Lance Berkman. Matt Holliday. Yadier Molina.
Two of these things are much more alike than the other. But Yadi’s pretty good too.
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Berkman and Holliday follow a very similar trajectory, with Lance having a one-year head-start on Matt in age that they reached the bigs.
Berkman had a big year, his biggest actually, in his age 32 season, which Holliday is approaching. Will be interesting to see if he can keep pace with Puma.
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Interesting to note that none of these players has turned in a below-zero WAR season to-date. Molina has come the closest, which is understandable when you consider that all but two of his seasons (2009 and this year, so far) have resulted in negative oWAR, including the 0.2 WAR 2006 season, in which Yadi’s bat was worth -26.3 batting runs (!).
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So this Berkman cat (see what I did there?) has been pretty good for a pretty long time, eh? I am surprised, although I probably shouldn’t be, that when presented as they are above, Holliday has yet to have a season top Berkman. I expect (hope) that will change over the next couple of seasons, but for now it’s a great testament to Berkman’s consistency and longevity.
Congrats to the three All-Stars!
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It’s an interesting comparison of Berkman and Holliday. I’m not sure that Yadi (or any excellent defensive catcher) can be compared to a pair of outfielders until someone comes up with a better way to quantify catcher defense. I suspect (but don’t know, because I’m not that someone) that Molina’s graph line would track much better with the other two were that the case.
Oh no doubt. Sorry, I should’ve been more clear that this was just an attempt to show all three of the All-Stars, less an attempt to compare Yadi to the other two. Not fair, indeed.
Thanks for reading (and writing!).
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