Yadi Molina

Tonight was a big night for baseball in terms of personal awards. The major award finalists were announced, including both AL and NL Rookie of the Year, Manager of the Year, Cy Young, and MVPs, as well as all of the Gold Glove award winners. My Tigers were shutout from wins for another year, but the Orioles (3 winners), Royals (3), and Rockies (2) all had excellent showings.

Here's what really grasped me though. Yadier Molina, Cardinals catcher and the youngest of the Molina Catching Trio (Bengie, left, Jose, center, Yadier, right; all photos are courtesy of Baseball Reference)

won his 7th consecutive NL Gold Glove for catching tonight. Both Bengie and Jose won a World Series ring with the Angels in 2002, and with Yadi's win with the 2006 Cardinals, they became the first trio of brothers to ever win World Series rings. How fun would that be at Thanksgiving? 

But back to Yadi. I have a bold claim to make about him. This is bolder than bold Chex Mix;

it's bolder than when I remove my contacts shortly after eating hot wings; ladies and gentlemen this claim is bolder than Colorado (sweet mercy I hope someone gets that joke):

Yadier Molina is the best catcher of our generation.

(See I even put it in boldface type just in case you didn't hear me that it was bold.)

Yes, he's even better than Ivan Rodriguez. Now, Yadi is only 31 and has many more years of catching ahead of him, especially if he finds the fountain of youth like Pudge, who caught up to age 39 for the Nationals. Through age 31, Pudge had 10 Gold Gloves and a higher batting average than Yadi, but let's look a little deeper.

First, Yadi has a higher catching fielding percentage than Pudge. Through 11 seasons, he has a .994 fielding percentage and only 53 errors. Pudge's career fielding percentage is .991, still excellent, with 142 errors. Even if Yadi were to catch for 10 more years, essentially doubling his service time, his projection would jump just barely over 100 career errors, considerably fewer than Pudge. Pudge's cannon was great to have because he kept runners close and nabbed anything that moved, but that came to backfire at times with the ball trickling away from fielders or simply airmailing them. And even with Pudge's absurd 88 career pickoffs, let me tell you a secret: Yadi has 52 career pickoffs, and is on pace to pass him. Pudge got there faster, but Yadi has proven to be more consistent. 

Not just with pickoffs, but caught stealing percentage, too. Pudge led the league multiple times, but who was stealing bases? In 2001, Pudge caught 60% of base runners, a career high, but the AL steals leaders that year were Ichiro (487 career), Roger Cedeno (213), Alfonso Soriano (I know, right? 289), Mark McLemore (272), and Chuck Knoblauch (407). Of the top 5, Pudge only threw them out 3 times out of 9 chances throughout the 2001 season.

It was not a strong stealing class compared to Yadi's career high of 64% in 2005, when the NL steals leaders were Jose Reyes (455 career steals), Juan Pierre (614), Jimmy Rollins (453), Ryan Freel (only 143), and Willy Taveras (only 195 career, but 68 in 2008). Of the top 5 NL base stealers, Yadi threw them out 57.1% of the time, or 4 caught stealing out of 7 attempts.

This is the first thing I uploaded to the blog, even before any text. It's probably looped 1500 times now and gets better every time.

So Yadi's career high 64% is better than Pudge's career high 60%, it was against a higher quality selection of thieves, and he threw them out more than Pudge threw out the top 5. Pretty convincing if you ask me.

Second, look at leadership. Yadi doesn't only have 2 World Series rings, but he's also caught much better pitchers and made them better pitchers. The following stats and individual successes all come under Molina as the primary Cardinals starting catcher:

• Adam Wainwright: 2 CYA runner-ups, 3 ASGs, career highs in wins, ERA, CG, shutouts, WHIP
• Chris Carpenter: CYA, 3 ASGs, career highs in W, CG, lows in ERA, WHIP
• Edwin Jackson: 3rd lowest ERA, highest winning percentage 
• Jason Marquis: career ERA in 2004
• Kyle Lohse: Only top 10 CYA voting, career highs in wins, winning percentage, his only sub 3 ERA, and lowest career WHIP

While Pudge didn't have great pitchers to begin with, he didn't make them much better, either.

• Kenny Rogers - career high in wins was not with Pudge, lowest starting ERA was with Oakland
• Aaron Sele - lowest ERA was with Boston
• Kevin Brown - for the first player ever to sign a $100 million contract, he only had a career high in wins under Pudge; his careers in WHIP and ERA were with the Marlins
• Rick Helling - only had career high wins

You may argue that Yadi was given better pitchers talent wise. Then I would counter with Kyle Lohse's 2012 performance, something he has never duplicated in his career, or Jason Marquis who was always around, but never really great, while Pudge had some solid pitchers that blossomed after they had a different catcher. Maybe he had a different training regimen where they improved later. 

Pudge is the better offensive catcher, there is no doubt about that. However, Yadi's offense has improved vastly the last 5 years and if it weren't for a nasty thumb ligament injury that limited his swinging ability in 2014, he probably could have hit above .300 for the fourth straight year. After age 31, Pudge slowly began to trend downward offensively, though he had some peaks in the remaining 8 years. If Molina continues on his upward trend (.262 in 2010 to .319 in 2013), he could push his career average close to .290 (sitting at .284 right now). I think because of the offensive numbers and just how many times he led the league in caught stealing percentage, he'll be remembered as a better catcher, but he also played in the steroid era when steals were an ancient stat.

Pudge's thoughts towards Yadi.

Molina, especially playing in the NL and for manager La Russa, is of the small ball school, where catchers have to be quick and catlike rather than just have a great arm to not only throw runners out but to call pitches, know batters and runner tendencies, and then turn around and hit. 

