Jorge Posada: Hall of Fame Worthy?

WWJD had posted Posada’s stats as compared to the Hall-of-Famers also. I always thought Posada should get consideration for his offensive exploits, and I also think being a part of 5 World Series winners plays a part. As compared to his peers statistically, he should make it, eventually.

Why couldnt Posada? I think his stats measure up quite well with the rest of the HoF catchers…

for both you and WWJD, do Yogi Berra’s HoF stats only include his C stats or all of his stats? Even though he caught for 19 seasons (for a total of 12,437 innings), he also played the outfield (categorized as OF, LF, RF) and the infield (1B and 3B) for a total of 3082 innings.

Compared to Gary Carter, who caught for 17,369 innings, do you think his numbers are influenced by fewer total innings as solely a catcher, both defensively and offensively?

Weird.

but it would also be informative to compare Posada to the best catchers not (yet) in the HoF.

Here are Posada’s selected stats (no. seasons, games played at C, Bill James’ Hall of Fame monitor (100+ = likely HoF’er), and bbref offensive WAR and defensive WAR), along with those of the next two catchers who will likely make the Hall:

Name – Years – G @ C – HofM – oWAR – dWAR
Posada – 17 – 1574 – 98 – 47.6 – -2.9
I-Rod – 21 – 2437 – 226 – 50.4 – 16.9
Piazza – 16 – 1630 – 207 67.4 – -8.3

Ivan Rodriguez and Mike Piazza might not make the Hall on their first ballots, but based on those stats they’re probably locks. However, Posada really does not compare favorably with either of them.

.

Now let’s look at a few more deserving catchers who have cases for the Hall of Fame based on HoF monitor and/or WAR:

Name – Years – G @ C – HofM – oWAR – dWAR
Player S – 21 – 1771 – 124 – 55.6 – -5.2
Player T – 18 – 903 – 96 – 59.7 – -4.1
Player M – 11 – 1278 – 90 – 41.0 – 2.4
Player PT – 18 – 1950 – 98 – 16.0 – 2.7
Player PL – 19 – 1818 – 107 – 32.5 – 3.2
Player K – 15 – 2025 – 108 – 40.5 – -2.8

Player S is Ted Simmons, who also played other positions but was mostly a catcher, and based on those numbers he’s the most deserving of that group to get in (but probably will not). The next three players all have ties to the Yankees; Joe Torre is a lock to get in the HoF, largely due to his managerial success, while it’s unlikely that Thurman Munson and current Yankees coach Tony Pena will ever get in. The last two (Lance Parrish and Jason Kendall) are also unlikely to be enshrined in Cooperstown, though they have comparable or slightly better stats than Posada.

.

In summary, Posada isn’t even the best of the catchers not (yet) in the Hall of Fame (if you like, you could also expand the list to include other “recent” catchers like Bob Boone, Jim Sundburg, and Benito Santiago). That said, I have no ill will towards Posada (full disclosure — I’m a Pirates fan, and Tony Pena was my favorite player), and I wish him the best of luck going forward.

I can’t see him not