one.) Gosh, I miss those books. I have everyone from 1992 through 2001. Anywho, I was reading the section about Chris Hoiles season in '93 where he went .300/.400/.500 in BA/OBP/SLG. And, the question was "Is this the Golden Age For Catchers?" looking at the seasons posted in 1993 for Hoiles, Dutch Dalton, Chad Kreuter, Mike Piazza, Mike Stanley and Rick Wilkins.
Now, there's some names you may have forgotten about...
So, which catchers have posted seasons with .300/.400/.500? Check out this list -
| Rk | Yrs | From | To | Age | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bill Dickey | 3 | 1937 | 1939 | 30-32 | Ind. Seasons |
| 2 | Mickey Cochrane | 3 | 1930 | 1933 | 27-30 | Ind. Seasons |
| 3 | Joe Mauer | 2 | 2006 | 2009 | 23-26 | Ind. Seasons |
| 4 | Mike Piazza | 2 | 1996 | 1997 | 27-28 | Ind. Seasons |
| 5 | Jorge Posada | 1 | 2007 | 2007 | 35-35 | Ind. Seasons |
| 6 | Chris Hoiles | 1 | 1993 | 1993 | 28-28 | Ind. Seasons |
| 7 | Ted Simmons | 1 | 1977 | 1977 | 27-27 | Ind. Seasons |
| 8 | Carlton Fisk | 1 | 1977 | 1977 | 29-29 | Ind. Seasons |
| 9 | Dick Dietz | 1 | 1970 | 1970 | 28-28 | Ind. Seasons |
| 10 | Gabby Hartnett | 1 | 1930 | 1930 | 29-29 | Ind. Seasons |
.
Funny, I would have thought that Piazza had more seasons like this, without looking. And, is it just me, or, is that Mauer kid going to own this list very soon?
November 7th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
Piazza, '95, '96 & '97
November 7th, 2010 at 12:59 pm
Kinda on the same note, that's the only negative thing about this site... and the internet 'revolution.' All of my media guides and old record books are worthless because everything is at my fingertips! I used to be thrilled for the first baseball game of the year that I went to so I would be able to get the new media guide!
I'm not complaining.... just a change of the times...
November 7th, 2010 at 1:06 pm
Not to mention that the 1995 and 1997 seasons were actually .300/.400/*.600* seasons for Mike (he just missed a third one in 2000). Hartnett and Dickey each had one of those (Dickey's was a 112 game season, so not as impressive), but no one else did. Unless Mauer turns up the juice a bit and keeps it going for at least seven more seasons, Piazza's going to keep that "greatest hitting catcher of all-time" title for the conceivable future (or unless the Nationals decide Bryce Harper will catch after all, and he's all he's made out to be).
I remember that Hoiles season--he was very popular in our weekend Tony LaRussa baseball drafts the next year. . .:-)
November 7th, 2010 at 1:19 pm
I'm guessing there was a 500 PA cutoff, and that's why Piazza's 1995 is not listed (only 475 PA).
November 7th, 2010 at 2:04 pm
@4
Yeah, I thought about that too. 1995 was a short season due to the strike. Piazza still qualified rate stats. I checked for rounding issues on his OBP which is listed as "0.400" and it turns out his OBP is *exactly* 0.4 (190/475).
Tweaking the search to use the "Qualified for the batting title" checkbox instead of the 502 PA checkbox adds Piazza-1995, Dickey-1936 (four in a row) and as well as two more Hartnett seasons (1935,1937)
November 7th, 2010 at 2:06 pm
Actually, Piazza should be listed three times because the 1995 season was shortened to 144 games due to the strike. Based on that, a player would need 446 plate appearances to qualify for the batting title. (3.1 PA's per game).
Piazza it tied with the others at three.
November 7th, 2010 at 2:48 pm
DavidRF @4, didn't see your post, picking up the same issue. Your list was even better, picking up the additional years for Dickey and Hartnett.
