Revisiting the Yadier Molina Hall of Fame Case

Every few years, I like to look at the numbers of Yadier Molina to see how closely he’s getting to the Hall of Fame. If you ask anyone in St. Louis, they feel he’s a shoo-in; having watched him for almost every game of his career, you see what he brings to the Cardinals. But taking a step back from homerism, a review of the numbers is good.

There are 19 Hall of Fame Catchers: Johnny Bench, Yogi Berra, Roger Bresnahan, Roy Campanella, Gary Carter, Mickey Cochrane, Bill Dickey, Buck Ewing, Rick Ferrell, Carlton Fisk, Josh Gibson, Gabby Hartnett, Ernie Lombardi, Biz Mackey, Mike Piazza, Ivan Rodriguez, Louis Santop, Ray Schalk, and Ted Simmons.

There are 2 ways to look at this: either to take the numbers of the group as a whole or to remove the Negro Leaguers because they have incomplete stats as of right now. Gibson, Mackey, and Santop would be removed from the comparison.

The other complication is Campanella; he spent the first few years in the Negro Leagues before joining the Major League. He played 215 games over 8 seasons in the Negro National League while 1215 games over 10 seasons with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Since a majority of his career was with the Dodgers, I’ll include him with the MLB players.

I’ll present both sides, as it will impact the overall numbers.

The average career length for HOF catchers is 18 seasons (both with and without the Negro Leaguers); Yadi is right at 18 years with this current season. Yadi will end up behind Fisk, Mackey, Rodriguez, Simmons, and Hartnett; he’ll be tied with Berra and Carter.

The average for at bats is 5926 for all and 6688 for MLB; Yadi has batted 7463 (as of games through 8/26). He trails Rodriguez, Fisk, Simmons, Carter, Bench, and Berra; if he were to get another 700 at bats between the rest of this year and next, he’ll be able to pass Carter, Bench, and Berra.

When you look at rate stats, Yadi is below the average:

Molina has never really been known for his bat. Of the 19 listed and Yadi, he’d be ranked 14th in batting average, 20th in on base percentage, 16th in slugging, and 20th in OPS.

Rate stats are more mixed, but that is because of the length of his career and the amount of at bats he’s received.

He’s gotten more hits and doubles while trailing everything else; he’ll pass the MLB average for RBIs this season, but I don’t expect he’ll move up to much more on other stats. As of today, Molina ranks 13th in runs, 7th in hits (and will be tied with Carter for 6th with his next hit), 4th in doubles, 19th in triples, 14th in homers, and 12th in RBIs (and will move up a spot by the end of the season). Really, only his doubles stand out. It’s also worth noting that Molina’s low triple count is probably more to do with the era he’s playing in then anything; Piazza only had 8 and he was a better offensive player.

Sabermetrics are also a mixed bag; his offensive numbers are slightly below HOF average, but his defensive ones are top notch.

WAR is wins above replacement, or how many additional wins the player would bring compare to a player brought up from Triple A. OPS+ is a measure of offense compared to the rest of the league; 100 is a league average hitter. In this case, Molina is 3% worse then the league average hitter. dWAR is defensive wins above replacement, or WAR for only their play in the field. WPA is win probability added, or how much their at bats increase/decrease their teams chances of winning.

Molina is below all 3 offensive categories. WAR is close, but the OPS+ is lagging quite a bit. WPA is a little fluky for comparison; if a player is on a bad team, they won’t have much of an opportunity to increase the chances of winning. Yadi’s defense is top of the line though. It’s also important to remember these numbers can fluctuate with good games and bad games.

Compared to the rest of the Hall, Yadi is 15th in WAR (he’s got the chance to move up a spot this season), 18th in OPS+, 2nd in dWAR (but only 0.2 in front of Carter, so he could end up 3rd with some bad play), and 12th in WPA (out of 14 because they don’t have completed WPA for Negro Leaguers and older players…1800s to early 1920s).

