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Post by kaybli on Jul 17, 2019 9:46:34 GMT -5
I have to agree. Chi is the man! All take note that Kaybli has agreed with my post and has now promised to build us a multi-billion dollar structure for our Hall of Fame... (:  |
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Post by inger on Jul 17, 2019 9:51:45 GMT -5
All take note that Kaybli has agreed with my post and has now promised to build us a multi-billion dollar structure for our Hall of Fame... (: Laughing all the way to the bank to get the money. I’m impressed!... |
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Post by rizzuto on Jul 17, 2019 10:02:43 GMT -5
For anyone under the age of about 60, the most vivid image they have of Elston Howard is as the guy in the dugout trying to make sure Reggie Jackson and Billy Martin didn't come to blows when Billy pulled Reggie from the game in the middle of an inning. Elston was no speed burner, but he was very nimble behind the plate and a good glove guy. He played a decent left field as well. I have often marveled at Bill Dickey’s numbers and argued back and forth in my mind whether Dickey may have been better than Berra. One thing I do remember is that Thurman was an excellent base runner, much quicker and athletic on the base-paths than someone of his shape and size should have been. He was an aggressive base runner, and was rarely thrown out taking an extra base. Same behind the plate. I recall one season he threw out 54 percent of base runners! And, that was in the 70s, when every team had a burner and ran much more than today. In 1971, Munson had only one error (read that again) and that came when he was knocked unconscious from a home plate collision (much different game)! Lastly, a couple weekends ago, I was reviewing all time offensive leaders and OPS+. I was horrified by some of the rankings, mediocre players ranked above some that I know were excellent hitters and players. It made me think that something was askew with respect to the algorithms used for comparing players across eras. I don’t have time today, but I’ll list some alarming examples later. |
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Post by inger on Jul 17, 2019 10:26:07 GMT -5
That OPS reference would be a fun get. Please try to remember...
This reminds me a bit of my recent quest for information that I found recently while researching information for the 2B thread. I was looking at several sites that showed all-time mlb 2B to see where the Uankee stars ranked on those lists. When I kept finding Rod Carew near the top (usually around #5 or so). I loved Carew, but he was not at all a good fielding 2B. And even though he was an impressive contact hitter for most of his career he showed little power. Finally, despite his SB totals, he was far from a proficient base thief, being thrown out way too frequently.
What all this meant to me was that those sites were not giving much consideration to defense, nor even all of the parts of an offensive game that were meaningful to success...
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Post by pippsheadache on Jul 17, 2019 11:23:31 GMT -5
rizzuto said :
I have often marveled at Bill Dickey’s numbers and argued back and forth in my mind whether Dickey may have been better than Berra. One thing I do remember is that Thurman was an excellent base runner, much quicker and athletic on the base-paths than someone of his shape and size should have been. He was an aggressive base runner, and was rarely thrown out taking an extra base. Same behind the plate. I recall one season he threw out 54 percent of base runners! And, that was in the 70s, when every team had a burner and ran much more than today. In 1971, Munson had only one error (read that again) and that came when he was knocked unconscious from a home plate collision (much different game)!
Lastly, a couple weekends ago, I was reviewing all time offensive leaders and OPS+. I was horrified by some of the rankings, mediocre players ranked above some that I know were excellent hitters and players. It made me think that something was askew with respect to the algorithms used for comparing players across eras. I don’t have time today, but I’ll list some alarming examples later.[/quote]
I screwed up editing the quote. Anyway,good points on Munson, Rizz. He always seemed to have great situational awareness. It seemed like he rarely did anything stupid.
I hear you on the stat issue. I love OPS+ as a measuring stick, but in a vacuum it can be as misleading as any other stat. I just glanced at the all-time OPS+ leaderboard, and even comparing contemporaries it gives what my lying eyes would consider skewed results.
Lance Berkman, for example. Nice player, well up on the list. But listed ahead of Miguel Cabrera, Albert Pujols, David Ortiz, Chipper Jones and A-Rod, to name a few whose careers largely overlapped with his. In his case, I guess you could say he played fewer decline-phase games. But it can be tricky with how the stats are used and prioritized.
