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Lifer: Metallica Sucks!

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Mike Piazza was the greatest HITTING MLB catcher ever

Cassidy's House: Smoke>Fire said 05/31, 05:26 PM
Lifetime Average:

Piazza .308
Fisk .269
Bench .267
Berra .285
Campanella .276
Carter .262

Homeruns:

Piazza 427
Fisk 376
Bench 398
Berra 350
Campy 242
Carter 324

On base percentage

Piazza .377
Fisk .341
Bench .342
Berra .348
Campy .360
Carter .335

Slugging percentage

Piazza .545
Fisk .457
Bench .476
Berra .482
Campy .500
Carter .439

Runs Batted In

Berra 1430
Bench 1376
Piazza 1335
Fisk 1330
Carter 1225
Campy 856

Games caught

Fisk 2226
Carter 2056
Bench 1742
Berra 1699
Piazza 1629
Campy 1183

Mike Piazza never struck out 100 times n a season. 396 of his 427 homeruns came as a catcher, the most ever for that position according to Elias Sports Bureau.

With his stats exceeding above Hall of Famers @ his position in 4 of 6 categories, its without question he will be a Hall of Famer, possibly even on the first ballot.

Its not easy hitting .300 from the catcher position as only 1 player in the American League is doing it and that is Joe Mauer at .318. Piazza averaged hitting over this mark over his entire career. No other HOF catchers can say this.

Piazza finished only 4 homeruns shy of Cal Ripken Jr. at 431.

Lifer: Metallica Sucks! said 05/31, 05:50 PM
I'll accept this. Why the heck not? It's a good challenge.

First off, you're wrong about Piazza being the only HOF (or future HOF) catcher to average over .300 in his career. The other man I found who did this was Mickey Cochrane, the man I'm going to use.

Cochrane played during the era of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, DiMaggio, Jimmie Foxx, and others, yet he still won TWO MVP awards in his career. Piazza, on the other hand, won none.

Cochrane over his career hit .320, which of course is better than Piazza's .308 average. Piazza beats Cochrane as far as SLG% goes (.545 to .478), but Cochrane likewise is far better than Piazza at OBP (.419 to .377).

I will also look at 162-game averages. Cochrane, compared to Piazza, averaged more:

Runs (114 to 89)
Hits (181 to 180)
Doubles (36 to 29)
Triples (7 to 1)
Walks (94 to 64)
Strikeouts (24 to 94)

I'm not going to bother arguing that Cochrane was better at hitting homers and getting RBIs. But that's not to say that for his era Cochrane wasn't good. He still finished in the top 10 in his league 4 times in HR, in 11 full seasons of play.

Cassidy's House: Smoke>Fire said 05/31, 06:25 PM
I was referring to icons @ the catcher position and thus my comparisons to them above.

Mike Piazza was a 12-time NL All-Star. Mickey? 2

Let's hear from a man who writes about baseball for a living, Bill James:
In his New Historical Baseball Abstract, author Bill James wrote: it is now clear that Mike Piazza is the greatest hitting catcher in history. Piazza's amazing offensive production, including 9 seasons of 30 or more homers, earned that lofty praise.

Mike was a rookie of the year in 1993 and All-Star MVP in 1996.

Mickey Cochrane never had a season like Mike Piazza did in 1997:
He slugged 40 homers, drove in 124 runs, collected 201 hits, and hit .362 - an incredible figure for playing half his games in Dodger Stadium.

Mickey's best season for hits was 174. His best for average was .357. You say you wont bother to discuss HRs & RBIs because Mike blows away Mickey there. You settle he was good for his era. Well if u are going to argue eras, Mike hit in a much more unfriendly era, having to face speciality relief pitchers and 5-man deep rotations. Not true for Mickey who often faced in his era one pitcher for entire games thus able to adjust per at bats.

Lifer: Metallica Sucks! said 05/31, 07:24 PM
Very cheap opening argument Cass. The first All-Star game was in 1933. Mickey Cochrane's last full season was in 1935. The fact that he made 2 out of 3 All-Star games after his prime shows how many he would have made otherwise.

Here's another interesting stat I find useful: Runs Created (RC), a stat that tells how many runs the player contributes to the team. As for RC/Game, Mickey Cochrane has 7.4, while Piazza has 7.3. Remember, this encompasses both runs and RBIs. So overall in helping his team (at the plate), Cochrane is better.

And really? Are you so insecure about your own opinion that you need to find another source to back it up? Did you know that Bill James also invented the Runs Created stat?

Rookie of the Year and All-Star MVP don't hold a burnt candle next to league MVP.

Also, unfortunately for you, Mike Piazza in 1997 does not encompass Mike Piazza for his career. If we were arguing individual seasons, you should have mentioned that earlier.

And if you want to drag out the tired "era" argument, I'll one-up you: Cochrane played in an era when power hitting and generating RBIs was very rare. Besides Ruth and Gehrig, it was rare for someone to hit over 20-25 HRs.

Cassidy's House: Smoke>Fire said 05/31, 07:41 PM
What does runs have to do with being the best hitter ever? Walks? Piazza was a run-producing machine because he could do things that Mickey couldnt such as:

NOT average just a hair over 9 HRs/year like Mickey did.

NOT average 64 RBIs a year.

Catchers are supposed to be offensive both in power and production.
Mike Piazza's WORST HR performance in a year he had 100 at bats was 19. He averaged 27 HRs for his career. RBIs? Piazza averaged 88.

You mentioned that Piazza was a better slugger and indeed he was. Piazza was extremely rare in that he hit for a high average AND was the best slugging catcher ever. That is what makes a great hitter, not just getting on base more often via more walks.

I would take Mike Piazza over Mickey Cochrane, not just because he used to play for my favorite team(Dodgers), but because baseball diehards like Bill James agree with me.

Fuzzy math doesnt make Mickey Cochrane the Mike Piazza of his day.

Lifer: Metallica Sucks! said 05/31, 08:18 PM
You are once again only arguing for RBIs and Home Runs. You even acknowledge that I said that, and you still argue it. And I'm not talking about runs, I'm talking about runs created. How much do you help your team offensively is what that stat is asking. And what was my "fuzzy math"?

You mentioned earlier that Mike Piazza had his numbers despite playing in Dodger Stadium. Well, Cochrane spent most of his career at Shibe Park -- a field that extended as far back as 468 feet in center. When he played at Tiger Stadium, it was 440 ft back. The man didn't have a whole lot of help in hitting home runs, as you can see.

Besides, who did Piazza have to compete against? In the NL when he played, there were almost no good catchers, unless you count Todd Hundley, Darrin Fletcher and Jason Kendall (who might have been the next best catcher).

Cochrane, on the other hand, had to compete against Bill Dickey, Ray Schalk and Rick Ferrell, all of whom are Hall of Famers. I can't think of a single catcher from Piazza's era besides Piazza himself who will make the Hall (except for maybe Pudge and Posada, who spent their careers in the AL anyways).

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Hey I thought you took Saturdays off???? LOL

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Mike Piazza was the greatest HITTING MLB catcher ever

Lifer: Metallica Sucks! beat Cassidy's House: Smoke>Fire 21 to 19

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