Top catchers

J.T. Realmuto edges Salvador Perez in a tight race

Apr 06, 2023

It didn’t take long for J.T. Realmuto to make a name for himself in Philadelphia.

The 28-year-old catcher for the Miami Marlins was dealt to the Phillies prior to spring training in 2019. He batted a solid .275 with 25 homers that year, won a Gold Glove, and made the National League’s All-Star team.

His importance was certified by a Philadelphia Inquirer headline toward the end of the 2019 season: “Realmuto Cementing his Status as MVP: Most Valuable Phillie.”

His solid play in Philadelphia also ushered him into the conversation about baseball’s best catchers. My current ratings for that position, in fact, put Realmuto in first place, slightly ahead of Salvador Perez of the Kansas City Royals.

Rounding out the list of the five top catchers are Will Smith of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Willson Contreras of the St. Louis Cardinals, and Sean Murphy of the Atlanta Braves.

My rankings are confined to the 23 players who made at least 750 plate appearances between 2020 and 2022 and spent at least 50 percent of that time playing catcher. (The formula took all of each player’s statistics into account, even when he was at other positions.)

This is the first installment of my position-by-position ratings of the top players in the majors, so it seems prudent to devote several paragraphs to explaining the mechanics.

My aim is to reward both quality and durability, achieving this blend with a mixture of rate stats and counting stats. The 10 components are weighted evenly. Here they are:

Wins above replacement. Total WAR for 2020 through 2022, as calculated by Baseball Reference.
Wins-above-replacement rate. A ratio of WAR per 500 plate appearances.
Defensive wins above replacement. A breakout of the defensive component of WAR, again as determined by Baseball Reference.
Batting average. A time-honored favorite. Hits divided by at-bats, covering the three-year period.
Slugging percentage. A measure of power. The 2020-2022 rate of total bases (by hits) per at-bat.
Bases per out. A ratio of all bases that a batter accumulates to the outs that he makes. It’s figured in three steps: (1) Add up the bases reached by hits, walks, hit batters, and stolen bases, as well as the number of sacrifice hits and sacrifice flies. (2) Calculate outs by subtracting hits from at-bats, then adding double plays, caught stealings, sacrifice hits, and sacrifice flies. (3) Divide bases by outs.
Runs generated. The three-year total of runs scored and runs batted in, minus home runs. (Homers count in both the R and RBI columns, which is why I make the subtraction.)
Scoring rate. A ratio of runs generated per 500 plate appearances.
Games played. The total for 2020-2022, regardless of the position played.
Hits. The total for the three-year period.

My formula ranks the players from top to bottom, then assigns scores of 1,000 points to the leader and 0 points to the tailender at each position. Everybody else’s score is determined by their relative performances between top and bottom.

The battle between Realmuto and Perez was a tight one. Realmuto finished 30 points higher in BPO (.818 vs. .788), largely because of a better eye at the plate. He walked 105 times during the 2020-2022 span, dwarfing Perez’s 49 walks. Realmuto also held the edge in WAR (11.3 vs. 10.1), though Perez flashed greater power with 82 homers in three years. Realmuto hit 50.

Baseball’s top 15 catchers are listed below, with statistical breakdowns for the top five.

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1. J.T. Realmuto (2020-2022)

Score: 1,000 points
WAR: 11.3 total, 4.4 per 500 PA, 2.6 defensive
Averages: .269 BA, .464 SLG, .818 BPO
Scoring: 311 R generated, 120 per 500 PA
Totals: 320 G, 310 H
Notes: Realmuto’s best season in Philadephia was his most recent. He finished seventh in balloting for the National League’s Most Valuable Player in 2022, capping a year in which he helped lead the Phillies to the World Series. He was the only catcher — and only Phillie — among the top 15 vote-getters for MVP.

2. Salvador Perez (2020-2022)

Score: 989 points
WAR: 10.1 total, 3.9 per 500 PA, 2.2 defensive
Averages: .273 BA, .526 SLG, .788 BPO
Scoring: 305 R generated, 118 per 500 PA
Totals: 312 G, 332 H
Notes: Perez has caught more than 1,100 games for Kansas City since 2011, winning five Gold Gloves along the way. He reached his offensive pinnacle in 2021, when he blasted 48 homers and drove home 121 runs.

3. Will Smith (2020-2022)

Score: 883 points
WAR: 9.0 total, 3.7 per 500 PA, 1.6 defensive
Averages: .263 BA, .489 SLG, .859 BPO
Scoring: 293 R generated, 120 per 500 PA
Totals: 304 G, 272 H
Notes: Smith established himself as the Dodgers’ frontline catcher during the past two seasons. He ranked second on the team for home runs last year (with 24) and third in runs batted in (with 87).

4. Willson Contreras (2020-2022)

Score: 715 points
WAR: 9.0 total, 3.8 per 500 PA, 2.4 defensive
Averages: .241 BA, .444 SLG, .779 BPO
Scoring: 251 R generated, 105 per 500 PA
Totals: 298 G, 245 H
Notes: Contreras made headlines this winter by leaving Chicago for St. Louis as a free agent. He qualified for the All-Star team three times during his seven years with the Cubs, playing a total of 626 games behind the plate.

5. Sean Murphy (2020-2022)

Score: 567 points
WAR: 7.3 total, 3.0 per 500 PA, 1.7 defensive
Averages: .235 BA, .422 SLG, .713 BPO
Scoring: 232 R generated, 97 per 500 PA
Totals: 310 G, 246 H
Notes: Murphy was also on the move during the offseason, being traded by Oakland to Atlanta. He finished fourth in voting for the American League’s Rookie of the Year in 2020 and won a Gold Glove the following year.

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