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Carter vs Piazza

Gary Carter

4 votes

Mike Piazza

14 votes

Frayed Knot Jan 09 2013 08:14 AM

Many NYM fans are going to bust a gut later today if a certain Mr. Piazza does not get the required 75% HoF votes, even though most people assume that (absent some Armstrong-ian revelations) will get in eventually and probably as soon as next year. Is making him wait fair? .... probably not. Ideal? ... hardly. But is this any worse of a crime than Gary Carter having to wait, what was it?, five or six years before he burst through? And that got me thinking about who we think had the better overall career. So if given the choice of having one or the other as your #1 catcher for the length of his career, who would you prefer? IOW, supposing we could wave our magic wands [insert FMan joke here] and give Travis D'arnaud all the attributes of one or the other. We're talking about [u:31kqwl64]their entire careers[/u:31kqwl64] here, not just their NYM stints, and our hypothetical Darn-Oh will be given the same strengths, weaknesses, length of career, injury histories, etc., so there's no copping out and saying you'll take Carter's glove but Mike's bat, or you'll take both but convert Mike early on into a 1st baseman. You get a virtual clone of one or the other and you get him, warts and all, for the entirety of his career. Some relevant facts: Piazza: 7,745 PAs; .308/.377/.545 (922 OPS -- 143 OPS+); 12 ASG; RoY, 7 Top-10 MVPs, 4 Top-5 MVPs; 10 Silver Sluggers Carter: 9,019 PAs; .262/.335/.439 (773 OPS -- 115 OPS+); 11 ASG; #2RoY, 4 Top-10 MVPs, 2 Top-5 MVPs, 5 Silver Slugger Piazza, even given the differences in eras, was obviously the better offensive player although I don't think you'll find anyone who thinks the advantage in defense in Carter's favor doesn't at least partially make up for that.

SteveJRogers Jan 09 2013 08:27 AM Re: Carter vs Piazza Edited 2 time(s), most recently on Jan 09 2013 10:23 AM

All things being equal, Piazza, and Pudge, are in the conversation for greatest catchers of All-Time. The Kid, Hall of Famer of course, falls just short of said conversation. Though I'll give you that he was overshadowed by Bench and the two AL East catchers for much of his prime years.

Edgy MD Jan 09 2013 08:41 AM Re: Carter vs Piazza

I think the conversation for greatest catcher of all time begins "What do yo think of Bench?" If there's another name in the conversation, it's surely Josh Gibson.

smg58 Jan 09 2013 08:44 AM Re: Carter vs Piazza

It's so tough to quantify a catcher's defensive value, and my view of Carter's defense is colored by his steady decline with the Mets. Still, Carter in his prime threw out half the attempted basestealers, which was way beyond what Piazza could do. I'd be curious to see a rigorous sabermetric analysis of the two, but my gut says Piazza had more overall value.

metsmarathon Jan 09 2013 08:45 AM Re: Carter vs Piazza

bWAR and fWAR both give the career edge to carter over piazza. however, i'd rather have d'arnaud mirror piazza's career for one important reason, with perhaps a caveat. piazza's first six years were astounding, and in those six years, excluding the 21 games he played in '92, accumulated 40 fWAR. in carter's first six years, he accumulated 28.3 fWAR. i suppose, though, that the fair comparable would be to look at carter from age 24-30, as that's what i did for piazza. in that case, carter has 37.9 fWAR, which is fairly close to piazza's age 24-30 seasons. carter accumulated 11.3 fWAR prior to his age-24 season. and if we subtract that from his total, then he ends up with less career fWAR from age 24-onwards. since d'arnaud would be entering hte year at his age 24 season (i think, right?) it makes sense to use the carter and piazza careers from that point onward. i suppose the caveat, though, would be that though their careers would end up being very similar in terms of overall WAR-value, a carter-like production would likely be more affordable, though perhaps less of a game-changer. and so the carter prototype would perhaps be easier to retain long term, and would allow for a stronger team to be built around him as he gets more expensive in both arbitration and free agency years. and if we can retain him for his career, maybe the carter archetype is better. but if we're only gonna have him for the early part of ther careers, maybe the first six years and a few years of extension, piazza is the way to go. and then somebody else can overpay him from age 33 onward.

Benjamin Grimm Jan 09 2013 08:48 AM Re: Carter vs Piazza

I voted for Piazza here, but I'd be quite happy if Travis d'Arnaud merely turned out to be Ted Simmons.

metsmarathon Jan 09 2013 08:57 AM Re: Carter vs Piazza

fwiw, bbref has carter as the #2 catcher in terms of bWAR and bJAWS. his bWAR7 is actually higher than bench's. fangraphs has bench as the clear leader, with 81.5 fWAR, and carter, pudge, pudge, yogi, and torre clumped between 70 and 75 fWAR. piazza trails at 67 fWAR. carlton fisk - man did he improve as he got older. put up his 4th best year of his career at age 40. nowadays, that kind of hting would sure get some whispers going...

