The Greatest Milwaukee Brewers Catchers of All Time
Rodriguez to Surhoff, Nilsson to Contreras...
The last article in this series covered catchers from both Florida teams, finishing up the position for the National League East and segueing to the American League East. It seems only fitting to move on to the Brewers next, a team from the old AL East that has spent part of its history in the National League. So here comes my soapbox pitch…
In keeping with the guiding principle of my life, briefly summarized as “change is bad,” the Milwaukee Brewers should move back to the American League. They spent the 1980’s there, and there was no reason for them to change other than to retroactively ruin my childhood, possibly in collaboration with Jar-Jar Binks. I realize the Milwaukee Braves played in the National League first, but that was before my birth and the existence of my subjective Universe. Philosophically speaking, therefore, 1) I don’t care, and 2) shut up.
The time to act is now! Milwaukee could flip with the Astros, thus righting two tragic mistakes. Or with the Diamondbacks; nobody cares what league the Diamondbacks are in! Join with me, people! If we band together, we can make this happen! RESTORE THE BREWERS! While you ponder this timeless wisdom, which is far more emotionally impactful to me personally than, say, the threat of anthropogenic global climate change, we’ll start on Milwaukee catchers…1
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Mike Matheny 1997
Martin Maldonado 2012
Jerry McNertney 1969
Henry Blanco 2000
Jason Kendall 2008
Bill Schroeder 1987
Matheny brought the same skillset of strong defense and limited offense to his first few years in Milwaukee that he later employed more successfully in St. Louis. Maldonado, a 2017 Gold Glove winner, is sort of a modern take on the same formula; never again came within 35 points of the .266 batting average in his rookie year. McNetney will forever be the catcher for the 1969 Seattle Pilots, one of a small group of players to have their best season for that one-year wonder. Blanco is another Matheny-type catcher—seriously, how many of these guys have the Brewers had?—who bounced around the league as a modestly successful backup. Kendall had been an All-Star catcher, came to Milwaukee and immediately turned into... Matt Matheny, hitting .246 without power, but with defense and some walks. Schroeder was perhaps the elite right-handed hitting platoon catcher of the 80's, slugging .471 against lefties, .550 in 1987.
18 homers and 71 RBI in a little over 600 at-bats between '17 and '18. When injuries struck, they struck hard, and he hasn't made it to 200 at-bats since. Began 2017 red-hot with a .375 April, including a 4-hit, 2-homer game against Cincinnati, whose pitches he beat like a drum all season: .400, 3 homers, 9 RBI. The effect carried over to 2018, as he added 11 more hits and two more homers, .324 against the Reds overall. It's nice when randomness pretends to be data for our amusement.
Currently the backup catcher on my New York Mets, so his .208 batting average in the two full seasons since his All-Star campaign is more my problem than yours, Brewers fans. Actually it started before that, as he hit .178 after September 1st in his last good year. Posted batting averages between .267 and .278 for four straight seasons before dropping by a hundred points, going back up 90, and dropping 60. From Maracay, Venezuela, a city which has also given us Bobby Abreu, Miguel Cabrera, Carlos Guillen, and Elvis Andrus.
Like Jason Kendall three years later, the catcher from the 2001 champion Diamondbacks stopped by Milwaukee in the "bouncing around the league" stage of his later career. They made several of the same stops, each checking in with the Cubs and A's as well. While Kendall declined sharply after his Pirates career, Miller's whole thing was putting up a slightly above-average season every year, and you’d be hard-pressed to tell his first two Brewers seasons apart from his prime. Closed '05 strong, hitting .358 in September. The team, hanging around the fringes of the Wild Card race, played well and got over .500 before dropping their last two, but eventual NL champion Houston closed well too, and the Brewers never really made a run.
I never understood Charlie Moore's late-career switch to the outfield. A catcher who hits .300-.355-.404, as Moore did in '79, or even .291-.336-.363 (his 1980) is a valuable player. A starting right fielder who posts a .284-.354-.369 line (Moore's '83) is much less so. You just don't really need an outfielder who does that, even if they're having a good year by their own standards. Moore went back to catching later in his career, when his hitting had started to lag, but even his modest '86 rally (.260-.317-.374) looks way better for a backup catcher. Hit .385 between two rounds of the 1982 playoffs.
Only one year in Milwaukee, but when a guy hits 28 home runs with an .848 OPS at catcher, you make room somewhere on the career list. Homered in the Wild Card game, as Milwaukee got off to a 3-0 lead before fading against the eventual champs in Washington, so he's got a team-historical highlight of sorts. Endured a June-August slump (.220 with 3 homers over those months) after a terrific first half, came back to close strong with 7 homers in September. Probably the greatest Cuban-born catcher in MLB history, beating out Paul Casanova, Joe Azcue, and old timer Mike Gonzalez.