With 6 All-Star games, 7 straight Gold Gloves (2 Platinum), and 2 rings, Molina is authoring an impressive Hall of Fame resume. However, knowing that chicks and writers dig the longball, Yadi's .284 career average and only 1297 hits through 11 years is not quite legendary quality. But we never know what the future holds; Yadi could blossom into a .300 hitter and rewrite the offensive history books for catchers. But for now, I hope you agree with me through my research that Yadi Molina is the best catcher of the three Molinas and of this generation. 

Thanks for reading. 

The Hall of Fame Era

A couple weeks ago, we got my grandmother a cell phone. As she was programming it, she blurted a phrase that I think is incredibly true, not just for life in general, but especially for baseball: "What a time to be alive."

When I was at the HOF last summer, I learned that if players aren't voted in, they can make it in the Hall on the Era Based Committee. Each different year is dedicated to a different era in which players can get another chance. The three main eras (so far) are pre-integration (beginning to 1947), the Golden Era (1947-1973), and then the now (1973-present). Given that the current era is expanding to more than 40 years, I think its time for a new era.

A lot of writers and baseball purists would label today as the Steroid Era. I mean, it makes perfect sense given the beefy guys like Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire who have owned up to it, and then there are guys like Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds who have fought it tooth and nail to clear their name but no matter what they do, people will blacklist them. In the early 2000s, it seemed that nearly every slugger was dirty (with the exception of Griffey) and unfortunately, nowadays, the big hitters are accused of juicing. Chris Davis's breakout 2013 was questioned, Jose Bautista's breakout 2010 was questioned, heck even Josh Hamilton has been accused sometimes. It all makes sense though, because today's All Stars are yesterday's criminals. Ryan Braun and Nelson Cruz, both of whom are excelling at the plate this year, were suspended last year. Jhonny Peralta, who was suspended last year, signed a $50 million contract; juicers are still alive and well in the game today. 

It may be cheesy, but there has to be bad in the world so the good can shine through. Rather than name this the Steroid Era, however, I think we should call this the Hall of Fame Era. We are living in one of the greatest generations that baseball has ever seen. Within the next few years, we'll be seeing massive induction classes to the Hall of Fame. 

This upcoming induction in July will have six members; three managers (Cox, Torre, La Russa) and three players (Thomas, Glavine, Maddux), the biggest BBWAA class since 1999. In the last 50 years, the BBWAA has elected three players only 5 times - but in the next 5 years, it should happen every year. Just look at these next few years (who I'm listing is who I'm predicting will be inducted):
2015: Randy Johsnon, Pedro Martinez, John Smoltz, Craig Biggio (missed by 2 votes last year)

2016: Ken Griffey, Jr., Trevor Hoffman, Billy Wagner

2017: Ivan Rodriguez, Vlad Guerrero, Manny Ramirez (if the writers can see past his antics)

2018: Chris Carpenter, Omar Vizquel, Chipper Jones, Scott Rolen, Jim Thome

The players I have listed I think are absolute locks. We aren't even getting into the argument zones, because there are at least ten other players who could make it if the stars align. Guys like Lee Smith, Alan Trammell, Tim Raines, and Mike Piazza are all eligible candidates. And then don't even get me started on the players currently. Well, too bad, you got me started.

Here's my list of current players that will be Hall of Fame locks off the top of my head: Don Kelly, Derek Jeter, Big Papi, Miguel Cabrera, Mariano Rivera, Yadier Molina, Adrian Beltre, Clayton Kershaw, Justin Verlander, Felix Hernandez, Dustin Pedroia, Albert Pujols, Robinson Cano, Joey Votto, Craig Kimbrel, Andrew McCutchen

Here's my list of players that have a shot: Joe Mauer,  Carlos Gonzalez, David Wright, CC Sabathia, Tim Hudson, Adam Wainwright, David Price, Billy Butler, Joe Nathan, Carlos Beltran

And then there's the young guys who are really good right now but are too young to make a guess: Giancarlo Stanton, Yasiel Puig, Mike Trout, Jose Fernandez, Chris Sale, Eric Hosmer, Paul Goldschmidt, Buster Posey

Many of you might not believe me, but I didn't even look at stats for these. I just kind of whipped names off the top of my head (okay I looked at rosters to jog my memory), but that just goes to show how great of an era we are in for baseball. Within the next 10-15 years, we'll be seeing most of these guys go in and in the next 20-25 years, even more. The writers have a full ballot ahead of them and the next few induction ceremonies will be packed. 

I'm sure there are players that I missed. I'm also sure there are players on here that don't deserve it. But that's the beauty of baseball and the Hall of Fame, we don't know what will happen. I just think that it's a shame that because a few guys (well, more than a few) wanted to cheat, the entire generation has to be punished for it. That's not right. When I take my grandkids to Cooperstown and point out Jeter, Cabrera, Rivera, Maddux, Johnson, Griffey, etc, they will be hailed as some of the greatest who ever lived. All in this one time period. We get to live through it all. I don't want it to be labeled the Steroid Era - those guys will be remembered for their steroids on their own. Don't label the clean ones that way, too.

My grandma was right. It is a heck of a time to be alive for baseball fans. We're living in a time that has both the biggest hitters and the greatest pitchers. Compare this to the past decades when for the most part it was either one or the other. In the 60's and 70's it was a pitching dominated game. In the 30's and 40's it was a slugger's game. Obviously there are exceptions to every rule, but how many times will we be able to say that we saw both the offensive and defensive triple crown in back to back years? Kershaw and Verlander did it both in 2011 then Cabrera did it on the other side of the ball in 2012. It blows my mind.

What a time to be alive.

Thanks for reading.