Welcome back to the SDMB Baseball Hall of Fame Project. In this round we will be voting on catchers.
If you’d like to see past rounds of voting, please see:
Round 1: The Inner Circle
No catchers were elected in the Inner Circle vote.
The purpose of this thread is to elect ten catchers to the SDMB Hall of Fame; the figure here is set to ten, though it’s possible, as a result of future ballots, that more than ten catchers will end up being elected. Every person voting is asked to submit a ballot with the names of ten catchers you think are most deserving of enshrinement. You may submit a ballot with fewer than ten names if you wish, but you’re asked to stretch it as close to ten as you can.
As is always the case in the SDMB Hall of Fame Project, you may vote for ANYONE who has ever played catcher in the major leagues or in major level Negro League baseball (though note there will be an election specifically for the Negro Leagues.) The player’s eligibility or lack thereof for the real life Hall of Fame is irrelevant; you may even vote for active players.
The top ten vote-getters will be SDMB Baseball Hall of Famers. In the case of a tie for tenth, all players tied are elected.
I have provided below a helpful list of all catchers I can think of who are in the Hall of Fame, had a career of substantial length, or are of particular note. This is NOT an authoritative ballot; I may have missed someone and if so please let me know. This list is solely for your benefit.
Vote away!
Johnny Bench
Russell Martin
Josh Gibson
Roger Bresnahan
Deacon McGuire
Smoky Burgess
Walker Cooper
Darren Daulton
Brad Ausmus
Jack O’Connor
Biz Mackey
Gary Carter
Al Lopez
Gabby Hartnett
Sherm Lollar
Ted “Double Duty” Radcliffe
Darrell Porter
Jack Clements
Ivan Rodriguez
Mike Scioscia
Thurman Munson
Jim Sundberg
Ernie Whitt
Javy Lopez
Carlton Fisk
Gene Tenace
Mickey Tettleton
Bill Freehan
Lance Parrish
Mike Piazza
Yadier Molina
A.J. Pierzynski
Buck Ewing
Roy Campanella
Steve Yeager
Bob O’Farrell
Manny Sanguillen
Elston Howard
Frank Duncan
Yogi Berra
Bill Dickey
Buster Posey
Louis Santop
Jason Varitek
Terry Steinbach
Mickey Cochrane
Joe Mauer
Quicney Trouppe
Jim Hegan
Jimmie Wilson
Bruce Petway
Rick Cerone
Joe Torre
Bob Boone
Johnny Roseboro
Ted Simmons
Victor Martinez
Wally Schang
Jason Kendall
Ernie Lombardi
Jorge Posada
Terry Kennedy
Ray Schalk
Mike Napoli
Tony Pena
Tim McCarver
Rick Ferrell
Benito Santiago
HEY, RICK, WHY IS HE NOT IN THIS LIST?
Craig Biggio will be on the Second Basemen ballot.
Brian Downing will be on an outfielder or multiposition ballot.
Obviously the first baseman thing is a typo, but now I don’t know if I should submit 9, or 10… 
Johnny Bench
Carlton Fisk
Mike Piazza
Ivan Rodriguez
Gary Carter
Yogi Berra
Bill Dickey
Roy Campanella
Ted Simmons
Josh Gibson
As will be the case, the toughest choices are on the margin. As said in the 1st thread, I timeline fairly heavily, so the choice became between the lively ball era guys who played in the 20’s/30’s, Mickey Cochrane, Gabby Hartnett, and Bill Dickey, and some of the latter day candidates such as Gene Tenace, Bill Freehan, and Thurman Munson.
Cochrane is clearly the best of the former group (awesome OBP’s), so that leaves me with two slots. Both Dickey and Hartnett had a ton of seasons where they were decently above average. The peaks of Freehan and Munson are clearly better, tho, but both were pretty much finished after age 32 (be it a tragic plane accident or a sudden decline).
I probably can’t prove it, but I don’t think era adjustments (separate from timeline adjustments) are a simple matter of tallying up the average offensive environment, tallying up how player X matches up with that, and assigning a single number to reflect the complexity of all that. Bill James once said that stats ‘decentralize’ in a high-offense era, meaning good players in such a time would overperform as compared to said average.
On the other hand, timeline-wise for those 2 groups, they’re only separated by 30-40 years. I think the solid bulk of the middle of Dickey and Hartnett’s careers will thus probably outweigh any slight edges in peak for Tenace/Munson/Freehan. But I’ll have to think about it some more.
Edit: Josh Gibson, duhh. That leaves one slot-I’ll probably spring for Hartnett in that case.