Yet it also appears that Cochrane has four years, too, from 1930-1933. Not sure how that fourth season was missed on the original list, since he has more than enough PAs to qualify, even by today's standards. I think this is the updated list:
1 Bill Dickey -- 4 -- 1936 to 1939
2 Mickey Cochrane -- 4 --1930 to 1933
3 Gabby Hartnett -- 3 -- 1930 1935, 1937
4 Mike Piazza -- 3 -- 1995 to 1997
5 Joe Mauer -- 2 -- 2006, 2009
6 Jorge Posada --1 -- 2007
7 Chris Hoiles -- 1 -- 1993
8 Ted Simmons -- 1 -- 1977
9 Carlton Fisk -- 1 -- 1977
10 Dick Dietz -- 1 --1970
Hoiles and Dietz seem to be the outliers here in the sense all the other players are HOFers or border-line HOFer's (Simmons and Posada), and one (Mauer) who will almost assuredly be a HOF if he stays healthy. Dietz' season was one of the single greatest by a catcher. Not really sure why his career ended so quickly. Before my time.
November 7th, 2010 at 2:56 pm
FWIW, yes, I used 502 PA and 75% of games at catcher as my filter.
Does that short-change the 1994 and '95 guys? Maybe? Then again, maybe if theyhad 502 PA that season, the wouldn't have made the cut?
November 7th, 2010 at 3:26 pm
Steve, true. The good thing about the filter is it allows anyone to run lists the way they want to. Regarding Cochrane in my previous post, I see he didn't hit .300 in one of the seasons, so he's back to three.
I like the batting title qualification to sort by. These are catchers, which means they absorb quite a bit of abuse. If they qualify for the batting title, it would make sense that they also qualify for this list. All of them had a substantial amount of playing time considering they're catchers. It's still a pretty elite group.
November 7th, 2010 at 3:28 pm
Som very fine to great catchers on that list and what s of interest, that the two greatest catchers in the history of baseball. Berra and Bench are not on the list. or Ivan Rodriguez.............
...
November 7th, 2010 at 4:40 pm
I got a feeling Buster Posey will make that list in the not too distant future.
November 7th, 2010 at 4:44 pm
I realize that we're talking different positions and catching is the toughest, but I started to think about other batters who've had better than 300/400/500 seasons. Ted Williams in 1941 had a 400/500/700 season. I don't believe any else has done that.
November 7th, 2010 at 6:12 pm
I agree that qualifying for the batting title is more fair-even if it was not catcher. Though I would like to see the adjusted for hitting context list. This one is very in influenced by offensive environment. Better would be a comparably exclusive list above the mean in these categories.
And maybe one absent BA, which is not as useful as OBP +. And then make it weighted OBP, to tell more closely how valuable their bats really were.
November 7th, 2010 at 7:13 pm
i'll do you one better, bonds "04" 300/600/800 know that has never been done.....
November 7th, 2010 at 7:55 pm
@10
You can't get .400 obp if you don't walk. It kind of amazes me that Irod can catch in the league 20 years and only be able to draw 10-30 walks a year. You'd think he would learn to recognize pitches....
November 7th, 2010 at 8:00 pm
Hornsby had a 424/507/696 line in 1924. A couple other guys came close to 400/500/600, but if we're looking at reach those specific levels, I can't find anyone via a manual search.
November 7th, 2010 at 9:22 pm
Here's the citation from wikipedia on Dietz - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Dietz
That '70 Giants team had 5 guys with OPS+ of 129 or higher. They led the league in runs scored - and in runs allowed and finished 16 GB the Reds.
November 7th, 2010 at 10:58 pm
David Nilsson is an interesting case, about whom I would like to know more. He qualifies for the stat line twice, but in 1996 he caught only three innings.
In 1999, at age 29, he went .309/.400/.554 and started 94 of his 115 games at catcher (but had only 404 plate appearances). He made the All-Star team. Then he retired.
November 8th, 2010 at 1:20 am
@18, David in Toledo ... I remember Nilsson leaving MLB. He was from Australia and wanted to represent his home country in the 2000 Olympics, so he turned down a nice MLB contract. He then played in his home country's major leagues where he owns the highest lifetime BA in Australia, and has helped shape the baseball leagues down under. He did try to make a comeback in 2003, but basically said his heart wasn't in it and wanted to play back home. He represented his country again in the 2004 Olympics. He certainly did walk away from quite a bit of money, but you have to admire his dedication to country and baseball in Australia.