Since we know his defense is (or was) great, let’s look at that comparison:

Yadi’s numbers are pretty much above average across the board. The only place they were below average was stolen base numbers; that’s because guys didn’t run on Molina for the first 3/4 of his career. It’s not an automatic out now, so more guys are taking the chance then, say 2008. It’s more telling to look at the CS% compared to that of the league; Yadi is 13% better then the league average while most of the other guys are closer to league average (only Campanella and Rodriguez had a higher difference between percentages).

Molina ranks 3rd in innings caught, 2nd in changes, 4th in errors (behind only the Negro League guys, and that probably because of incomplete statistics), 1st in field percentage, 8th in passed balls (but could up around 10th if he’s getting lazy), 14th in wild pitches (out of 15, and that number is high because of the high innings and chances), 10th in stolen bases allowed, 14th in caught stealing (out of 17; the numbers weren’t kept track of for the Negro Leagues), 10th in caught stealing percentage (again out of 17), and 2nd in putouts (out of 16). If it wasn’t for people not stealing on him (as already mentioned), he’s be top half of almost all defensive categories.

How about hardware?

Molina matches up well on awards; he’s below on MVPs, but has more All Star appearances and Gold Gloves. He ranks tied for 4th in ROY (3 players have won it), tied for 8th in MVP (Berra and Campanella each have 3; Bench and Cochrane each have 2; Hartnett, Lombardi, and Rodriguez each have 1), 10th in All Star Appearances (and could tie 4 other players if he gets on the team next year), 3rd in Gold Gloves, tied for 5th in Silver Sluggers (with Simmons, the 14 below him have never won one), tied for 4th with 2 championship rings, and tied for 3rd in post-season awards (only Berra and Rodriguez have won one).

The last part I want to look at are Bill James‘ requirements for Hall election and JAWS.

James used 4 metrics to determine if players should be in the Hall: the Black Ink Test (or how many times they led the league in a group of stats), the Gray Ink Test (or how many times they finished in the top 10 of the same stats), the HOF Monitor (a calculation based off different statistics), and the HOF Standard (a different calculation based off more stats).

James’ methods would only include Yadi for the HOF Monitor. This doesn’t mean that James would believe Yadi didn’t deserve to be in the Hall, it’s just the offensive numbers don’t support it.

JAWS, created by Jay Jaffe, compares players to those already in the Hall at the same position by looking at WAR for different periods.

According to this, he’s below average of what is currently in the Hall, but he’s ranked the 22nd best catcher in history. He’s ahead of Hall of Famers Gibson, Lombardi, Schalk, Ferrell, Mackey, and Santop. This could change as more Negro League stats are found; I’m expecting Gibson to move ahead of Yadi eventually. He’s also behind Joe Mauer, Thurman Munson, Gene Tenace, Buster Posey, Bill Freehan, Wally Schang, Jorge Posada, and Jason Kendall for non-Hall players. We know Mauer will get in, but seeing recent borderline players like Posey and Posada, along with Kendall, doesn’t help his cause. The good news is Jaffe points out that JAWS doesn’t encapsulate the full career (specifically post-season, awards, and milestones).

Another factor to consider is the total WAR includes time at other positions; Simmons was a full-time DH by the end of his career, and Bench played multiple positions (while having catcher as his primary position). The numbers get a little skewed if you can’t break the WAR down by position. It’s probably not enough to make a huge different, but enough to close the gap a little.

My thoughts:

I’m biased because I’ve gotten to see Yadi play everyday for 18 seasons. You can see his impact on younger players and what he does in calling pitches. Strictly by offensive numbers, he’s borderline. It’s his defense, gold gloves, and 2 rings that build a case for him. I think the baseball writers will vote him in, but not in the first 3 years, and probably closer to year 5 or 6. I believe he’ll have his red jacket and number retired before he’s in Cooperstown.