Josh Gibson
Johnny Bench
Gary Carter
Yogi Berra
Ivan Rodriguez
Mickey Cochrane
Carlton Fisk
Mike Piazza
Bill Dickey
Biz Mackey
I found this a hard ballot to fill out to bottom of. You can argue for a lot of guys. I went with Mackey just because
- It’s widely believed Josh Gibson was probably the best catcher who ever lived,
- But at the time, a lot of people would have told you Mackey was better.
I could also have voted for Buck Ewing but I don’t can’t see 19th century baseball as being the same. Still, I can see the argument there. I had no problems at all with the top six of seven guys, but past that you get into timeline, career vs. peak, how you rate 19th century players and Negro League players, etc. Since I do not believe there will be a lot of consensus on the 9th or 10th guys itll be interesting to see how this goes.
You know who is totally forgotten now? Lance Parrish, remember him? Parrish was superficially a lot like Gary Carter, a big guy who could hit home runs, and he had an absolute cannon for an arm. He and Carter squared off in many All-Star games and I always kind of thought of them as equals, but Carter was just a little better across the board.
Johnny Bench
Josh Gibson
Gary Carter
Ivan Rodriguez
Carlton Fisk
Mike Piazza
Roy Campanella
Yogi Berra
Bill Dickey
Benito Santiago
I nearly put in Ted Simmons instead of Santiago, just because I really liked the guy.
Parrish and Santiago have very poor OBP’s, can’t compete with this particular group.
Johnny Bench
Yogi Berra
Josh Gibson
Ivan Rodriguez
Mike Piazza
Carlton Fisk
Gary Carter
Bill Dickey
Mickey Cochrane
Gabby Hartnett
And where the hell is Bob Uecker!?!?
To the point about Lance Parrish, a lot of catchers from the 80s and 90s are kind of an afterthought. Carter was the best of that era, and Parrish was better than most. But remember guys like Rich Gedman, Bo Diaz, Pat Borders, Jody Davis - none of whom appear on the list in the OP? All those guys (except Borders) played in multiple All Star games! Can you believe that? Seems like most catchers at that time were just kind of a guy on a team. Any production you got out of them was a total bonus.
When we select a group of catchers for our Hall, he’ll be…
Juuuuuuust a bit outside.
(But, seriously, I do hope that we have a wing of our Hall for sportswriters and broadcasters!)
Are we supposed to be considering active players? There is a number of them on the suggested list.
Johnny Bench
Josh Gibson
Gary Carter
Thurman Munson
Carlton Fisk
Mike Piazza
Roy Campanella
Yogi Berra
Bill Dickey
Mickey Cochrane
Yes; in the OP, he notes: “you may even vote for active players.”
Johnny Bench
Yogi Berra
Roy Campanella
Gary Carter
Bill Dickey
Carlton Fisk
Josh Gibson
Thurman Munson
Mike Piazza
Ivan Rodriguez
Yes and I thought about both Joe Mauer and Buster Posey for a hot second, but not quite yet. Looking at Mauer’s numbers now, I almost wish I’d have put him in there. I’d put him over Ted Simmons, Thurman Munson or Benito Santiago, anyway (none of whom were on my list).
Johnny Bench
Gary Carter
Pudge Rodriguez
Yogi Berra
Mike Piazza
Carlton Fisk
Bill Dickey
Ted Simmons
Gabby Hartnett
Mickey Cochrane
Joe Torre didn’t catch enough games for me to consider him at C for this ballot. Maybe that’s unfair?
Berra
Bench
Pudge
Fisk
Piazza
Carter
Munson
Simmons
Mauer
Campanella
Johnny Bench
Yogi Berra
Gary Carter
Mickey Cochrane
Carlton Fisk
Josh Gibson
Gabby Hartnett
Mike Piazza
Ivan Rodriguez
Ted Simmons
That said, the best catchers I ever saw in terms of defense and handling pitchers were Jerry Grote, Bob Boone and Rick Dempsey.
So as not to be swayed by anybody else’s choices, I’m responding before reading beyond the OP. My method was simply to delete names until I came up with sixteen finalists, then make some tough cuts before finally settling on:
Johnny Bench
Josh Gibson
Ivan Rodriguez
Mike Piazza
Yadier Molina
Roy Campanella
Yogi Berra
Bill Dickey
Mickey Cochrane
Ernie Lombardi
In trying to think of other guys that aren’t in RickJay’s comprehensive list, I came across Sandy Alomar. Boy, his numbers weren’t nearly as good as I thought they’d be. The guy won ROY, played 20 years, was a 6 time All Star, but his career WAR is only 13.7.