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I think most people can agree that he's the best hitting catcher ever for both peak and career. Is that enough to make him the best catcher ever? How much does his below average defense hurt his case?
For what it's worth, I think his 9.3 WAR in 1997 may be the highest by a catcher ever.
I believe that Piazza is the number one catcher, and the people who list anyone else 1) overrate catcher defense 2) overrate how bad Piazza was on defense, concentrating only on his poor arm, and 3) compare him to how other catchers were at their BEST, and forget the fact that they were all inconsistent from season to season.
Piazza had pretty much everything working against him:
-He was in poor to mediocre lineups his entire career. Contrast this to ALL the other all time catchers, who were in incredible lineups. This undoubtedly helped them offensively. Put Piazza on the Big Red Machine or some of those Yankees and As teams, and he has Dimaggio type numbers. Maybe several 150 RBI seasons.
-He was killed by his home stadiums. Taking just his road stats, Piazza is probably a top 20 all time hitter, at ANY position. Put him in even an average hitting stadium, and his numbers would be much better.
-May be a minor thing, but he lost time due to the strike. Without it, he goes 30 100 .300 his first 9 seasons.
Even with all this working against him he still did not have an 'off' year until he was in his mid 30s. Other catchers alternated MVP type seasons with less than stellar ones, while Piazza had an MVP type season every year.
I think all of this is just too much for other catchers to overcome.
Last edited by willshad; 04-19-2012 at 01:03 AM.
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Looks like we finally agree on something.Originally Posted by willshad
I think Piazza had one of the greatest starts to a career ever, probably just as impressive as Pujols or Frank Thomas if you consider the position he played. Maybe even more impressive.
The funny thing is if he were the excellent defender that someone like Pudge Rodriguez was, there probably would be talk about him being one of the ten best players ever.
Last edited by fenrir; 04-19-2012 at 01:06 AM.
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Even if Piazza was just below average like Jorge Posada he might be the best catcher of his generation but Piazza was just absolutely awful
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Piazza certainly belongs in any serious discussion about best catcher. It's clear that he's the best hitting catcher in ML history. It also should be clear that his defense wasn't as bad as many make it out to be. That said, he didn't throw well, and in some eras that is a critical failing. If Piazza had come up in the 60s or 70s, I wonder what would have happened in those high octane base stealing days. It's possible that he would have been run out of the lineup, or at least forced to first base.
Based on that concern, I can't rank Piazza number 1.
A gametime decision
I would rate Bench and Campanella above Piazza on the strength of their defense. They weren't bad hitters, either.
"Can I throw harder than Joe Wood? Listen my friend, no man alive can throw harder than Smoky Joe Wood". - Walter Johnson, 1912 interview
xFIP?! I laugh at you!
From 1993-2002 Piazza averaged per 162 games:
.322/.389/.579, 154 OPS+, 41 HR, 126 RBI, 100 R, 192 H, 30 doubles, 66 BB, 94 K
For a decade Piazza hit like Johnny Mize as a catcher. Simply amazing.
Strikeouts are boring! Besides that, they're fascist. Throw some ground balls - it's more democratic.-Crash Davis
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Piazza hit the high heater very well too. Thus, he could have played in any era, imho. I watched a lot of him play during his prime. He's my favorite catcher of all-time. He's by far the best hitting catcher ever. However, he had a terrible thowing arm. I believe that he ruined his throwing arm like I did by lifting weights. I think I'd place him 3rd all-time. I.e, I look at how a guy could play in each era. If you move Piazza to the Dead Ball era, he's in big trouble. However, I have him as the best from 1920-1960s since teams didn't steal many bases during that era. Once the stolen base gets popular again, then he drops down in the rankings.
