WAR is a zero-sum game so if Yadier Molina has value that isn't being properly attributed, that means his teammates (especially his pitchers) were actually worse than they appear. It also means that other MLB catchers were a lot worse than they appear.

Ivan Rodriguez has the top RField for catchers with 147. Do you think Molina saved 100 more runs than Pudge Rodriguez? The defensive rankings for catchers are: Rodriguez, Molina, Gary Carter, Bob Boone, Jim Sundberg. WAR seems to be doing a good job identifying the best defensive catchers. Are you saying all the good defensive catchers are underrated? That would mean WAR is not giving enough defensive value to various defensive events. Blocked pitches, caught stealing, wild pitches and fielding bunts are pretty easy to quantify the run value so that can't be where the error lies. It would have to be that credit for strikeouts and walks that should go to the catcher is instead going to the pitcher.

To be better than Mauer you have to believe that Molina has over 110 runs of defensive prevention that aren't accounted for. That would increase his RField from 138 to 250+ (while leaving Mauer's static even though he was a good defensive catcher). It would mean his pitchers got 1 WAR of extra credit that he deserved every season.

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But [catchers] haven't been fairly represented in the HOF lately. Why is that? It's because WAR is the standard & what affects WAR is HRs, defense is minimized & the intangibles are not considered.

This is patently untrue. Catchers have been underrepresented in the Hall for decades and many articles have been written as such, long before WAR was even considered in HOF cases.

WAR as we know it today came around in the late 2000's, and it certainly did not become popular or widely used until the mid 2010's - the first prominent use of WAR in trying to argue for player value is most likely the 2012 AL MVP race between Mike Trout and Miguel Cabrera. 

Since the current iteration of WAR has been published in 2009, 4 catchers have been inducted into the HOF in those 15 years - or 1 every 3.75 years. Over the rest of baseball history 16 catchers have been elected to the Hall in 73 years - or 1 every 4.56 years. However, that total includes 3 Negro league catchers in Gibson/Santop/Mackey who were never in the previously eligible HOF pool, so that drops the election rate to 1 catcher every 5.6 years before WAR was even created. 

Additionally, WAR does consider defense and I would argue that it considers defense much more holistically than the old guard of HOF voters ever has. Why were Lou Whittaker, Kenny Lofton, Keith Hernandez, Mark Belanger, Buddy Bell or Dave Concepción never elected by the pre-WAR voters if they were any good at factoring in defense? 

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I've heard that most HOF voters often use total WAR to determine who to vote for unless they have some bias.

You've heard? That's all the evidence you have for your claim? This simply does not jive with reality.

The old guard of baseball writers and voters famously do not care for any sabermetric stat, least of all WAR. If you pay attention to recent voting trends, outside of 1 or 2 notable exceptions, the private ballots vote for significantly fewer players. The vast majority of private voters are the old guard of writers who do not want anyone to know how few players they are voting for, and this is proven by the dwindling number of private ballots year-on-year.

What the old guard of voters values is counting stats. Number of wins, innings pitched, hits, RBIs, home runs, stolen bases. That is why catchers are severely underrepresented. It's also why third basemen are historically underrepresented, by old heads who lump them in with first basemen as "corner infielders" expect them to hit like HOF first basemen and give very little credit for defense. The only primarily defensive 3B in the hall is Brooks Robinson.

Lastly, I'd advise against using WAR from baseball reference if you do care about factoring in defense. Fangraphs gives Yadi (55.6) the edge over Mauer (53.0) because they actually try to measure catcher defense. 

Yadi will be a first ballot Hall of Famer despite offensive stats that are not HOF-worthy.

Part of why the Mauer vote was intriguing is because of his relatively short time behind the plate.

I think defensive stats and metrics can be inaccurate and disproportionately affect WAR. 

Wrong or Right... I dismissed WAR along time ago in my evaluation of players. I won't quote it and I won't accept it in any discussion for positive, negative or neutral assessments of players. 

I take issue with the use of any zone ratings which in my opinion are too unstable due to the small sample size of the non-routine plays that are needed to produce rather large swings in the data. 

