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rm

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Friday, January 18, 2008

Top Ten Offensive Yankee Seasons - Catcher

The offseason gets a little tough for me blog-wise. I do still have my Babe Ruth full-time pitcher project in the works, but Brian Cronin emailed me with a good suggestion, a look at some of the top Yankee seasons of all time by position. I liked the idea, so here we go with the first installment.

Before I get to the list of players and season, I'll describe the methodology I am going to use. Like most of the things I do here, this is meant to be an objective system, so it may not be perfect. Since calculating defense prior to the mid-80s is going to be difficult, I'm not going to factor that in here (Jeter fans rejoice!). I of course welcome feedback and suggestions about this methodology in the comments.

I am using battings runs above average as calculated using linear weights and looking at every season since 1901, when the Yankees were born as the Baltimore Orioles. The players' batting runs are park-adjusted using the Lahman database's park factor and then adjusted for position and era. This puts everyone on roughly the same scale. I am also calculating a position-adjusted version of OPS+ which I'm labeling as psOPS+, which is a quick and easy way to look at how the player in question compared to his peers at the same postion and in the same year using their OBP and SLG. An OPS+ of 100 is exactly average. Greater than 100 is better, etc.,

So with all that out of the way, here are the top ten offensive seasons by a Yankee catcher since 1901.

Rank	Player	Year	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	K	AVG	OBP	SLG	BRAA	psOPS+
1	Bill Dickey	1936	112	423	99	153	26	8	22	107	0	2	46	16	.362	.428	.617	43	193
2	Bill Dickey	1937	140	530	87	176	35	2	29	133	3	2	73	22	.332	.417	.570	43	167
3	Jorge Posada	2007	144	506	91	171	42	1	20	90	2	0	74	98	.338	.426	.543	43	172
4	Bill Dickey	1938	132	454	84	142	27	4	27	115	3	0	75	22	.313	.412	.568	36	164
5	Yogi Berra	1950	151	597	116	192	30	6	28	124	4	2	55	12	.322	.383	.533	35	152
6	Jorge Posada	2003	142	481	83	135	24	0	30	101	2	4	93	110	.281	.405	.518	34	160
7	Jorge Posada	2000	151	505	92	145	35	1	28	86	2	2	107	151	.287	.417	.527	33	150
8	Bill Dickey	1939	128	480	98	145	23	3	24	105	5	0	77	37	.302	.403	.513	32	154
9	Yogi Berra	1956	140	521	93	155	29	2	30	105	3	2	65	29	.298	.378	.534	32	152
10	Bill Dickey	1933	130	478	58	152	24	8	14	97	3	4	47	14	.318	.381	.490	31	169

Bill Dickey - 1936
There's no tangible difference in the overall value between the first three seasons on this list, but on a rate basis, Dickey's season reigns supreme. He missed a fair amount of time this season, but when he played he kicked ass, providing 43 runs above an average 1936 catcher. Dickey was one of the key players on a team that scored 1065 runs and went 102-51, winning the World Series.

Bill Dickey - 1937
Make Dickey a year older and you still get an outstanding performance. He lost 30 points of batting average, but played more and was worth the same 43 runs above average as he was in 1936.

Jorge Posada - 2007
Looking back on it now, it really is amazing how good of a season Jorge Posada had in 2007. He ended up at 43 runs above the average catcher, and in most other years he'd have been a very reasonable MVP candidate. As it was, he put up a historically good season for a Yankee catcher.

Bill Dickey - 1938
Dickey's 1938 was a fair amount less valuable than his 1936 or 1937 seasons, but still quite good.

Yogi Berra - 1950
YOGI! It's funny that Yogi won 3 MVPs, but "only" finished third in what was statistically his best season.

Jorge Posada - 2003
Another MVP-caliber season from a player who I feel doesn't get the credit he deserves. No, he's not a great defensive catcher, and yes, he's a lousy baserunner, but overall he's a very good player for a catcher and has been for his entire career.

Jorge Posada - 2000
See Jorge Posada - 2003.

Bill Dickey - 1939
This would end up being Dickey's last really good full season, although he had a monstrous 1943 in 242 AB. The '39 Yankees are in the discussion for best team of all time, and Dickey was a big part of it. A run differential of over 400? Damn.

Yogi Berra - 1956
Another non-MVP year for Berra which was more valuable than his MVP seasons.

Bill Dickey - 1933
Dickey's last appearance in the top ten, although Mike Stanley's 1993 at number 11 and Elston Howard's 1961 at number 12 are about equal overall.

So we have five seasons by Bill Dickey, three seasons by Jorge Posada, and two seasons by Yogi Berra. The list likely changes once you start factoring in defense,so keep that in mind.

Here's #s 11-20 sans commentary.

Rank	Player	Year	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	K	AVG	OBP	SLG	BRAA	psOPS+
11	Mike Stanley	1993	130	423	70	129	17	1	26	84	1	1	57	85	.305	.389	.534	31	165
12	Elston Howard	1961	129	446	64	155	17	5	21	77	0	3	28	65	.348	.387	.549	31	168
13	Yogi Berra	1952	142	534	97	146	17	1	30	98	2	3	66	24	.273	.358	.478	30	157
14	Thurman Munson	1973	147	519	80	156	29	4	20	74	4	6	48	64	.301	.362	.487	29	156
15	Yogi Berra	1953	137	503	80	149	23	5	27	108	0	3	50	32	.296	.363	.523	28	153
16	Yogi Berra	1954	151	584	88	179	28	6	22	125	0	1	56	29	.307	.367	.488	28	144
17	Elston Howard	1963	135	487	75	140	21	6	28	85	0	0	35	68	.287	.342	.528	28	151
18	Jorge Posada	2004	137	449	72	122	31	0	21	81	1	3	88	92	.272	.400	.481	27	150
19	Jorge Posada	2002	143	511	79	137	40	1	20	99	1	0	81	143	.268	.370	.468	26	141
20	Yogi Berra	1951	141	547	92	161	19	4	27	88	5	4	44	20	.294	.350	.492	25	146

This is by no means a definitive list, so feel free to tell me who you think should be moved up/down or on/off and why.

--Posted at 6:22 am by SG / 43 Comments | - (1424)

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