November 8th, 2010 at 10:22 am
You guys never heard of Babe Ruth? He had FIVE seasons of .370+/.512+/.737+, including two in which he slugged over .845. Nobody else is even in the conversation when you're talking about the best player of all time.
November 8th, 2010 at 10:35 am
This list just reminds me of what a great player Ted Simmons was and really begs the question as to why he's not in HOF.
Ted Simmons had two near misses to the .300/.400/.500 list.
1975: .332/.396/.491
and
1980: .303/.375/.505
November 8th, 2010 at 11:24 am
@20, we're talking catchers...
November 8th, 2010 at 11:51 am
@21, John Q -- Testify, my brother!
Simmons was the first name I clicked on, and for some reason the first thing that caught my eye was that he led the NL in intentional walks in 1976 (19) and '77 (25), with another year at 22 and several more in the teens.
I checked via Play Index, and found that his 135 IBBs from 1973-80 led MLB by a wide margin; 3 players were in the 90s, no one else more than 78.
Many factors went into those IBBs, including that Simmons was a switch-hitter (so always had the platoon advantage) and that there was often a base open due to base-stealers in front of him. But Simmons' average of .300/.374/.472 (133 OPS+) in those years was also a big factor.
Like Lou Whitaker, Simmons suffered the injustice of being knocked off the HOF ballot after 1 try, fielding just 3.7% of the vote. Yet, when he retired, Simmons was the all-time leader among catchers in hits, total bases, times on base and doubles, and was 2nd in RBI, 3rd in extra-base hits, 4th in runs.
Like Whitaker and others who've been screwed in the HOF voting, Simmons was overshadowed during his career by others at his position: Johnny Bench, Carlton Fisk and Gary Carter rank #1, 2 and 4 all-time in career WAR by catchers. Simmons ranks 9th, just behind Cochrane and just ahead of Hartnett; he's the only one of the top 10 not in (or en route to) the HOF.
And like Whitaker, one of the knocks on Simmons' HOF credentials is that he didn't have an especially high peak. This is not entirely true; Simmons had 4 qualifying seasons with OPS+ of 140 or higher, with a high of 148. (By comparison, Carter had just 2 such seasons, with a high of 146; Yogi also had 2 years at 140+, with a high of 142.) But what Simmons had in spades was consistency and durability: From 1971-83, he averaged 143 games played and a 126 OPS+, while catching at least 120 games in 10 of those 13 seasons.
He was not, overall, a good defensive catcher, but he wasn't as bad as his reputation; here, again, he suffered by comparison to his contemporaries. He was certainly a much better defender than Piazza.
But I think timing was the biggest factor in his poor HOF results. If Simmons had come along a decade sooner or later, he would have stood a much better chance.
November 8th, 2010 at 1:27 pm
Steve -- Good topic.
I would suggest including the search requirements in the original post (i.e., 502 PAs and 75% of games at catcher).
The requirement of 502 PAs seems problematic for catchers generally, and even more so for players in seasons of less than 162 games (pre-1961, plus 1981 and 1994-95).
It's problematic for catchers because, in a typical year, less than 1/3 as many catchers qualify for the batting title less as the average of the other positions. In 2001-10, there were 87 qualifying catcher seasons; the other 7 positions averaged 223 qualifying seasons.
True, MLB does not adjust the qualifying requirements, but that doesn't seem strictly relevant to this discussion. The question here is whether you want to exclude from consideration the majority of "starting" catchers.
Also, the requirement of 75% of games played at catcher seems steep.
I don't know if there's an industry standard, but my own "qualifying" standards for catcher are 400 PAs and 50% of games played at catcher. Doing the .300/.400/.500 search with those minimums, Hartnett and Dickey tie with 4 seasons, Piazza and Cochrane 3, Mauer 2, and 1 each for Posada, Nilsson, Hoiles, Simmons, Fisk, Dietz and (drumroll, please) Bubbles Hargrave, one of the best offensive catchers of the '20s.
November 8th, 2010 at 2:53 pm
Re: "that Mauer kid" -- It's no knock on him, but no, I don't think he's going to own this list. In his 6 full seasons, he's slugged .478, with an average of 12 HRs per year. Last year, he hit 9 HRs (just 1 at home) and slugged .469.
