Cardinal catchers over the years

[stretch]

When was the last time the Cardinals had a below average throwing catcher?

It seems that we've had a pretty good run with Pagnozzi, Matheny and Yadi. Pena was at least average as I recall. Was Simmons a below average thrower?

[Phyrkrakr]

Between Pags and Matheny, we also had Mike Difelice and Eli Marrero, who got the majority of the starts at catcher in 97 and 98 respectively. Pags didn't actually retire until after the 1998 season, but he was a backup after 1996. Marrero was our every day catcher in 1998 and 1999. Matheny showed up in 2000 when Eli was dealing with cancer.

I don't know remember enough about Difelice to know if he had an arm or not, but I remember Eli having enough of a gun to be decent, but not spectacular.

[doe_boy]

[quote="stretch"]When was the last time the Cardinals had a below average throwing catcher?

It seems that we've had a pretty good run with Pagnozzi, Matheny and Yadi. Pena was at least average as I recall. Was Simmons a below average thrower?[/quote]

Simba was a great hitter who was durable, called a decent game, and blocked the plate like a brick wall. He also had a lot of passed balls and was not a very good thrower.

Of course, he was a contemporary of Johnny Bench, Steve Yeager, Manny Sanguillen, and Jerry Grote. He wasn't in their class defensively.

[Popeye_Card]

I don't know remember enough about Difelice to know if he had an arm or not, but I remember Eli having enough of a gun to be decent, but not spectacular.

Marrero had a pretty strong arm, but it wasn't the most accurate. He'd sail a lot of throws.

The real difference with Yadi's arm is that quick pickoff throw. Boy does he scare me with it sometimes though late in close games...

--P--

[Jmodene]

Good question, and good topic.

BTW, Marrero's cancer was in 1998. Lampkin wound up catching a lot of games that year because of that; and in 1999, we got Alberto Castillo for a year's worth of good defense and better-than-expected hitting before we traded him for Pat Hentgen.

But yes, it does seem as though the Cards favor defense over offense (hello, SK) when it comes to the catching position, especially since TLR took over (anybody remember when we had guys like Hector Villanueva and Rich Gedman as backups?).

And it seems to me it's been a successful strategy, given that we've gone to the postseason 6 of the last 7 seasons and 7 of 11 years since TLR came aboard.

[Centreville]

Good question, and good topic.

BTW, Marrero's cancer was in 1998. Lampkin wound up catching a lot of games that year because of that; and in 1999, we got Alberto Castillo for a year's worth of good defense and better-than-expected hitting before we traded him for Pat Hentgen.

But yes, it does seem as though the Cards favor defense over offense (hello, SK) when it comes to the catching position, especially since TLR took over (anybody remember when we had guys like Hector Villanueva and Rich Gedman as backups?).

And it seems to me it's been a successful strategy, given that we've gone to the postseason 6 of the last 7 seasons and 7 of 11 years since TLR came aboard.

Yeah, I remember him. He was with the Cardinals from 1992-93 if I remember correctly...

[a_smith]

And it seems to me it's been a successful strategy, given that we've gone to the postseason 6 of the last 7 seasons and 7 of 11 years since TLR came aboard.

I agree about having a defensive catcher. But dont be too hasty on laying the credit on the catcher for the postseason. It could be that we got to the postseason despite having a good defensive-no hit catcher.

Sure its been a successful strategy, but the problem is that if you isolate one part it makes it hard to figure out how much credit to give that one part in a team sport. It seems to me that giving credit to the catchers is mistaking correlation for causation.

If I was a betting man, I would lay much more credit on the the great hitters (Pujols, Jimmy, Scottie, etc) and pitchers (Kile, Morris, Carp, etc) than on Matheny and Molina.

I have a hard time believing that their defense evens out their inability to do anything offesensively.

Or if you mean by successful strategy that we can have great players at other positions and are willing to save money at the catcher spot because no hit good D catchers(and young players), sure I can agree with that.