Circle of Bosses
yes, only because Josh Gibson never got to play in MLB
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Yep. Most WAR minimum 100 G at catcher:
Code:Rk Player WAR/pos OPS+ PA Year Age Tm Lg BA OBP SLG 1 Mike Piazza 9.3 185 633 1997 28 LAD NL .362 .431 .638 2 Johnny Bench 9.1 166 653 1972 24 CIN NL .270 .379 .541 3 Joe Mauer 8.7 134 633 2008 25 MIN AL .328 .413 .451 4 Darrell Porter 8.4 142 679 1979 27 KCR AL .291 .421 .484 5 Gary Carter 7.8 146 653 1982 28 MON NL .293 .381 .510 6 Johnny Bench 7.6 143 708 1974 26 CIN NL .280 .363 .507 7 Joe Mauer 7.5 170 606 2009 26 MIN AL .365 .444 .587 8 Darren Daulton 7.4 156 585 1992 30 PHI NL .270 .385 .524 9 Yogi Berra 7.3 142 596 1956 31 NYY AL .298 .378 .534 10 Chris Hoiles 7.2 162 503 1993 28 BAL AL .310 .416 .585 11 Roy Campanella 7.2 154 590 1953 31 BRO NL .312 .395 .611 12 Carlton Fisk 7.1 162 514 1972 24 BOS AL .293 .370 .538 13 Joe Mauer 7.0 144 608 2006 23 MIN AL .347 .429 .507 14 Mike Piazza 7.0 151 602 1993 24 LAD NL .318 .370 .561 15 Bill Freehan 7.0 145 635 1968 26 DET AL .263 .366 .454 16 Roy Campanella 7.0 159 562 1951 29 BRO NL .325 .393 .590 17 Carlton Fisk 6.8 138 632 1977 29 BOS AL .315 .402 .521 18 Gary Carter 6.7 138 633 1985 31 NYM NL .281 .365 .488 19 Gary Carter 6.7 143 669 1984 30 MON NL .294 .366 .487
Eradicate, wipe out and abolish redundancy.
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911%u00252Bmike%2Bpiazza.jpg
Piazza is my favorite player all-time, so yes - I say he is the best catcher all-time!
I remember when he was with the Mets. When he came to bat everyone in Shea would stop what they were doing and watch his AB to see if he'll homer. There were always tons of Piazza #31 Mets jerseys in the crowd. Even today, if you go to Citi Field you still see lots of people wearing it.
He was a complete hitter - could hit for average and power. I loved how he went to Center-Field and Right-Centerfield so much. As for as right-handed hitters go, Piazza's right there with the best of them.
As for his defense, lots of pitchers have praised Piazza for his game-calling and ability to block pitches in the dirt. His throwing was poor, but there are more important parts of being a catcher.
Piazza's biggest weakness was actually baserunning, not defense. He was slow! And he was apt to make a lot of blunders on the basepaths that cost the team outs. Newspapers in NY regularly killed him for it.
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Ivan Rodriguez, who is supposed to announce his retirement in the next few days, comes closer to fitting the desciption of the "best catcher ever" when you add his offense, defense and durability all together. However, Piazza will hold the record for the most home runs for a catcher for a long time. 396 of his 429 career home runs came as a catcher. A poor decision by Piazza to play his final season in the American League with Oakland, where he was used only as a designated hitter and never as a catcher ruined Piazza's bid to become the first player in history to reach 400 home runs as a catcher.
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Another thing you could add to the list is how he started so late. He turned 25 in his rookie season in 1993. Of all the great catchers, Piazza is the only one who came around so old.
Let's say he had started earlier, at around 22 years old - he might have had over 500 career homeruns.
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You make some very good points.
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I'll say he could. As a Yankee fan he scared the hell out of me in the last inning of the 5th and final game, 2000 World Series. With a man on and Mets down two runs Mike's fly to Bernie Williams in center ended the WS.
But I did notice and was really impressed he hit a deep fly ball off a Mariano Rivera fast ball. Impressed because the pitch was a high one, most hitters even strong hitters foul that back or pop it up.
Mike hit it a long way, how he got "on top" of such a high pitch and drove such a deep drive, strong guy.
Last edited by SHOELESSJOE3; 04-19-2012 at 03:35 PM.
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Going back to the opening question for the thread, I'd say, "No." No sound argument can be made for Mike Piazza being the best catcher ever. Here's why:
1. There is much more to catching than hitting a baseball. The entire confidence of a pitching staff rests with battery-mates; and there are seven other position players in addition to the catcher, who may be expected to hit. This is not to say that hitting isn't important - just that if you have great or very good defensive catchers who can also hit, you've got the best of both worlds.
