January 9, 2012

Highlighting Jorge

Chris Jaffe provides a timeline of the career of Jorge Posada.

I’m somewhat surprised at how poorly Posada ranks against the game’s great catchers in terms of WAR.

The problem was his defense. According to Baseball Reference, Jorge owns a -3 WAR defensively. If that were a +3, he’d be over 50 and probably make the Hall. I’m not sure he’ll make it with the 44.7 mark.

Part of the problem was the era in which he played. The high run scoring of the 1990s and the first decade of the 2000 devalues his offensive contributions compared to Gary Carter or Johnny Bench. If you believe that the high offense of that era was mostly due to PED use, than maybe Jorge needs a bit of a boost for not being sullied by accusations of steroid use.

6 thoughts on “Highlighting Jorge

  1. Adam Darowski

    And that WAR might actually be high. Rally, the guy who created B-R’s WAR, did some game-calling experiements and applied them to WAR. Posada takes a HUGE hit there, dropping all the way to 34.9 WAR.

    I’m not sure what the inputs are for this, so I don’t know how much I should trust it, but it’s pretty shocking.

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  2. Scooter

    If you believe that the high offense of that era was mostly due to PED use, than maybe Jorge needs a bit of a boost

    On the other hand, I think that holding such a belief (all big offense was due to PEDs) would require assuming that LOTS of guys unsullied by accusations did use such drugs. Which makes me wonder how we know that we can excuse Posada from that assumption.

    I’m not trying to say anything for or against this player. I’m just examining your statement to see whether it holds up, and I’m not sure it does. What do you think?

    (Also, is this list saying he’s the 11th-best catcher ever? That’s pretty doggone good.)

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  3. David Pinto Post author

    Scooter » No, I’m not saying he was the 11th best catcher ever. This was just a list of famous catchers, mostly culled from a Bill James historical abstract and my own recollection. It was not meant to be a complete list, just a sampling.

    I don’t believe the high scoring era was due entirely to PEDs. Hitter friendly ballparks, and maybe even a ball that favored the batters had something to do with it.

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  4. MSE

    Simmons had a bad defensive rep, and ended his career as a rather unproductive DH which probably magnified that perception. IIRC, Bill James wrote a number of years ago that someone did an analysis of Simmons’ record against base stealers and discovered that, if anything, his record there was a net plus (many steals, but less than break even value to the opposing offense based on total attempts) rather than the minus that would be expected from his rep. Along with the gutless wonders who will refuse to vote for him on suspicion of PED use with no evidence, some writers may decline to put Piazza on their ballot next year because of his own bad defensive rep, reasoning that because of it he doesn’t deserve first ballot election. Idiots.

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  5. Plank

    I think the league adding 4 new teams in the early 90s was a bigger reason than PEDs for the offensive explosion.

    Every expansion is accompanied by added offense.

    I also don’t understand why people think steroid use started in the 1990s.

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