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Post by noetsi on Jul 17, 2019 16:32:25 GMT -5
That OPS reference would be a fun get. Please try to remember... This reminds me a bit of my recent quest for information that I found recently while researching information for the 2B thread. I was looking at several sites that showed all-time mlb 2B to see where the Uankee stars ranked on those lists. When I kept finding Rod Carew near the top (usually around #5 or so). I loved Carew, but he was not at all a good fielding 2B. And even though he was an impressive contact hitter for most of his career he showed little power. Finally, despite his SB totals, he was far from a proficient base thief, being thrown out way too frequently. What all this meant to me was that those sites were not giving much consideration to defense, nor even all of the parts of an offensive game that were meaningful to success... I think its hard to quantify defense relative to offense. Or to create a common scale to measure both. |
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Post by inger on Jul 17, 2019 16:50:13 GMT -5
That OPS reference would be a fun get. Please try to remember... This reminds me a bit of my recent quest for information that I found recently while researching information for the 2B thread. I was looking at several sites that showed all-time mlb 2B to see where the Uankee stars ranked on those lists. When I kept finding Rod Carew near the top (usually around #5 or so). I loved Carew, but he was not at all a good fielding 2B. And even though he was an impressive contact hitter for most of his career he showed little power. Finally, despite his SB totals, he was far from a proficient base thief, being thrown out way too frequently. What all this meant to me was that those sites were not giving much consideration to defense, nor even all of the parts of an offensive game that were meaningful to success... I think its hard to quantify defense relative to offense. Or to create a common scale to measure both. It’s definitely not easy. There are some scalable numbers that we can look at. The best way is to do the numbers relative to the peer group from the player’s era. It’s not cool proof, but that is the best we can do, along with getting reports from reliable sources...Nothing is perfect, but it can still be fun attempting to meet the challenge... Once again, blessed to be Uankee fans, we can’tvreally Go wrong... |
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Post by inger on Jul 18, 2019 0:55:35 GMT -5
Dang. I went through a lot of numbers tonight to look at a bundle of catchers so I could do a lot of confirming and denying what others have said, as in the Grandforks thread from the mid 2000s and on various web sites proclaiming the top five, six or ten catchers.
Here are the eliminated names as I am trying to narrow this down to anyone that could possibly deserve mention in an extended (maybe to 6 or 7) top five. If anyone has objections, please speak your piece.
Gary Sanchez has not served long enough, nor has he played enough games at catcher. At the end of the process, it might be cool to see how he’s stacking up thus far.
Rick Cerone is one many web site lists that were created by people who would apparently like to rate his single very good season. I could not get past his total Yankees OPS+ of 80, nor the fact that after his first season in NY, something must have happened to his arm. That first year he was great at throwing runners out, but the rest of his years in NY he couldn’t catch nuns on their Sunday stroll.
Joe Girardi. Really? A Yankee 72 OPS + with middling at best control of the running game? I hated him already for blocking Posada for so long...Now, I hate him more.
Mike Stanley had a four year tenure, and believe it or not he also had the single highest OPS+ in his four years in NY of any catcher I checked. It was 134! Dickey and Berra came in at 127 and 125. The short-tenure was a bit of an issue, but even worse was that the defensive metrics more than backed up the fact that he was bat-first with a nice 26.9 WAR over the four years (6.73 per year), but his defensive WAR was the only negative one I encountered among this group at <-5.2>, or <-1.3> per season as his CS stats lagged behind league average.
Brian McCann. Three years 99 OPS +. His mom would probably tell him it’s not enough.
Jake Gibbs. 81 OPS+ and really nothing special about his defense.
Aaron Robinson. See Jake Gibbs.
Red Kleinow. He was near the bottom of Grandforks top ten with a 71 OPS+. Seemed like a participation trophy for Red, who was mostly the #2 Yankee catcher way back in the dead ball era for 11 years with a .213 lifetime average. Love ya’ Grandforks, but I can’t buy that.
Ed Sweeney. Also plucked from near the bottom of Grandforks list with a 73 OPS +. Was he a clone of Kleinow?
Matt Nokes. I didn’t see him on any lists, but wanted to give him his due. I lied when I said Stanley was the only negative WAR guy. Not by much though. Nokes was at <-0.1> for his 4+ seasons to go along with 6.4 o-WAR and a 103 OPS+
That’s going to leave us with:
Berra
Posada
Munson
Dickey
Howard
Schang
Wynegar
Yeah. Wynegar was not on any of the lists I found. Short-tenured, 106 OPS+, decent defensive stats. Not a chance in Hell of being in the top five, but I have know.., is he better than Wally Schang?...
Comments welcome as always. I used the time from the rainout, and spent several hours on this and surely won't turn down help...it was 100 degrees here again, so after I got home I sat up the sprinklers and stayed into cool off after a long day in the sun...
