Off and on this week on Twitter I've seen this debate about weather or not he's a HOF baseball player.
The fact that this is even a debate is ridiculous... Yadi Molina is a HOF catcher...period.
This debate, as do most these days about baseball, include dumb analytics scribes trying to use their mathematical nonsense to make Molina look like he's just another guy who squatted behind home plate for 15 years, and not the BEST CATCHER in his generation.
I watch baseball, I don't cruch numbers, or come up with crazy, nonsensical data, I just watch games, as I've done since I can remember, and Yadi Molina is as good as any catcher in the 52 years that I've been a fan.
That doesn't mean that he's Johnny Bench, or Bob Boone, or Pudge Fisk, or Pudge Rodriguez, or even Mike Matheny, his current manager...it means that he's Yadi, a man who's career speaks for itself...
15 seasons
9 Time All-Star
1,700+ games caught
8 GOLD GLOVE AWARDS
4 Platinum Glove Awards
.995 Lifetime Fielding Percentage
The thing I read the most abouf when anti Molina HOF posts are written, it's about his offense..
.284 average
1,790 hits
134 HRs
824 RBI
When does collecting around 2,000 hits and close to 1,000 RBI with a batting average over .280 (he plans on playing until 2020), not be good enough with all he did behind the plate?
The Cardinals have won 90+ games with Molina catching games 7 times, they played in 9 playoffs, 4 World Series, and won the Series twice, in 2006, and 2011.
Baseball is, in its core, not just numbers in one area of play, or another, that you judge a player, it's about the complete game that player possessed in his career.
When I watched the Cardinals play baseball the past 15 years, I automatically
thought about Yadier Molina and how he would affect the game defensively, because, after all, that's the #1 job of a catcher, to call each pitch, to guide his pitcher through each hitter, to control the running game of the opponent.
Yadier Molina will be in the Baseball Hall of Fame, and he deserves it.
Happy Baseball Birthday! Yadi Molina... PLAY
Seems like a worthwhile debate, John. For me Molina isn't the slam dunk that Buster Posey is since he's done more (minus gold gloves) than Yadi in less time, but then again I wouldn't disagree with Molina making it.
ReplyDeleteI'm a fan of Posey as well. That collision with Chris Coughlin of the Marlins changed his career, and how catchers play the game. Busters most assuredly going to the Hall as well.
DeleteIf I had a vote, he'd get mine.
ReplyDelete