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Continuing with your votes for the 100 best Hall of Fame candidates. No. 35: Thurman MunsonScore: 54.3 By bWAR, Thurman Munson was the second-best catcher of the 1970s after Johnny Bench. You can build a pretty convincing Hall of Fame argument around that. Munson won the MVP award in...
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I know we don’t have the numbers, but if Munson was a good to great pitch framer he could pick up 1-2 wins there, possibly even 3. Throw in the narrative stuff, which is worth more than nothing but not much, and it wouldn’t be impossible they had comparable seasons.
I went back and forth and did not think about the postseason. I picked Utley, solely by WAR7 (probably a vote of 50.01 versus 49.99). I think he was dirty too so it was not a popularity contest for me. 2005 through 2009, he put up 39.6. He basically averaged an 8 WAR for 5 straight years. Grich’s best 5 year streak was 35 (also awesome). I thought Utley at peak was slightly better than Grich while Grich gave more value long term as he came up earlier and had more late career value. Both should be in the HOF.
I’d still take Munson over Nettles. Sometimes WAR gets it wrong.
With Munson, of course, you really have to factor in how much his early death cost him. Although he didn’t ever have eye popping offensive numbers (though he was a solid hitter), his defense was always very good to excellent. On one hand, he died at age 32, and was showing some decline. He had OPS’s of .705 and .714 his last two years. Those were down almost 50 points from his career average and 100 points from his career peak. On the other hand, during those last two decline years, he still had 3.3 and 2.4 WAR (without the two months after he died during a likely 3.0+ WAR season). Joe often talks about players who’s careers end at age 32 without being able to add to their value over another few years, even if at a reduced rate. If Munson was able to average 2.5 WAR over another 5 years, which seems entirely possible, he could have ended his career at around 55-58 WAR. That would have put him above HOFers Mickey Cochran (48), Buck Ewing (48) and near HOFer Ted Simmons (50). And just below HOFers Bill Dickey (58), Gabby Hartnett (60), Mike Piazza (59) and Yogi Berra (59). Obviously a lot of Munson’s value was defensive value unlike a lot of the guys on this list. But he was potentially right in there if he had another 5 decent years. It’s a little tough to guess how fast he would decline, especially at his position. But that’s what we’re forced to consider.