A tough career to place historically, he hit much better later in his career as a left fielder, but also he was just another power-hitting outfielder in that late 90's era, rather than a promising, borderline star at a vital position. There are variables to consider, just in picking his top year with the Brewers: He still caught a few games in '95 and had his best offensive year in Milwaukee (.870 OPS), but his best year as a full-time catcher was his rookie year in 1987 (.773 OPS). But it was '87, the rabbit ball year. I'm using 1990 because he's the team's only catching option for the early 90's; he hit okay (.707 OPS), but it's kind of a crapshoot.
I don't know if he was better in '73 or '75, but I know they shouldn't have traded him and an 18-game winner for Jim Wohlford and Jamie Quirk. To be fair, the player to be named was Bob McClure, who won 12 games for the pennant-winning team and will probably end up as the 2nd best lefty reliever in Brewers history behind Plesac (I'm guessing; haven't worked on that list yet). Not sure that makes up for missing perhaps the greatest AL catching season of the 70's. (Carlton Fisk would like a word, but he can wait until the Boston post). As a rule, if your catcher posts an .800 OPS, don't trade him! It works for Gary Carter and for J.T. Realmuto, and for Porter too.
Well, that was certainly a good start. I'm not sure I'd have swapped him for Sean Murphy in the first place, given the difference in their ages. He'll have some distance to go to not end up as the Eli to his brother Willson's Peyton Manning, plus he was born on December 24th, so the specter of the combined birthday/Christmas present can’t make little-brother life any easier. (Of course, Eli won two championships, so I'm guessing Milwaukee would take that career.) Hit 20 doubles between July and August, while driving in 39 runs. Destroys lefties: .334 lifetime with .596 slugging.
One of the toughest decisions you'll face, when making up any kind of all-time or all-decade rosters, is whether Ellie Rodriguez belongs with the 70's Brewers or the 70's Angels. His '72 and '74 seasons were nearly identical, '72 being a bit more impressive, but '74 featuring an extra 24 games. He played a little more for Milwaukee in his career, but wasn't exceptionally impressive anywhere, outside of those two seasons. (He did make the All-Star team as a member of the '69 Royals; somebody had to). Little bit bigger platoon split in '74. Both teams were fairly weak at catcher for the decade, so Rodriguez is clearly the best available choice for both. In the end, it’s a pure judgment call.
Who can it be, ranked third? It's Dave Nilsson, who broke into the league as a catcher. Got moved to the outfield, but that was overkill or at least a mistake, and his career nearly went down under. But it was him and the Brewers against the world, so he returned to catcher and posted a career-best season in 1999, his last in America. Maybe they should have left him alone, just left him alone. Are you getting that he was Australian yet, or do I have to bring up Colin Hay’s guest shots on Scrubs and work in a reference to Helen Reddy’s version of Delta Dawn? The best Aussie position player in MLB history unless you really want to count a 19th Century infielder named Joe Quinn; how he compares to Liam Hendricks and Grant Balfour, I leave to the philosophers. Let’s just say they’re all bonzer.
After posting numbers more reliable than explosions in a Michael Bay movie for a decade in St. Louis, Simmons went to Milwaukee in '81 and promptly had the worst year of his life. Rallied back for two more on-brand seasons, helping the Brewers into the World Series, before slumping in 1984 and rebounding a bit as a DH in '85. Had four hits and two homers in the first three games of the '82 Series, then went 0-for-11 in the last four games (with, it should be noted, four walks). Hit .217 through the first two months of '82, seemingly on his way to another poor year, as Milwaukee languished in sixth place following their first-ever playoff appearance in the strike year. The team got hot in June and rolled through the summer, and somewhere in there Simmons got the engine started.
Not sure why we keep coming back to Jason Kendall in this article, but Lucroy was another aging catcher who bounced around the league as he did, another Oakland and the Cubs tried without much success. Lucroy followed the career path closely, as he had an injury year right after his best season, semi-rebounded but never got it all back before fading entirely. Always seemed like a big hitter, although he topped 20 homers only once and 80 RBI twice. But for a while in mid-2014, got as hot as any catcher you've ever seen: .353 with 7 homers, 18 doubles, 34 RBI in May and June. I guess I assumed he'd remain that kind of hitter, but we always think good things will last forever.
I have a rule: Anytime a catcher hits 50 or more doubles in a season, they automatically rank first for their team. This rule applies solely to Jonathan Lucroy in Major League Baseball history. No catcher has ever matched his 53; only I-Rod in 1996 topped 45. Good things don't last forever, but things that have never been done before or since take a little longer to rust.
On Wednesday: New York Yankees catchers.
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