On top of that... I am under the impression that this unstable defensive data is then over-weighted in the formula allowing small sample size data to erase more stable larger sample size offensive data. 

In other words... Using 2022:

1. If Max Kepler is a 2.2 bWAR with a .666 OPS and Jose Miranda is 1.0 bWAR with a .751 OPS. I'm suspicious of the defensive weighting. 

2. If WAR is a counting stat and I believe it is... If Jose Miranda played in 10 more games and had 36 more plate appearance than Max Kepler in 2022... I'm even more suspicious. 

3. If Max Kepler makes 3 plays a game on average. How many of those chances are routine? How many of those chances are considered difficult. The Answer is:  Routine... A lot... Difficult a little. I'm even more suspicious. 

4. If Max Kepler makes one difficult play every 2.5 games... meaning he catches a ball in a low percentage zone 1 time every 2.5 games. That can erase over .100 OPS point difference? I'm beyond suspicious. 

5. The catcher position... IMO opinion contains more defensive intangibles that don't get folded into WAR. 

But... then again... I haven't looked into WAR for quite some time.  

19 hours ago, CCHOF5yearstoolate said:

This is patently untrue. Catchers have been underrepresented in the Hall for decades and many articles have been written as such, long before WAR was even considered in HOF cases.

WAR as we know it today came around in the late 2000's, and it certainly did not become popular or widely used until the mid 2010's - the first prominent use of WAR in trying to argue for player value is most likely the 2012 AL MVP race between Mike Trout and Miguel Cabrera. 

Since the current iteration of WAR has been published in 2009, 4 catchers have been inducted into the HOF in those 15 years - or 1 every 3.75 years. Over the rest of baseball history 16 catchers have been elected to the Hall in 73 years - or 1 every 4.56 years. However, that total includes 3 Negro league catchers in Gibson/Santop/Mackey who were never in the previously eligible HOF pool, so that drops the election rate to 1 catcher every 5.6 years before WAR was even created. 

Additionally, WAR does consider defense and I would argue that it considers defense much more holistically than the old guard of HOF voters ever has. Why were Lou Whittaker, Kenny Lofton, Keith Hernandez, Mark Belanger, Buddy Bell or Dave Concepción never elected by the pre-WAR voters if they were any good at factoring in defense? 

You've heard? That's all the evidence you have for your claim? This simply does not jive with reality.

The old guard of baseball writers and voters famously do not care for any sabermetric stat, least of all WAR. If you pay attention to recent voting trends, outside of 1 or 2 notable exceptions, the private ballots vote for significantly fewer players. The vast majority of private voters are the old guard of writers who do not want anyone to know how few players they are voting for, and this is proven by the dwindling number of private ballots year-on-year.

What the old guard of voters values is counting stats. Number of wins, innings pitched, hits, RBIs, home runs, stolen bases. That is why catchers are severely underrepresented. It's also why third basemen are historically underrepresented, by old heads who lump them in with first basemen as "corner infielders" expect them to hit like HOF first basemen and give very little credit for defense. The only primarily defensive 3B in the hall is Brooks Robinson.

Lastly, I'd advise against using WAR from baseball reference if you do care about factoring in defense. Fangraphs gives Yadi (55.6) the edge over Mauer (53.0) because they actually try to measure catcher defense. 

Brooks Robinson was NOT primarily a defensive 3rd baseman. Only to people who never saw him play except for the 1970 WS. While he wasn't Frank he was a solid .280 guy most of his career who'd give you 20 homers. That's not too shabby. It's just he made defensive plays most 3rd baseman couldnt.

28 minutes ago, Schmoeman5 said:

Brooks Robinson was NOT primarily a defensive 3rd baseman. Only to people who never saw him play except for the 1970 WS. While he wasn't Frank he was a solid .280 guy most of his career who'd give you 20 homers. That's not too shabby. It's just he made defensive plays most 3rd baseman couldnt.

 

.280 and 20 isn't why he's in the HOF. He's in the HOF for his glove 100%. 

So not anti-Mauer and not advocating Molina for the HOF? That's precisely what you're saying. I love Molina as a catcher. But you're suggesting that if Molina was catching in Minnesota to the likes of Liriano and Santana the Twins would have been much more successful. While that is a possibility, it's also not a guarantee either.

