Constructing an MLB Hall of Fame Pyramid: The Catcher Candidates
Identifying the best catcher for every season from 1900 through 2022
Over the next several months, I plan to reconstruct the MLB Hall of Fame from the ground up with some new wrinkles. First, the standards for a Hall of Famer will be raised. The doors will be locked for the “he was decent for a long time” stat compilers. Second, this means that the main criteria will be dominance. Borrowing from Bill James’ Keltner List, we are most interested in players that were regarded as the best player at their position for an extended stretch of time or who spent time in the conversation for best player in the league. Third, now borrowing from an old Bill Simmons idea, we don’t simply want a list of players who are Hall of Famers. We need a way to differentiate between the borderline entrants and the true legends of the game. We need a pyramid!
In this first round of articles, we will be going position by position and identifying the best player at a position for every season from 1900 through 2022. This will give us an initial list of candidates for the MLB Hall of Fame Pyramid.
Before jumping into the annual rankings of best catchers, a couple clarifications. What do we mean by “best” catcher in, let’s say 1955? What I don’t mean is “which catcher had the best season in 1955?” Rather, I’m trying to answer the question “at that point in time, who are we most confident was the best player at the position?” It’s closer to the classic hypothetical of “which guy would go first if we were picking teams on the playground?”
As we’ll see below, while Roy Campanella won the NL MVP in 1955 and led all catchers in WAR (wins above replacement), I still have Yogi Berra listed as the best catcher in baseball. Now, to Yogi’s credit, he won the AL MVP that season (what a year for catchers!), but Campanella’s offensive performance was far superior. Campanella was hurt in these rankings because he was coming off of an absolutely horrendous 1954 season, while Yogi was the reigning AL MVP and had another MVP and two other top five MVP finishes in the preceding seasons. Even though Campanella had the better 1955 season, it fell short of dethroning Yogi from the top of the position.
This of course identifies a weakness in choosing only one player to represent his position in a given season. It means that Roy Campanella only gets credit for three seasons as the best catcher, since he happened to play in the same era as Yogi Berra. Pudge Rodríguez experiences an even more extreme version of this. Pudge was arguably a top five catcher of all-time, but I have him listed as the best catcher in exactly zero seasons! Why? Pudge was in contention for best catcher from 1996-2004. Unfortunately for Rodríguez, a guy by the name of Mike Piazza was slightly better than Pudge from 1996-2002. By the time Piazza fades away, then Jorge Posada hits his peak and edges out Pudge in 2003 and 2004. Don’t shed too many tears for Rodríguez, as we’ll ultimately take this into account and push him to the next stage of consideration.
Year-by-Year Ranking of the Best Catcher
1900-1901: Ed McFarland
1902: Heinie Peitz
1903-1904: Johnny Kling
1905-1910: Roger Bresnahan
1911-1914: Jack Meyers
1915-1916: Art Wilson
1917-1922: Wally Schang
1923: Bob O’Farrell
1924-1926: Bubbles Hargrave
1927-1935: Mickey Cochrane
1936-1940: Bill Dickey
1941: Frankie Hayes
1942: Ernie Lombardi
1943: Bill Dickey
1944: Walker Cooper
1945-1946: Ernie Lombardi
1947: Aaron Robinson
1948: Walker Cooper
1949: Roy Campanella
1950: Yogi Berra
1951: Roy Campanella
1952: Yogi Berra
1953: Roy Campanella
1954-1958: Yogi Berra
1959: Sherm Lollar
1960: Del Crandall
1961-1964: Elston Howard
1965-1967: Joe Torre
1968-1969: Bill Freehan
1970-1977: Johnny Bench
1978: Carlton Fisk
1979-1986: Gary Carter
1987-1988: Ernie Whitt
1989-1990: Carlton Fisk
1991-1992: Mickey Tettleton
1993-1994: Darren Daulton
1995-2002: Mike Piazza
2003-2005: Jorge Posada
2006: Joe Mauer
2007: Jorge Posada
2008-2010: Joe Mauer
2011: Brian McCann
2012-2017: Buster Posey
2018-2021: Yasmani Grandal
2022: J.T. Realmuto
Hall of Fame Catchers that Missed the List
*Note: JAWS (Jay Jaffe’s WAR Score system) is a measure of a player's Hall of Fame “worthiness” based on WAR. It equals the average of a player’s career WAR and their 7-year peak WAR. The above table lists a player’s JAWS ranking among all catchers in baseball history.