2. There's nothing like comps to make a sound argument, if you just let the numbers do the talking. What I do, comparing position players, for total value, hitting + defense, is to address two functions:
a. batting runs created per plate appearance
b. defense runs +/- some standard of measure [in this case, AVERAGE].
c. get the net of the two and divide by total plate appearances to get a four decimal place production rate.
d. calculate TOTAL RUNS +/- average
e. determine a balanced and equitable number of games" to constitute a "season"
f. divide games at position to determine "seasons" at position
g. present total production as RUNS > Average and/or WINS > Average
I took 10 catchers, arguably the 10 best "ever" [modern game [1901-Present] and got these results:
Catcher............Batting Runs........Defense Runs.......Total Runs.........Runs/PA.........Runs > AVG......Wins > AVG
Hartnett..............1172..................226... .................1398............ .1916...............522.23............52.2
Dickey.................1177..................151.. ..................1328........... .1881...............480.9.............48.1
Cochrane.............1072...................- 3....................1069........... .1723...............324.7.............32.5
Campanella........... 755....................87......................842 ........... .1746...............442.2.............44.2
Berra...................1255..................102. ...................1357............ .1728...............612.4.............61.2
Piazza..................1321..................-65....................1256............ .1631...............326.11...........32.6
I-Rod...................1323..................144... .................1467............ .1511...............301.68...........30.2
Carter..................1160..................116. ...................1276............ .1415...............193.66...........19.4
Bench..................1246....................49. ...................1295............ .1493...............254.26...........25.4
Fisk.....................1343....................2 4....................1367............ .1387...............184.26...........18.4
One could just as easily take the four decimal net production rate and multiply it by 600 to get a net "seasonal" runs rate for each and leave it at that. I just provide the numbers; but I have a pretty good idea how I'd rank them - and Piazza is not #1.
Last edited by leewileyfan; 04-19-2012 at 08:13 PM.
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Pudge was/is better
Piazza's complete inability to control the running game made him a lousy defensive catcher. All of the objective metrics agree on this. Worst defensive catcher in history, by a good margin, of any catcher with a defensive career of substantial length.
Originally Posted by digglahhh
It's weird. One aspect of Piazza's defensive game was so bad that it actually undermines the fact that he was fine at all others. It's a very strange dynamic, but it is truly damning.
Generally speaking, throwing runners out is often overstated in terms of evaluating catcher defense, especially in this age, when SB attempts are down and offensive levels dictate you have to be successful at very high rate to justify it. It's possible to argue that Pudge actually commits the game theory sin too, by discouraging the running game so thoroughly, perhaps other teams are actually saving outs by not trying... Often, I feel that because defending the running game is the most easily quantified aspect of catcher D, it is given disproportionate consideration in the overall equation. In Piazza's case though it's probably justified to weight this deficiency so heavily. It was only made worse with a nibbler like Al Leiter on the mound too.
A catcher is involved in defense every pitch when there's a runner on, whether the ball is put in play or not. If you are Manny Ramirez, maybe you only have to field three balls all day. Maybe a good amount of your plays are routine, and it is only once every three or four games that there is a play you can't make that an average outfielder does. It's easy, relatively, for a bat like Manny's to make that up, and then some. If Piazza allows three extra bases and undermines a double play, that's alot of bases/outs to make up in four or five trips to the plate! Baseball is a game of failure, so many of those events won't come back to haunt the Mets (though neither will many of his offensive success actually translate to runs), but it is also a game of inches, and small statistical advantages.
Kobe Bryant isn't the best player in the NBA because he puts up 30 a night, he's the best player in the NBA because even if he's matched up with an All Star, he's going to outscore his man by a nice margin. I love Mike Piazza, he's a no-brainer HOFer, and his defensive inadequacy was indeed the product of a single fatal flaw. Single, yes, but fatal nonetheless.
Originally Posted by digglahhh
Piazza was terrible at throwing out runners. He was completely adequate otherwise, I mean there wasn't anything about his ability to block bad pitches, field bunts, or catch foul pop-ups that made me sit up and ask what the hell he's doing out there.
With that said, Piazza's complete inability to stop the running game was a huge problem. One can only be glad that the SB wasn't being used as a huge weapon in the era Piazza played in.
It's one thing not to be able to throw guys out very well. It's another to be so powerless to stop basestealing that non-basestealers swipe with impunity. I wonder if double play rates were lower than expected for his teams, after accounting for staff tendencies and defensive quality. I can't even count how many times, especially post, say, sixth inning opposing teams would just steal whenever they got a runner on and were trailing in a close game to prevent the DP. It also was a disincentive for teams to bunt when bases could be stolen virtually at will. Since bunting is often misused, and a poor percentage play, Piazza was committing one of the cardinal sins of game theory by causing a poorly playing opponent to alter his strategy to a better one as a response to your play.
