Who is the greatest player of all time by position?

[Touch'EmAll]

Growing up in the 70's, I was a huge into baseball. Johnny Bench was the man. And there also was Lou Brock - perhaps the most fun player of the decade - amazing base stealer. Brock didn't run much against Bench. Of all the catchers, he knew the odds were against him.

My dad, a Yankee fan, always touted Yogi Berra as the best.

Well, now I am leaning towards Yogi as greatest.

In 1986, Bill James ranked Berra the #1 catcher of all time in career value. In peak value he ranked Berra behind Campanella, Cochrane, & Bench. "Yogi Berra was more valuable to his teams, over the course of his career, than any other catcher. He was never as great at any moment as Bench was in his best years. But Yogi's record of sustained excellence over a period of a decade is without parallel by any catcher in the history of baseball."

Yogi was the most winningest baseball player in the history of MLB. The multiple MVP's, Near MVP's, All star games, World Series rings, have heard it said he was a walking baseball encyclopedia. I go with Yogi at catcher.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Touch'EmAll

Growing up in the 70's, I was a huge into baseball. Johnny Bench was the man. And there also was Lou Brock - perhaps the most fun player of the decade - amazing base stealer. Brock didn't run much against Bench. Of all the catchers, he knew the odds were against him.

My dad, a Yankee fan, always touted Yogi Berra as the best.

Well, now I am leaning towards Yogi as greatest.

In 1986, Bill James ranked Berra the #1 catcher of all time in career value. In peak value he ranked Berra behind Campanella, Cochrane, & Bench. "Yogi Berra was more valuable to his teams, over the course of his career, than any other catcher. He was never as great at any moment as Bench was in his best years. But Yogi's record of sustained excellence over a period of a decade is without parallel by any catcher in the history of baseball."

Yogi was the most winningest baseball player in the history of MLB. The multiple MVP's, Near MVP's, All star games, World Series rings, have heard it said he was a walking baseball encyclopedia. I go with Yogi at catcher.

Yogi's consistency is why I pick him too. Bench was incredible, every other year or so. Wins the MVP in 1970, in 1971 he has an OBP under .300. Wins the MVP in 1972, slashes .253/.345/.429 the next year, which isn't terrible but not that impressive. 1974 and 1975 he's excellent, super star seasons, and in 1976 he's just a hair over the league average. Bench has huge up and down spikes through his prime years, which the Bench argument tends to simply ignore instead of arguing that centralizing performance in certain years is more valuable to winning championships. Berra was consistently excellent, picking Berra you know what you are getting. Bench, he might be better but he might be worse too. Campanella had a similar trajectory, a lot of catchers have.

[cgjackson222]

Originally Posted by G1911

Yogi's consistency is why I pick him too. Bench was incredible, every other year or so. Wins the MVP in 1970, in 1971 he has an OBP under .300. Wins the MVP in 1972, slashes .253/.345/.429 the next year, which isn't terrible but not that impressive. 1974 and 1975 he's excellent, super star seasons, and in 1976 he's just a hair over the league average. Bench has huge up and down spikes through his prime years, which the Bench argument tends to simply ignore instead of arguing that centralizing performance in certain years is more valuable to winning championships. Berra was consistently excellent, picking Berra you know what you are getting. Bench, he might be better but he might be worse too. Campanella had a similar trajectory, a lot of catchers have.

Bench and Berra have very similar career statistics in pretty much every hitting category. There are two main reasons why Bench is better. Berra literally never led the league in anything--no black ink (although, considering DiMaggio and Mantle were his teammates, this is not terribly surprising). Bench had some of the best years of any catcher ever, leading the league in multiple categories. Yes this also means that he had some comparatively down years, but even in those years he hit 25+ homers and managed to have a WAR of 4 or better for 12 straight years.

But the main reason Bench is better than Berra is fielding. Berra's career dWar is under 10, and Bench was close to 20. Bench was better at pretty much every facet of catching.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by cgjackson222

Bench and Berra have very similar career statistics in pretty much every hitting category. There are two main reasons why Bench is better. Berra literally never led the league in anything--no black ink (although, considering DiMaggio and Mantle were his teammates, this is not terribly surprising). Bench had some of the best years of any catcher ever, leading the league in multiple categories. Yes this also means that he had some comparatively down years, but even in those years he hit 25+ homers and managed to have a WAR of 4 or better for 12 straight years.

But the main reason Bench is better than Berra is fielding. Berra's career dWar is under 10, and Bench was close to 20. Bench was better at pretty much every facet of catching.

I think Bench was better defensively, but I am not a fan of dWar; it makes a lot of assumptions and extrapolations off of less than perfect statistics, to say the least. I think the offense version is pretty good for direct contemporaries though it has faults, but dWar I don’t find swaying. This is not to say that defense is not important; it is just much harder to quantify by the nature of its structure and I don’t find dWar to have changed this.

I’d rather have consistency over the volatility of Bench. Berra won 3 MVP’s, he had great seasons as well, but he was excellent before, in between and after them. He doesn’t have prime years where he hits in the .230’s.

I think this one is more about what one values most than a clear victory. Bench is a fine pick, but I take Berra.

[Carter08]

Berra is criminally underrated. Catcher is definitely one of the weaker positions on al all time team. I’d say it’s ripe for a true king to come along but my thought is they’d move that person to 1B before he could do it. Hoping the Mets kid coming up is at least an All Star here and there.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Gary Carter's WAR was 10 points higher than Berra. And second only to Bench. He barely factors in this discussion.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Gary Carter's WAR was 10 points higher than Berra. And second only to Bench. He barely factors in this discussion.

I don't see the case for him. dWar loves Carter and so WAR rewards him heavily, but I am not seeing the argument in his favor as the GOAT. I don't think he was a vastly better defensive catcher than Bench.

[Carter08]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Gary Carter's WAR was 10 points higher than Berra. And second only to Bench. He barely factors in this discussion.

My handle is named after Carter and I’d love for him to be in the discussion. I love using WAR but Berra is one of those guys where I look at his stats and just don’t understand why it’s as low as it is. I consider the catcher to be the general and Berra was the general of the most WS winning teams by far so I’ll still consider him underrated. His stats are seriously legit. 3 MVPS and the league leader in a lot of categories. My man Carter, awesome as he was, tied for the league lead in RBIs once and that’s it.