Buck Ewing played entirely before 1900. That disqualifies him from our list.
Rick Ferrell had a very long career and made eight All Star teams, but he’s the type of player who gets hurt by the higher standards of this project. He was never in MVP contention, was never the best player at his position and was never more than a solid starter.
Josh Gibson played (and by “played” I mean “dominated”) in the Negro Leagues, which unfortunately makes him disqualified for now in the exercise. He clearly deserves to be included in the actual MLB Hall of Fame. We’ll circle back to Gibson in the coming weeks when we consider Negro League players. Same for Biz Mackey and Louis Santop.
Gabby Hartnett was edged out by the brief peak of Bubbles Hargrave’s career and then a decade of dominance by Hall of Famer Mickey Cochrane. Given Hartnett’s MVP award and long career among the best at his position, Hartnett clearly deserves consideration in our Hall of Fame Pyramid.
As discussed above, Iván Rodríguez deserves inclusion in the pool of candidates.
Similar to Rick Ferrell, Ray Schalk had a very nice career as a solid starter. He had a couple seasons where he was at least in the fringe MVP discussion, but that’s just not enough to cut it.
Ted Simmons’ career overlapped with the peaks of Johnny Bench, Carlton Fisk and Gary Carter. He never had a chance! Simmons clearly deserves consideration.
Candidates for Consideration in HoF Pyramid
Gabby Hartnett, Iván Rodríguez, Ted Simmons
Catchers that Topped Their Position
At this stage, all of these guys will automatically qualify for the next round of consideration. Most won’t make the final HoF Pyramid.
Some observations:
A round of applause for Mickey Cochrane. Nine straight seasons as the best catcher in baseball and two MVP awards jump-start a strong case to be ranked high on the HoF Pyramid.
If Roy Campanella didn’t exist, then Yogi probably has at least nine straight seasons as well. Of course, without Yogi, Campanella has six or seven seasons instead of three.
Buster Posey and Joe Mauer are two of the most recent players with long stretches of dominance (6 years and 4 years, respectively). Both also won MVP awards and have strong cases for Hall of Fame inclusion. The most recent player with multiple years of positional dominance is … Yasmani Grandal?!?!? Those years were not the high point of the catcher position. Spoiler alert: Grandal will not be making any level of our Hall of Fame Pyramid.
Joe Torre eventually made the MLB Hall of Fame as a manager, but the case for inclusion as a player appears strong.
Don’t sleep on Bill Freehan! He kind of snuck on this list due to a couple down seasons by Joe Torre right before Johnny Bench arrived on the scene. But, Freehan did have a couple Top 5 MVP finishes and another Top 10 MVP finish, as well as a handful of All Star appearances and Gold Gloves within his peak.
Brian McCann was overshadowed by Joe Mauer and Jorge Posada throughout his peak; however, the 2006-2013 Atlanta Braves version of Brian McCann was an outstanding player. This is the last we’ll speak of McCann, but he was worth highlighting.
Carlton Fisk sat atop the catcher rankings on three occasions; however, he was an unusual case. Fisk first appears as the best catcher in 1978, after Johnny Bench’s eight-year run comes to an end. Then Gary Carter immediately begins his eight-year run of dominance. You would think that, since he was already 30 years old in 1978, Fisk’s window had closed. But, Fisk has a short second peak in his early 40s that put him back atop the catcher position for the 1989 and 1990 seasons. Fisk even finished 15th in AL MVP voting in 1990, the third decade in which Fisk received MVP votes.
Stay tuned for the first base candidates!