People want to hold it against Piazza that he couldn't throw out runners, and that's fine...but it seems that he was not much worse at it than some other guys, who aren't crucified for it. Jorge Posada, for instance. he was just a tiny shade better at throwing out base stealers than Piazza, but you don't see it being brought up all the time. The poster above me is vastly overrating how important stelas were during this particular era, and overrating how many steals Piazza was actually giving up. He was making it seem like opposing teams were getting 4-5 steals a game.
The bottom line is, Piazza was throwing out only about 1/4 of the baserunners attempting to steal, but his managers really did not care. he handled pitchers well, and fielded OK otherwise. he also gave them a HUGE advantage over other teams, by putting the best hitter in the league at the position that generally has the worst hitters. Even taking into account his poor throwing, he is still move valuable than a guy like Pujols, who is giving you great hitting from a position where everyone hits well. His managers knew that he could have been a first baseman from the start, and had even better numbers, had a longer career, and played more games per season...but they kept him at catcher.
Last edited by willshad; 04-19-2012 at 10:39 PM.
People's judgement gets really clouded over the stolen bases. From 1993 to 2006 the NL averaged .94 steal attempts per game and it was that low because of the 2000's. From 1993 to 1999 the average steal attempt per game in the NL was 1.08.
The .94 steal attempt per game average for the NL from 1993 to 2006 is vastly higher than any 14 year average with a starting point from 1951 through 1966. For instance if Piazza had played from 1966 to 1979 in the NL the league's stolen base attempt per game was at .89. So Mike Pizza most certainly could have played catcher in the 60's and 70's.
From 1968 to 1993 the attempts per game are higher and often time much higher. 1976 to about 1997 is the high water mark for attempted steals of the last 60 years. Piazza for half his career played in a historically high steal attempt environment and he managed to come out of it just fine. People ran on him, he threw some of them out, many he did not, and his opponents still weren't putting up a lot of runs because of it.
Piazza, for his career, gunned down 23.2% of would be base stealers. The NL over that time caught 31% of would be base stealers. If he had that success rate he would have thrown out 149 more runners if they ran at the same rate on him. But here is the kicker. From 1992 to 1999 Piazza caught 26% of would be base stealers while the average NL catcher still threw out 31%. So during those years of high stolen base attempts Piazza wasn't as bad as he was later on his career when the league wasn't running as much.
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I would say his defense while maybe not being as terrible as some people say costs him that spot. He had -8 d war. Bench had 70 war and Rodriguez and Fisk had 67. Piazza has 59 war so he comes really close with only a neutral career and possibly on top as an above average defender.
I think walks are overrated unless you can run. If you get a walk and put the pitcher in a stretch, that helps, but the guy who walks and can’t run, most of the time he’s clogging up the bases for somebody who can run. – Dusty Baker.
People ran a ton on Ted Simmons and Gary Carter and nobody says a thing about that.
20% of Bench's PA came at a position besides catcher. 12% of Piazza's PA came at a position besides catcher. Unfortunately for us neither Sean Smith nor Sean Forman breakdown WAR totals by position.
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No, not even close. His offense? 106 career ops+ / 104 rc+? What offense?
Pudge was a good hitter during his prime, but he played so long, and had so many mediocre-bad seasons that it brought down his OPS+. The seven years from 1998-2004 he had at least a 120 OPS+ every season. he was as good a hitter during this time as a guy like Posada, who is known for his hitting.
That said, I consider Pudge to be like the Brooks Robinson of catchers. A really long career, a LOT of defensive value, and pretty good hitting value. He is an easy hall of famer, but not really in the top 5 all time at the position.
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My take- based solely on ML careers:
1. Bench, just ahead of
2. Berra, then a bit of a gap to
3. Piazza, just ahead of a group including Cochrane, Campanella, Dickey, maybe Hartnett, maybe Carter, maybe....
If you think about and give some credit for years lost to segregation,
T1. Bench and Roy Campanella
3. Berra
4. Piazza
I'm not including Gibson in the discussion since he never played MLB.
As I said before, Piazza's not as bad defensively as many say except for his distinctly sub-par throwing, but that's enough to keep him out of the top spots.
Last edited by BigRon; 04-20-2012 at 12:08 PM.
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