Edgy MD Jan 09 2013 09:13 AM Re: Carter vs Piazza

smg58 wrote: Still, Carter in his prime threw out half the attempted basestealers, which was way beyond what Piazza could do. Well, not quite half. The distinction between Carter and Piazza regarding the running game was real, but perhaps not so dramatic as it's easy to imagine it was. Carter Piazza Year Games Caught SB CS CS% Year Games Caught SB CS CS% 1974 6 1 1 50.0% 1992 16 10 4 28.6% 1975 66 22 21 48.8% 1993 146 108 59 35.3% 1976 60 27 27 50.0% 1994 104 76 26 25.5% 1977 146 113 55 32.7% 1995 112 88 29 24.8% 1978 152 80 58 42.0% 1996 146 155 34 18.0% 1979 138 75 66 46.8% 1997 139 112 43 27.7% 1980 149 94 63 40.1% 1998 140 115 41 26.3% 1981 100 50 44 46.8% 1999 135 115 37 24.3% 1982 153 103 70 40.5% 2000 124 110 32 22.5% 1983 144 86 75 46.6% 2001 127 114 33 22.4% 1984 143 107 50 31.8% 2002 119 125 27 17.8% 1985 143 99 51 34.0% 2003 64 59 23 28.0% 1986 122 114 45 28.3% 2004 50 34 9 20.9% 1987 135 122 46 27.4% 2005 101 82 13 13.7% 1988 119 136 31 18.6% 2006 99 97 13 11.8% 1989 47 46 20 30.3% 2007 0 0 0 0.0% 1990 80 66 21 24.1% 1991 68 59 28 32.2% 1992 85 98 38 27.9% Total 1996 1498 810 35.1% Total 1622 1400 423 23.2% I think the real value with a catcher (or outfielder) whose arm is a threat is not the runners he catches, so much as the overall chilling effect he has on the running game. Similarly, the challenge of a catcher with arm that wasn't respected wasn't so much the difference between catching 23% vs. 35% of runners, but rather the far greater number of folks emboldened to run and take advantage of the opportunity that presented. This difference is visible looking at Carter's and Piazza's record side-by-side, though Carter caught in an era when the stolen base was more common. My futher comment is that it sure became tedious, as Carter grew less and less successful in throwing out runners, to hear announcers continually blame it on the high kicks of the Mets' pitching staff.

SteveJRogers Jan 09 2013 10:21 AM Re: Carter vs Piazza

Edgy MD wrote: I think the conversation for greatest catcher of all time begins "What do yo think of Bench?" If there's another name in the conversation, it's surely Josh Gibson. Fair enough.

Frayed Knot Jan 09 2013 11:25 AM Re: Carter vs Piazza

My initial reaction to this (without any number crunching and so on) was Carter. Maybe that's the result of the more sepia-tinted memories being better than reality, but there's no denying the value of an all-around catcher and if you're going to be "stuck" with one or the other for the length of a career I think I'd prefer the multi-purpose guy to the more one-dimensional, even if that dimension was awesome for a long time and the gap even bigger than I remember. btw, this sort of either/or question came from my thinking about Bagwell and the HoF. He spent much of his career being overshadowed by McGwire and certainly didn't have the eye-popping peak years of Big Mac. But, offered the entire package and factoring in Baggy's superior base-running, fielding, and consistency, my gut tells me to opt for the clone of him as my 1Bman for the duration of his career over McGwire, and shouldn't that be at least a consideration in determining HoF votes? (even before steroid questions get involved) And I just threw the idea of D'arnaud in there as an example since I'm asking this question just as we happen to have a catcher about to start his career for our team. Not trying to imply that I think he's going to be either of these guys or that it'll be a disappointment if he turns out to be merely good.

Edgy MD Jan 09 2013 11:33 AM Re: Carter vs Piazza

FanGraphs sez --- Carter: 72.5 Piazza: 66.8 Whoah....

metsmarathon Jan 09 2013 11:41 AM Re: Carter vs Piazza

well, you'd take bagwell because he was far better a player than mcgwire. mac had the better age-23 rookie season, (5.4/4.4 fWAR, 4.8/4.5 bWAR) and then for every year until their age-32 season, bagwell had the higher WAR. fangraphs has bagwell at 13 WAR better than mac for his career, and bbref has bagewell at 18 WAR better for hte duration of their respective careers. carter/ piazza is at least a little more comparable, especially once you start them both at age 24 as i had done.

Frayed Knot Jan 09 2013 02:54 PM Re: Carter vs Piazza

metsmarathon wrote: well, you'd take bagwell because he was far better a player than mcgwire. Right, but I think (absent the whole elephant in the room/steroid issue) the initial reaction from a lot of folks--casual fans fer sure but some full-time ones as well--would be to think of McGwire as an HoFer well before the lower-profile Bagwell. When the overall game is taken into account (what WAR and such attempt to do) Bagwell starts to look better and THAT, rather than "magic" numbers/thresholds or peak-season records, should be the better judge of HoF-ness.

Frayed Knot Jan 09 2013 03:30 PM Re: Carter vs Piazza

Just thought of an example that's similar to the Bagwell/McGwire one (and maybe to the Piazza/Carter). Nolan Ryan was, and may still be, second only to Seaver in pct of HoF votes. And, while I certainly don't have a problem with Ryan in Cooperstown, he was hardly the 2nd best pitcher of his or any other era. But those spectacular high-lights which punctuated his career at various moments clearly resonated with enough voters to where his vote pct outdid that of many superior hurlers. Then, in the fan-oriented vote for all-century team, Ryan again found himself ahead of better pitchers and arguably shouldn't have been a member of that "team" at all.