The 25 Catchers With the Best Careers

Here are the 25 catchers who had the best careers during the 20th century (as measured by the NEWS HOF Gauge).

For a catcher, a NEWS score of 250 is required to say that he has obvious HOF numbers. There are only ten catchers who posted these numbers. That means that the position of catcher and third baseman have the fewest players who achieved HOF numbers (ten in each case).

Please keep in mind that a player may not have obvious HOF numbers but may still be a deserving Hall of Famer for other reasons.

All numbers include the 2007 season.
Bold print = Hall of Famer
Italic = active player in 2008
CWS = Career Win Shares
CV = Core Value (sum of win shares for 10 best seasons)
NEWS = Career Value = CV + .25(CWS – CV)

The Catchers with Hall of Fame Numbers (NEWS = 250)

Yogi Berraedges out Johnny Benchas having the best career by a catcher in the 20th century. And Mike Piazzaand Gary Carterjoin them as the only catchers to have a NEWS score of 280 or better.

Seven of the ten catchers on this list are already in the Hall of Fame and Mike Piazza (considered by many as the best hitting catcher of all time) seems to be a lock for election when he becomes eligible. That would leave only Joe Torreand Ted Simmonsas catchers with HOF numbers who are not in the Hall.

Joe Torrespent fifteen years on the BBWAA Hall of Fame ballot and the highest percentage of votes that he got was 22% in 1997 (his last year on the ballot). But there may be hope for Joe this year. He is one of ten candidates on the “Post-1942” ballot of the Veterans Committee for 2008. Given his recent success as a manager, I would not be surprised if he was inducted this time around.

Ted Simmonsspent only one year on the BBWAA ballot. He got only 4% of the vote in 1994. He is one of those players who appears to be an outstanding player who is terribly underrated.

Note that of the ten catchers with HOF numbers, seven played after 1950 while only three played during the first half of the century.

The Other Catchers in the Top 25

Here are the other fifteen players who ranked among the top 25 catchers of the century in terms of career value.

There are three catchers on this list who are in the Hall of Fame: Roy Campanella, Roger Bresnahanand Ernie Lombardi. And there are many fans who would argue that Roy Campanella should definitely be in the Hall since he missed many years in his prime due to baseball’s color barrier.

There are three players on this list who were active in 2008. Of these, only Ivan Rodriguezappears to have a decent chance of achieving the 250 NEWS score.

There were no catchers on the 2008 BBWAA ballot for the Hall of Fame. And only one, Thurman Munson, on the 2007 Veteran’s Committee ballot. Munson got only 6 votes (7.3%) and appears to have no chance of being elected.

Finally, there are two catchers in the Hall of Fame who did not make it into the list of the top 25 catchers.

So, these two Hall of Famers plus the three mentioned above give us a total of five catchers in the Hall who do not appear to have HOF numbers according to the NEWS Gauge.

For more information on the NEWS HOF Gauge, see BASEBALL’S BEST: The TRUE Hall of Famers on this site.