Yadier Molina, a professional baseball player by profession, came to life on July 13th 1982 and is 37 years of age currently. Fortunately, those 83 wins were still good enough to win the N.L. The BBWAA awards are voted on by writers in the 30 major-league cities. Yadi wasn’t much of a hitter in his early MLB seasons but established himself at a young age as yet another Molina who was dangerous to run on. Hall of Fame manager Tony La Russa penciled Yadi into the starting lineup in his first game and the young backstop helped the Cards’ to a 4-2 victory with 2 hits and the first of the 345 career runners gunned down by his strong right arm. Molina is one of four Cardinals players to win seven consecutive Gold Gloves.

Led by the booming bats of Albert Pujols, Scott Rolen and Jim Edmonds, La Russa’s Redbirds cruised to 105 regular season victories and the N.L. The whole point of WAR is to combine offense, defense and base-running into one number.

Behind 7 innings of shutout ball by the 40-year old Glavine, the Mets won Game 1 at Shea Stadium by a 2-0 score. The final game of the series was a low-scoring affair with the score tied at 1 after 8 frames.

When it comes to the skill of pitch framing, Baseball Reference doesn’t include the currently available data when calculating a catcher’s WAR.

(Perez missed the 2019 campaign with Tommy John surgery). You have permission to edit this article.

All I’ve done is work hard to get better and better every single year to become the best catcher I can be. The question today on “Cooperstown Cred” is whether Molina is destined to join Simmons in the Hall of Fame.

His performance was worthy of the award. The Cardinals had two players finish among the top three vote-getters for major awards, the Baseball Writers’ Association of America announced on MLB Network Tuesday night.

Molina finished with eight Runs Saved, and he was the only one of the three with fewer than 1,000 innings behind the plate. The 3-time All-Star had a nice career but nobody looks upon him as a Hall of Famer (he got 2 out of a possible 440 votes from the writers in 2016). Molina’s cERA split is significantly better than all three men. Matheny signed with the San Francisco Giants in the offseason and so in the spring of 2005, Molina won the starting job; he has been the Cardinals’ primary backstop ever since. In a normal universe, one would expect that the longtime catcher for the St. Louis Cardinals would be celebrating that birthday in Los Angeles, preparing for his 10th All-Star appearance. Besides missing out on the game’s highest fielding honor, Molina was bypassed for the Mid-Summer Classic for the first time since 2008.

Again I’ll ask, how good is 40.2%? Baseball is generally not kind to catchers who are 38 or older. I’m not implying that Gold Gloves should be handed out merely based on who leads in dWAR but it’s an indicator that he earned them by performance and not by reputation. Derek Jeter’s Career Filled with Hall of Fame Moments, Larry Walker’s Hall of Fame Case and the Impact of Coors Field, Marvin Miller: Cooperstown’s Greatest Snub No More, Edgar Martinez: Finally in the Hall of Fame, Why Roy Halladay Deserved to be a First Ballot Hall of Famer, Mike Mussina Joins a Quartet of 2019 BBWAA Hall of Famers, Don’t Hate: Harold Baines is in the Hall of Fame, Chipper Jones Joins Braves’ Hall of Fame Dynasty, Vladimir Guerrero: Third Dominican Dandy in Cooperstown, Yes, Jack Morris Deserves His Hall of Fame Plaque, Finally, it’s Time for Trammell in Cooperstown, Randy Johnson: Cooperstown’s Intimidating Lefty, Red Sox Hall of Fame Legend Carl Yastrzemski, RIP Joe Morgan: Key Cog in the Big Red Machine, Rollie Fingers: World Series Closer Second to Only One, The Unique Hall of Fame Career of Dennis Eckersley, Gaylord Perry: Cooperstown Spitballer, Allegedly, Hall of Famer Frank Robinson Passes Away at 83, Remembering Whitey Ford: Chairman of the Board (1928-2020), Bob Feller’s Rapid Path to the Hall of Fame, Hall of Famer Red Ruffing, World Series Star, Hall of Famer Jim O’Rourke: Yale Law Grad in a Blue Collar Game, Forget Twitter: Curt Schilling is a Hall of Famer, Hall of Fame Still Out of Reach for Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, Scott Rolen’s Hall of Fame Case: a Matter of WAR, The Polarizing Hall of Fame Case of Omar Vizquel.