11 April 2012

Will This Be the Decade of the Offensive Catcher?

If you graph the number of seasons catchers had a 125 OPS+ or higher by decade, you get this graph:


If one was to believe in cyclical production at catcher, you would have the impression that the 2011-2020 decade will produce about 26-30 seasons of catchers hitting better than 125 OPS+.  Much of this production would be placed on the backs of Brian McCann, Matt Wieters, Carlos Santana, and Buster Posey.  I can see those four accounting for maybe 12-16 seasons.  That is a mighty strong base crop of catchers.  In the 1930s, the production was largely resulting from Mickey Cochrane, Gabby Hartnett, and Bill Dickey.  In the 1970s, Johnny Bench and Ted Simmons led the charge.


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