I don't mean to put a ceiling on him, but those 28 HRs in 2009 looks like the anomaly. And since he turns 28 in April, his offense is (on a purely probabilistic basis) likely to decline in the coming years.
November 8th, 2010 at 3:08 pm
John Autin,
Excellent points, It's not brought up very often but the time period from 1970-1985 was kind of a mini golden era for catchers. Bench, Fisk, Carter, Simmons, Munson, Porter and Parish all played the bulk of their careers during this time period. Then you also had the tail end of Bill Freehan's career in their as well. Torre was still active but he was playing third during this time period.
You're talking about 35-40% of the top 20 catchers in baseball history all playing during a small 15 year window.
Then you have a bunch of guys just a tick below like Boone, Sundberg, Tenace, Pena and Sanguillen. Tenace is kind of a hybrid c/1b so I don't really know how to rate him fairly as a catcher.
Then you had another good group of catchers just below that group. Guys like Grote, T. Kennedy, Dempsey, Yeager, Ferguson, Scioscia and Ashby.
Yogi Berra stopped being a full time catcher around 1960 and I Rod didn't start playing until 1991. So basically they've only elected 3 Catchers (Bench, Fisk and Carter from the 1960-1990 time period. It doesn't seem well represented.
Also, I think what hurt Simmons was his time on the Brewers and Braves as sort of an overweight slow DH/1b type player. I think that image stayed in the sport writers heads. Also he brought his career numbers down. He was a .292 hitter as of 1983, so maybe if he retired at that point he would have gotten in the HOF.
November 8th, 2010 at 5:45 pm
A few thoughts:
A lot of people explained why Piazza doesn't make it more frequently but it's worth mentioning that from 1995-2000, a span of six seasons, he actually hit .333/.401/.595. So though he only officially makes the list twice, he basically hit at that level for six years. In fact, from 1993-2001, his line was .326/.393/.583. So over a nine year stretch he was only 7 OBP points shy of the .300/.400/.500 mark.
#15, that was exactly what I was thinking about Pudge.
When thinking about this, I decided to look at Jason Kendall's page. Even when he was good, he never had much power, so he was never really going to be a serious threat to the .500 SLG aspect of this discussion. But he absolutely was capable of the .300/.400 part, which is still darn good for a catcher. Check it out:
1998, 627 PA, .327/.411/.473
1999, 334 PA, .332/.428/.511
2000, 678 PA, .320/.412/.470
2003, 665 PA, .325/.399/.416
2004, 658 PA, .319/.399/.390
Back to back .399 OBPs is a tough break for the purposes of a discussion like this, but that's still pretty impressive.
Through the first nine seasons of his career, his career line was .306/.387/.418. It's easy to forget how good of a hitter he used to be since he's been a bad offensive player for so long. From 2005-2010, he's hit only .260/.333/.318, 75 OPS+. All those years with those ugly numbers now account for 40% of his career PA and yet his career line is still a really-good-for-a-catcher .288/.366/.378 because of how good he was at the beginning of his career.
Now notice all those PA's in the upper 600s in the list above? As mentioned, it's pretty difficult for a catcher to even qualify for the batting title, let alone get to 600 PAs. 650 PA for a catcher is just insane.
So I looked into it. Kendall has eight seasons of 600+ PA and in seven of those eight years, the only position he played all year was catcher. In four of those seven years, he had an OBP of .399 or better. It turns out that in his entire career he's only started 27 games at a position other than catcher, and they all came in 2001.
The list of 600+ PA seasons with 90% of games played at catcher reads like this: Kendall 7, Carter 6, Pudge 4, Piazza 4, Simmons 4, Berra 4, nobody with 3.
The list of most PA in a season for a player who played 90% of his games at catcher reads like this: Simmons 690, Pudge 685, Porter 679, Kendall 678, Kendall 676, Carter 669, Kendall 665, Simmons 662, Kendall 658. So he has four of the top nine seasons.
I'm not even a Kendall fan; not saying the guy should go to the Hall of Fame or anything silly like that. Just thought this was pretty interesting stuff and thought that most of the people who would be inclined to read and post on this blog would find it interesting as well.
November 8th, 2010 at 9:04 pm
note that piazza had a season where he did it with only 475 pa. and another where had a .398 on base %.