Saw this at Amazing Avenue and had to steal research the idea, numbers are taken from Sean Smith's WAR database. The best season's by Jay catchers by Wins Over Replacement scores:
|
Rank |
Year |
Player |
WAR |
|
1 |
1983 |
Ernie Whitt |
3.1 |
|
2 |
1987 |
Ernie Whitt |
2.9 |
|
3 |
1988 |
Ernie Whitt |
2.8 |
|
4 |
1990 |
Pat Borders |
2.8 |
|
5 |
1985 |
Ernie Whitt |
2.6 |
|
6 |
1986 |
Ernie Whitt |
2.6 |
|
7 |
1989 |
Ernie Whitt |
2.6 |
|
8 |
2000 |
Darrin Fletcher |
2.6 |
|
9 |
1995 |
Darrin Fletcher |
2.2 |
|
10 |
2005 |
Greg Zahn |
2.1 |
And the worst seasons:
|
Rank |
Year |
Player |
WAR |
|
30 |
2002 |
Tom Wilson |
0.3 |
|
31 |
1977 |
Alan Ashby |
0.3 |
|
32 |
1981 |
Ernie Whitt |
0.3 |
|
33 |
1990 |
Greg Myers |
0.2 |
|
34 |
2001 |
Darrin Fletcher |
0.2 |
|
35 |
1981 |
Buck Martinez |
0.1 |
|
36 |
1995 |
Lance Parrish |
-0.1 |
|
37 |
2003 |
Tom Wilson |
-0.2 |
|
38 |
1980 |
Ernie Whitt |
-0.2 |
|
39 |
1993 |
Pat Borders |
-0.4 |
|
40 |
1994 |
Pat Borders |
-0.5 |
|
41 |
1978 |
Rick Cerone |
-0.5 |
Some thoughts:
- Ernie Whitt's name appears a lot, he had a couple of poor seasons for us before he learned how to pull the ball then he was very consistent for the rest of his Jay's career.
- I was a little arbitrary on picking the number of at bats needed to make the list, mostly I just used the player that played the most that season but a few times I felt the back up played enough that their numbers were worth putting in. Buck Martinez could have appeared more on the 'worst seasons list' if I counted a few more seasons where he had around 150 at bats.
- I totally forgot about Tom Wilson catching for us. Must have blocked that memory for some good reason.
- Darrin Fletcher had a couple of good years for us, but he is a -50 WAR as a color commentator.
- Rick Cerone was a bad catcher on a bad team. He had one good season with the Yankees (3.9 WAR in 1980) but that was by far his best season.
- Alan Ashby had a pretty good season with us in 1978 (1.7 WAR) and is a more enjoyable color analyst.
- The Zman was pretty consistent for us ranging between 1.2 and 2.1 until the 0.8 last year.
Anyway is a fun sort of list. We'll do the first basemen next whenever I'm bored enough to do it.