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Post by greatfatness on Jul 18, 2019 11:07:00 GMT -5
Well since you brought up Matt Nokes.... community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19980724&slug=2762744Mascots be warned: Don't play the heavy around Matt Nokes. The former All-Star catcher, 34, who plays for the St. Paul Saints of the independent Northern League, attacked a mascot who wouldn't stop jumping on his team's plywood dugout during a game against the Goldeyes in Winnipeg. The Goldeyes said Nokes chased and choked the mascot with a broomstick. The mascot, whom the team wouldn't name, was not injured and Nokes wasn't charged, said Jonathan Green, a Goldeye spokesman. Nokes was suspended for one game and fined $25. |
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Post by inger on Jul 18, 2019 18:38:12 GMT -5
Well since you brought up Matt Nokes.... community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19980724&slug=2762744Mascots be warned: Don't play the heavy around Matt Nokes. The former All-Star catcher, 34, who plays for the St. Paul Saints of the independent Northern League, attacked a mascot who wouldn't stop jumping on his team's plywood dugout during a game against the Goldeyes in Winnipeg. The Goldeyes said Nokes chased and choked the mascot with a broomstick. The mascot, whom the team wouldn't name, was not injured and Nokes wasn't charged, said Jonathan Green, a Goldeye spokesman. Nokes was suspended for one game and fined $25. Can you imagine how wonderful it would be to be sitting on a wooden dugout with a mascot thumping around over your head? Then imagine that shit AFTER you’ve been a MLB player, coddled and kissed constantly... |
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Post by inger on Jul 18, 2019 18:40:50 GMT -5
Anyone mind if I put Stanley back in the discussion? I’m thinking that would give us eight catchers, and we could pick first team through fourth team...
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Post by kaybli on Jul 18, 2019 19:24:52 GMT -5
Well since you brought up Matt Nokes.... community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19980724&slug=2762744Mascots be warned: Don't play the heavy around Matt Nokes. The former All-Star catcher, 34, who plays for the St. Paul Saints of the independent Northern League, attacked a mascot who wouldn't stop jumping on his team's plywood dugout during a game against the Goldeyes in Winnipeg. The Goldeyes said Nokes chased and choked the mascot with a broomstick. The mascot, whom the team wouldn't name, was not injured and Nokes wasn't charged, said Jonathan Green, a Goldeye spokesman. Nokes was suspended for one game and fined $25. |
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Post by utahyank on Jul 18, 2019 19:32:46 GMT -5
I have a comment that I hope might lead to some enlightened discussion from this august group....it is a given that the Yankees have been blessed with some great catchers down through history, but also have the Yankees not spread a lot of catching talent to other clubs?....Aaron Robinson got me thinking of that because he caught for the Tigers for a good while....Jim Hegan with Indians...Clint Coutrney….I could probably come up with a few more, but I would like to let you guys reminisce and maybe comment on some former Yankees who went on to catch in the majors...
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Post by inger on Jul 18, 2019 19:41:04 GMT -5
I have a comment that I hope might lead to some enlightened discussion from this august group....it is a given that the Yankees have been blessed with some great catchers down through history, but also have the Yankees not spread a lot of catching talent to other clubs?....Aaron Robinson got me thinking of that because he caught for the Tigers for a good while....Jim Hegan with Indians...Clint Coutrney….I could probably come up with a few more, but I would like to let you guys reminisce and maybe comment on some former Yankees who went on to catch in the majors... Sure. Sherman Lollar is probably one of baseball’s most under rated stars. Brad Ausmus was never much with the bat, but he played Forever and was strong behind the dish...I’m sure there are more... |
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Post by pippsheadache on Jul 18, 2019 19:47:58 GMT -5
I have a comment that I hope might lead to some enlightened discussion from this august group....it is a given that the Yankees have been blessed with some great catchers down through history, but also have the Yankees not spread a lot of catching talent to other clubs?....Aaron Robinson got me thinking of that because he caught for the Tigers for a good while....Jim Hegan with Indians...Clint Coutrney….I could probably come up with a few more, but I would like to let you guys reminisce and maybe comment on some former Yankees who went on to catch in the majors... Sure. Sherman Lollar is probably one of baseball’s most under rated stars. Brad Ausmus was never much with the bat, but he played Forever and was strong behind the dish...I’m sure there are more... Also Gus Triandos. Not sure if Curt Blefary counts, but he had his moments. If memory serves, he started as a catcher but moved to OF. |
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