31 minutes ago, Schmoeman5 said:

Brooks Robinson was NOT primarily a defensive 3rd baseman. Only to people who never saw him play except for the 1970 WS. While he wasn't Frank he was a solid .280 guy most of his career who'd give you 20 homers. That's not too shabby. It's just he made defensive plays most 3rd baseman couldnt.

 

If you want to split this hair, sure. He is the defensive gold standard at the position and was offensively good (>110 OPS+) in 8 of his 23 seasons.

Interesting that's the only qualm you're raising with that entire comment.  

Just now, CCHOF5yearstoolate said:

If you want to split this hair, sure. He is the defensive gold standard at the position and was offensively good (>110 OPS+) in 8 of his 23 seasons.

Interesting that's the only qualm you're raising with that entire comment.  

Because that's the only part I disagree with. The rest I'd say you were pretty spot on. Except maybe Mark Belanger

@Schmoeman5 I'm not taking a shot at Brooks, but there's literally no way a hitter with his career stats makes the HOF without his glove. Like he's nowhere near a HOF bat. He had a nice, not great, but nice, 4 year run from 64-67 with the bat, but otherwise he was nothing special at all. He's in the HOF for his glove.

1 minute ago, Schmoeman5 said:

Because that's the only part I disagree with. The rest I'd say you were pretty spot on. Except maybe Mark Belanger

So a very minor Brooks Robinson slight is worth downvoting the entire comment.

4 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

.280 and 20 isn't why he's in the HOF. He's in the HOF for his glove 100%. 

I disagree. I don't remember Robinsons final numbers. But he was just short of 3000 hits and 300 homers. The old numbers that got a player in automatically. So those numbers PLUS his defense got him in. If he hit like Belanger or Blair he'd have never gotten in

So I had a. cursory read here…….I have to say that anyone who thinks there was a better overall player, at Catcher, during Mauer’s Prime is nuts, IMO.

Saying Santana & Liriano were the Twins best ever starting pitcher duo “……in the playofffs” is wildly inaccurate. Liriano was on his way to being my favorite Twins Pitcher ever - he pitched out of Pen until June & then went like 11-1 as a starter & he was lights out…..he tore up his arm though……,he tried to come back for the Playoffs but could not pitch effectively. He was 12-3, I believe, with a bunch of K’s & low ERA but he couldn’t perform due to injury. Heartbreaking…..,,,Santana was dominant as well.

Respect to………Viola & Blyleven………..Morris & Erickson ……Kaat & Grant……..real pairs that actually pitched along side of each other in the Playoffs - World Series.

………………

WAR is just another measuring tool - my most obvious push back against WAR is a summary of JD Martinez in 2023:

1.9 WAR ……he had 432 AB’s as DH, so no defensive contribution.

27 doubles - 33 HR - 62 XBH & 103 RBI with a .271 BA.

OBP of .321 an OPS of .893 an OPS+ of 134

The epitome of middle of line-up bat that produces runs!!….I realize he only played in 113 games, hence the lower amount of AB’s but a WAR of 1.9 seems like about 1/2 of what I expected.

6 minutes ago, Schmoeman5 said:

I disagree. I don't remember Robinsons final numbers. But he was just short of 3000 hits and 300 homers. The old numbers that got a player in automatically. So those numbers PLUS his defense got him in. If he hit like Belanger or Blair he'd have never gotten in

So his glove and the fact that he played for 23 seasons. Fair.

10 minutes ago, Schmoeman5 said:

I disagree. I don't remember Robinsons final numbers. But he was just short of 3000 hits and 300 homers. The old numbers that got a player in automatically. So those numbers PLUS his defense got him in. If he hit like Belanger or Blair he'd have never gotten in

Robinson was Top 4 in MVP voting 4 times between 1960-1971. He won one MVP in ‘64. 2 World Series Team wins in that stretch - which is an aside in HOF voting (World Series MVP as well) 15 straight All-Star appearances along with 15 straight Gold Gloves.

