The one catcher who had Rickey Henderson's number? Bob Boone (though later in his career with the Angels):
Great article. Boone was an underrated cog in the 1980 championship team. Even though he had to split some ABs with Keith Moreland...
Pope was largely right about the 1974-80 core guys in terms of when they were getting older and likely to decline and probably moved them at the right time (Bull, Bowa, McBride, Trillo). Boone, however, was one where he misjudged. He was still good with the Angels after the guys who replaced him with the Phillies--Diaz and later Virgil--had come and gone. And, ironically, he was replaced on the Angels with Lance Parrish when the Phillies moved on from him.
It is hard to count on a catcher to play 150 games at age 37 and still be decent. Part of the equation as we decide on the length of the contract we will offer Realmuto. While his athleticism might let him catch longer than others, should we expect that?
Boone had a pretty good arm, but it wasnt like a Molina arm, but he might have been one of the smartest players to ever play the game. My guess is that many of his CSs were just a matter of him outsmarting the baserunner, they didnt keep track of pitch outs then but I bet he got alot of guys on those. The pitch out is now a dead concept, but back when he played it was still pretty common.
Boone has to be on the short list of guys that were sons of ML players and had multiple sons that were multiple ML players. He knew (knows) the game like very few.
He also had a freakish lack of decline as he aged. He put up a 1.9dWAR at 41 and never had a bad dWAR season. He was a pretty steady 1.0 - 2.5dWAR every year.
Boone had really good throwing mechanics. Very compact with little wasted motion. That is not unlike Realmuto though the one thing JT does better is shift his body into throwing position on pitches that are not perfect.
I mean, you're gonna be right 9 times out of 10 if you give up on a 33 year-old player 10 times, whether he's a catcher or starting pitcher or position player (except maybe DH). And Boone was pretty much done as an offensive tool at 31. But impressively durable overall.
He actually set his Phillies career highs for starts and ABs in 1980, Moreland made just 39 starts. In '81 it was more of a platoon (in a shortened season) and then both were gone.
That accurately describes Boone's career as an Angel. His dWAR averaged over 2 as an Angel.
But as a Phillie, Boone averaged about 1 dWAR per year. His last two years as a Phillie were 0.9 and -0.5. Combined with oWAR of 0.3 and -0.2 those years, it's not surprising why the Phillies let him go.
The only other sons of ML players who had multiple sons who were ML players that I can think of are Buddy Bell and Jerry Hairston Sr.
Seeing as how we can't even seem to nail down defensive statistics and analytics for current players I would think the retroactive assessments are variable to say the least, and that catcher is the hardest position to assess. Some of the core catching funtions, especially how we view it now, aren't in the formula. But, you can only really compare catchers to other catchers and Boone remains an all-timer.
All good points about dWAR, past and present, and especially for catchers.
Itâs unfortunate that Boone had two bad years at an age where many catchers are declining. Good for him to have so many good years after that.
12 days later
This is hilarious.
https://www.yahoo.com/sports/judge-len-dykstra-reputation-bad-131243871.html9
> this Court finds that, as a matter of law, the reference cannot âinduce an evil opinion of [Dykstra] in the minds of right-thinking personsâ or âdeprive him of their friendly intercourse in society,â as that âevil opinionâ has long existed.
So, basically, a court of law has ruled that Dykstra is, legally, a piece of human trash.
This is hilarious is absolutely correct. If the legal profession doesnt work out for this judge, he has a real future as a satirical comedy writer. Basically he said "nothing can be said to lower anyone's opinion of Dykstra" and "I have better things to do than worry about this peice of... ".
Did the judge drop the microphone when he left the room and give Lenny "the Bird" on the way out also?
22 days later
Marlins sign Sean Rodriguez as well as Vincent. (Ironically Vincent had previously rejoined Kapler in SF.)
Off the 40, still on their 60. It's funny that you still get "assigned" to minor league teams right now. He couldn't refuse the assignment.
He still has his Facebook account. Facebook doesnât lend itself to the same kind of fights, since only friends can post and you can only have 500 friend.