Off Day WAR: The Best And Worst Seasons By Mets Catchers

by James Kannengieser on Apr 7, 2009 1:00 PM EDT

Sean Smith's wins above replacement (WAR) database provides the WAR of every position player from 1955-2008. Since the Mets have been in existence since 1962, we are able to determine just how valuable every Met player's performance has been, according to this statistic. With some help from Microsoft Excel, I compiled the WAR of every Mets starter ever based on Smith's stats. I only considered players who logged the most innings at each position in a given year. Here are the top 10 seasons by Mets starting catchers:

Rank	Year	Player	WAR
1	1985	Gary Carter	6.7
2	1998	Mike Piazza	5.6
3	1978	John Stearns	5.5
4	2000	Mike Piazza	5.3
5	1997	Todd Hundley	5.1
6	1996	Todd Hundley	4.9
7	1999	Mike Piazza	4.1
8	2001	Mike Piazza	3.9
9	1986	Gary Carter	3.8
10	1977	John Stearns	3.6

And the bottom 10:

Rank	Year	Player	WAR
38	1962	Chris Cannizzaro	0.3
39	1973	Jerry Grote	0.3
40	1988	Gary Carter	0.2
41	1989	Barry Lyons	0.0
42	1984	Mike Fitzgerald	-0.3
43	1992	Todd Hundley	-0.4
44	1993	Todd Hundley	-0.4
45	1963	Choo Choo Coleman	-0.5
46	2004	Jason Phillips	-0.5
47	1967	Jerry Grote	-1.1

Some notes, bullet-style:

Mike Piazza, Gary Carter, and Todd Hundley - the Mets have had some solid catchers over the years. Smith's WAR is not kind to Piazza's defense. Carter has the biggest gap between best and worst seasons (6.5 WAR).
I wasn't around to witness John Stearns's career, but until I did this I had no idea he was a decently productive player for a few years.
Jerry Grote stunk in 1967, but he was a steady contributor for the Mets from 1968-1976.
Brian Schneider was worth 1.1 WAR in 2008. Fangraphs WAR, which doesn't yet account for catcher defense, had him at 1.6.

For a more in-depth look at Mets catchers over the years, check out Alex Nelson's retrospective at Mets Geek: Part 1 and Part 2. I'll make a quick post like this one for other positions on Mets off days.

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