Eddie Brinkman was good defensively but he wasn’t an All-Star every year……my point is “All-Star” isn’t just picking up grounders. Brooks maybe not an offensive star but he was “overall” better than his peers for a long time.

He was a mixture of leader, clutch hitter with some pretty decent years offensively, and the best at his position, overall, for numerous years. Discussed routinely as the best defensive 3B ever.

Not sure why there’s any discussion from any side on his HOF worthiness or why he was voted into the Hall.

34 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

@Schmoeman5 I'm not taking a shot at Brooks, but there's literally no way a hitter with his career stats makes the HOF without his glove. Like he's nowhere near a HOF bat. He had a nice, not great, but nice, 4 year run from 64-67 with the bat, but otherwise he was nothing special at all. He's in the HOF for his glove.

That looks more like a solid run from 60-73 with a couple below avg years. 

4 minutes ago, Schmoeman5 said:

That looks more like a solid run from 60-73 with a couple below avg years. 

Those are basically Jorge Polanco type OPS+ numbers with the 1 spike year in '64 being a standout. You got Jorge Polanco in the HOF?

23 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

Those are basically Jorge Polanco type OPS+ numbers with the 1 spike year in '64 being a standout. You got Jorge Polanco in the HOF?

Hey. You and CCHOF know everything. You're both making blanket statements that say BR got into the Hall on Defense only. That's simply not true. If he hit like Belanger or Blair. 2 of his teammates he'd have never gotten in. And you know it. Did you ever see him play? He was considered a dangerous bat League wide. Just not on your sabermetrics chart. Last word freak

Very good doc ...

I agree that catcher is the most important and demanding  position ...

I sure hope the voters aren't just looking at WAR to cast their votes , there is so much more to the game than hitting home runs  ...

If Ricky Henderson  hit 230 for his career   , he still would have gotten in the hof as the best base stealer in the game , boy did he like to run ...

2 hours ago, Schmoeman5 said:

"The only primarily defensive 3B in the Hall is Brooks Robinson"  I can read. My comprehension is good. Define primarily. 

If you can read, why did you say I said he got in on "defense only" when that's clearly not what was written? "Primarily" and "only" are not synonyms. 

"Primarily" in this context: what is the main reason a player was inducted into the Hall of Fame? Offense, defense or both?

Pudge would be another player I would say was elected primarily on defense. 

You took an incredibly innocuous statement about easily the best fielding 3B of all time and tried to make it into a slight as if I said he was garbage at the plate. I obviously said nothing of the sort. You also focused in on Mark Belanger when I included Lofton, Whittaker, Hernandez and Bell in the same sentence because you're trying to form a narrative that doesn't exist. 

1 hour ago, CCHOF5yearstoolate said:

If you can read, why did you say I said he got in on "defense only" when that's clearly not what was written? "Primarily" and "only" are not synonyms. 

"Primarily" in this context: what is the main reason a player was inducted into the Hall of Fame? Offense, defense or both?

Pudge would be another player I would say was elected primarily on defense. 

You took an incredibly innocuous statement about easily the best fielding 3B of all time and tried to make it into a slight as if I said he was garbage at the plate. I obviously said nothing of the sort. You also focused in on Mark Belanger when I included Lofton, Whittaker, Hernandez and Bell in the same sentence because you're trying to form a narrative that doesn't exist. 

How about you just chill out and stop fabricating implications that don't exist. 

You're a politician. I did write Only after 25 post. And that's what you cling too. I focused on Belanger because he was the weakest hitting  of those you mentioned.  Might as well have mentioned Ray Oyler too. 

31 minutes ago, CCHOF5yearstoolate said:

 

Pudge would be another player I would say was elected primarily on defense. 

 

With a career OPS of almost 800. Most career hits by a catcher. Career avg. .296. Yeah I'd say it was primarily his defense. 

3 hours ago, Schmoeman5 said:

Get a grip

3 hours ago, CCHOF5yearstoolate said:

lol chill out man

Knock it off ... everyone. Quit making and taking things so personally. Move on.

https://library.fangraphs.com/misc/war/
 

“You should always use more than one metric at a time when evaluating players, but WAR is all-inclusive and provides a useful reference point for comparing players.”