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How Good Was Gary Carter? [REAL Good]

My condolences to Gary Carter’s family and friends. He was my “first catcher” as a baseball fan. I knew he was the best and all other catchers were to be judged by his example. He was great with the bat, a team leader, and seemed like a great guy.

What does WAR (Wins Above Replacement)- the all in one stat that shows value- say of Gary Carter in terms of ranking as one of the best catchers of all time?

From 1974-1992 (his career) he is first in WAR.

He had the best WAR for catcher in the decade of the 1980s (1981-1990).

No footnotes needed here: he was THE dominate catcher of his era.

How about of all time?

It goes something like this: Johnny Bench, Pudge Rodriguez, Carlton Fisk…and Gary Carter. Yogi Berra and Mike Piazza are next.

Was Gary Carter a good defensive catcher?

He threw out 35% of base runners. Bench was at a 43% clip. Fisk at 34%. Rodriguez is at 46%. Berra was 49%. Piazza was infamously at 23%.

According to Mets pitchers from the 1980s, Carter called all their games and wouldn’t accept shake offs if he had his mind made up on a certain pitch.

It took six years for the Baseball Writers Association of America to elect him into the Hall of Fame, and they should be ashamed of themselves for taking so long.

gary carter dies

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  1 comment for “How Good Was Gary Carter? [REAL Good]”

  1. Tony Vahl
    February 18, 2012 at 11:53 PM

    Thank you for writing this, Damian. It’s AMAZING how under-rated he is as a catcher. AND he was a terrific human being. I know he’d go out of his way to help Simon. One of the good guys.

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