Buster Posey is NOT a first-ballot HOFer

This is an expansion, editing and reframing of my post of three days ago about the retirement of Buster Posey and whether he would make the Hall of Fame, and if so, sooner than Yadier Molina.

The expansion and reframing is necessitated by big Giants homerism from a few MLB Trade Rumors commenters, most notably "AndyHighRoller," as well as some Twinkies homerism tagging along for the case of Joe Mauer, and other things.

So, let's dive in.

On Wednesday, Posey announced he was retiring from the San Francisco Giants, leaving a $22M team option year that likely would have been picked up on the table, and a possible ticket to Cooperstown.

As MLB Trade Rumors noted, a year ago, Posey looked more beat. He also has had many injuries in his career, so it's not a total stunner to see him moving on, and leaving on a relatively high note.

And now, to the discussion in the headline of this post. Has Posey "punched his ticket" to Cooperstown, and more so, is he a first-ballot Hall of Famer, vis a vis Giants homers?

Is Posey's 44.9 WAR enough to make Cooperstown? Possibly, but almost surely not on the first ballot.

As I said in the previous post, there's good reasons why he wont' make it on the first ballot, assuming he's a BBWAA selection any time in his 10-year period. I said he'll be lucky to do it in five years.

Ted Simmons is the last catcher to go in, and he was a veterans committee choice with 50.3 career WAR. He fell off the BBWAA ballot after a single year. You read that right.

Posey is 14th on catchers' JAWS ranking. He does have one 7-WAR season, a benchmark for backstops and an MVP for that season.

OK, let's look at recent BBWAA inductees. We're talking Gary Carter and Mike Piazza, first. I'll get to one other one in a minute.

To put it bluntly? The BBWAA of the last, oh, 25 years has hated catchers. Carter, with 70.1 WAR and second to Johnny Bench on the JAWS list, needed SIX ballots to get in. Pizza Man, fifth on JAWS, needed four. Yes, you read those right. Carlton Fisk, fourth on catchers' WAR, needed "only" two. Maybe Carter and Piazza got backlash from NYC voters just like Munson. Who knows, but that's my one guess. Yogi Berra also didn't get in on the first try. It took Roy Campanella seven votes (including two weird 1960s "runoffs") in five seasons before he got in. (Campy was twice at the edge of 7 WAR in a 154-game season. He's at 42 WAR if you, like B-Ref, include his Negro Leagues. I don't, but the the issue of "the Negro Leagues are now the Major Leagues" is a whole matter on its own. On the issue of including WAR, for players who started in the Negro Leagues but then eventually joined the MLB, given that the Negro Leagues weren't MLB, I'd rather make a reasonable extrapolation backward off MLB time.)

Think that's bad? It was worse yet before that.

Bill Dickey needed 11 tries, 8 if you throw out those runoffs. Mickey Cochrane needed seven/six.

An offense-first, but not bad defensively catcher, Posey will almost certainly be compared and contrasted to defense-first, pitch-framing and intangibles Molina, who will be back in 2022 with the St. Louis Cardinals. Molina, meanwhile sits at 42.1 and is unlikely to pass Posey next year. He might not do it in two years, even.

And, as for his Cooperstown chances? Seven years by writers' vote, if that early, even though people at places like Red Satan have touted his pitch framing and other intangibles. 

Giants homers? I'm a Cards fan, but this is how you do it without being a homer.

It's true that pitch-framing is an intangible. But, Yadi, like Posey and like Munson, does have a 7-WAR season on the books. (Simmons does not, and that may have hurt him.) Posey is also above the HOF average for catchers on WAR/162 games, reflecting his relatively short career. He ranks roughly the same as Munson, ahead of HOFers like Fisk and Berra, and roughly even with Carter. His JAWS7 is roughly the same as the first two. On the WAR/162, he's well ahead of Yadi.

Both Posey and Molina could be helped by being one-team players, though, as well as having had plenty of postseason success.

Ivan Rodriguez, though not a one-team player, but pretty much a two-team player, and with no 7-WAR seasons, but with four 6-WAR ones, but some say with an (ahem) asterisk, is the only catcher besides Bench to be a first-ballot entry in the last 50 years, or ever. He may be good news for Molina, as he's the only catcher to outrank him in dWAR.

MLB Trade Rumors has Yankees fans touting Jorge Posada. His odds? Think not. Even with Molina on WAR, though a bit ahead on JAWS7 and WAR/162. Never broke 6 WAR and not renowned defensively.

Joe Mauer? Too many games at 1B/DH with too little power. (I don't have a paid B-Ref account, but my guesstimates, from when he started the move, are 41 WAR behind the plate and 14 elsewhere. Note also his "runs from positional scarcity" going negative from 2014 on.) Yes, he had concussions that led to him leaving the backstop. And? Posey had concussions, too, and that broken leg. Simmons had a pretty bad broken leg in what was looking to be his best season ever. Molina had that foul tip that bounced just wrong to bounce behind his cup and whack him in the nads. Mauer, due to the amount of games at 1B/DH, would need a minimum of 60 WAR. (And, yeah, there's full-time 1B entries in the Hall below that, but? They don't belong there.)

Basically, we have two issues.

One is BBWAA voters and the likelihood of a player's entry.

The other is the average of fans' thoughts.

The Giant homer, and others like him, are ignorant of the BBWAA, and present their homerism as the average of fan thought. They're wrong on both.

My five years on Buster, and seven on Yadi? That's my guesstimates. I think the BBWAA has probably gotten a bit smarter with, and since, Rodriguez's induction. But, I'm allowing for that. I first wrote that in my previous post because I forgot about how long Carter and Piazza took.

My estimates as to how long they should take also reflect in part what I think about both of them, based on the idea that Fisk and Carter should have both gone in on their first year of eligibility, and that Piazza probably should have. So, yes, I think Posey and Molina are that far behind them.

Sidebar, for fans who visit both? I think Fangraphs is way wrong a lot of time, either too high or too low, on dWAR for players at defense-heavy positions. Posey is NOT a 57.6 WAR guy. Even more so, Yadi is not a 55.6 WAR guy. I also don't like that, unlike B-Ref, it doesn't list oWAR and dWAR separately. (Sometimes, it screws the pooch the other way. Ozzie Smith has 10 fewer WAR at Fangraphs, for example.)