Okay, now we need someone behind the plate (or else there would be a lot of passed balls). Your all-time catcher is ...
| Johnny Bench |  45 (38.46%) |
| Yogi Berra | 18 (15.38%) |
| Roy Campanella | 2 (1.71%) |
| Mickey Cochrane | 1 (0.85%) |
| Bill Dickey | 1 (0.85%) |
| Carlton Fisk | 3 (2.56%) |
| Gabby Hartnett | 2 (1.71%) |
| Mike Piazza | 12 (10.26%) |
| Ivan Rodriguez | 28 (23.93%) |
| Other (who?) | 5 (4.27%) |
Interesting to see a few ex-Jays on the top 100...
Lance Parrish at #16, Benito Santiago at #28, Andy Ashby #77, and at #98, everyone's favorite, the only one who would wear a Blue Jay cap to the HOF (if the HOF went insane and induced him) Ernie Whitt.
Piazza is pretty clearly the greatest hitter to ever play the position, and I have always thought that the complaints about his defense were somewhat overstated. OK, he doesn't throw very well but I seem to remember the Minnesota Twins winning a world championship with Brian Harper behind the plate. Harper threw about as well as I do. And this wasn't in the 1950s, when no one was stealing bases - he played in the same league at the same time as the greatest base stealer who ever lived.
But still... this is a key defensive position. Among the contenders, the best defensive players are Bench, Rodriguez, and possibly Campanella. Bench redefined how the position was played, and Pudge II plays it just as well. (Back in the fall, Mike Green and I spent some time trying to measure the impact of Bench and Rodriguez on opposing base stealers. As far as I could tell, Bench was somewhat more intimidating than Pudge II as far as discouraging stolen base attempts, but Pudge was even more successful than Bench at actually throwing out runners. Which is a much bigger deal.) But even if you give Rodriguez a slight edge for defense, Bench was a far superior offensive player. Not as consistent a hitter from year to year as Rodriguez, granted - but he was a mighty offensive force. Rodriguez had some fine home run years at the end of his Texas stint, but for much of his career he's been little more than an average offensive player.
Pretty well everything we say about Bench could also be said about Campanella. It's somewhat difficult to get a good handle on Campy's career - it was unnaturally shortened at both ends, and while his defensive reputation is excellent, it's also true that people weren't trying to steal bases on anybody in the 1950s.
Anyway, I'm voting for someone else.
How to decide? Well, if I were going into a season, who would I want behind the plate? Bench or Campanella might hit 40 homers and drive in 130 runs. But they also might hit .230 with 15 homers They seemed to alternate between one type of year and the other. Pudge II might miss 50 games - he did that three years in a row.
So I'll take the guy who I know is going to be an MVP candidate (finished Top 4 in MVP voting seven years in a row), the guy I know is going to be among the league leaders in homers and RBI, the guy I know is going to be in the lineup, the guy I know is going to somehow get pennant-winning pitching out of a bunch of guys who either look no more impressive than Josh Towers (Ed Lopat? Tom Morgan? Johnny Kucks?), or can't throw strikes to save their lives (Bob Turley, Tommy Byrne, even Allie Reynolds.)
I voted "other", supporting Josh Gibson. That might be against the spirit of this exercise, but I've had enough baseball historians tell me that he was the best ever that I now go along with that....
Josh Gibson.
It's not close.
Gibson's value over the #2 catcher (probably Bench), compared to the value of all the other #1 players at their positions over their respective #2s combined, is probably more (if you could quanitfy that value). Josh, in terms of the impact he had on any one game, is one of the two or three best players ever. Maybe the best. I can assure you, if we were in heaven choosing up teams, and I had the #1 pick, I'd pick Josh without a qualm over Babe Ruth.
And they said that heaven was a place where nothing ever happens. One thing I know for sure is they wouldn't be having a debate over whether the Negro Leagues had better ball than MLB in the 20s or 30s. It is difficult to know how good Gibson was because of the paucity of records. There is a pretty good argument from the records we do have that he was the best Negro League player ever, which bearing in mind the career arcs of Jackie Robinson and Hank Aaron, makes him a likely candidate to be the best catcher ever.
Of course, these are hypothetical numbers, which may not be a great approximation to real seasons (I don't know where to get career numbers for this), but it seems to me that the best case for a catcher's throwing arm might not be the guy who scares everyone from trying and throws out a high percentage. An above average arm who doesn't stop the opponents from trying would seem to possibly work out better.
For instance, Jorge Posada had 102 attempts against him last year, 64 steals, throwing out 38 (37%). Ivan Rodriguez had 51 attempts, 25 steals and threw out 26 (51%). So Posada allowed 39 extra steals, but recorded 12 more outs, which by coincidence (I swear) matches up almost exactly with my above hypothetical difference, with a 76% success rate on the "extra" attempts. Were the Yankees worse off by not "controlling" the running game? I don't think that's clear just from a basic analysis.
Because possibly the best thing about preventing the stolen base is keeping the double play in order.
One thing I know for sure is they wouldn't be having a debate over whether the Negro Leagues had better ball than MLB in the 20s or 30s.
Darn right... they'll play the games. Huzzah!
It is difficult to know how good Gibson was because of the paucity of records.
I don't buy this - we know in general how good Josh Gibson was, we just don't know down to pounds, shillings, and pence. Gibson was the premier home run hitter of the 1930s, a subject on which just about every authority agrees. He did things with a bat that no one else has ever done. His statistical record, which is fairly extensive though obviously incomplete, marks him out as the premier hitter of the decade as well. He also tested himself against a wider variety of competition than any of his peers, playing not just in the organized Negro Leagues but also in Cuba, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico and against white major league all-star teams (Josh hit over .420 against white major leaguers).
There is a pretty good argument from the records we do have that he was the best Negro League player ever, which bearing in mind the career arcs of Jackie Robinson and Hank Aaron, makes him a likely candidate to be the best catcher ever.
Well, Josh was a good receiver but was also far and away the best hitter to play in his leagues. That you can show statistically, with Josh winning batting titles and leading his leagues in home runs by miles, all over the place. No other catcher has ever come close to being the best hitter in his leagues over an extended period of time, with Piazza probably coming the closest. It would be extremely odd if Josh Gibson weren't the best catcher of all time - it would mean that the organized Negro Leagues were a distinctly inferior competition to what most historians now believe them to have been (and by extension the Caribbean leagues that Josh dominated during the winters as well as in 1937 and 1940-41).
Generally, Mike, I agree with what you're saying. We can't know with certainty, which is annoying, but as I said I'm more comfortable in my judgment of Josh as the best ever than I am any other player at another position (even including Honus). I'd pick him #1 in that theoretical draft because of position scarcity, and the fact that he appears in the same ballpark as Ruth as a hitter.