Here’s a collection of reactions to the Cardinals’ new three-year, $60MM extension with Yadier Molina:
- The Cardinals originally wanted Molina’s extension to be a two-year deal, while Molina’s camp preferred four to five years, Fan Rag’s Jon Heyman writes. The two sides met in the middle at three years. Heyman acknowledges the deal is long and expensive for a catcher in his mid-30s, but says if the Cardinals were going to bend the rules for anyone, it should be for a “legend” like Molina.
- Many fans seem to think the Cardinals overpaid, but Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports disagrees. Like Heyman, Rosenthal argues that Molina’s value is greater than statistics like WAR would suggest, given the hard-to-quantify value Molina creates in his work with the Cardinals’ pitching staff. Rosenthal also points out that the Cardinals franchise and the game in general are awash in money, and he describes Molina’s new deal as being partially a reward for what he’s already accomplished for the team. That last argument, of course, seems unlikely to sway fans who believe the Cardinals overpaid, although there’s no arguing his point that the Cardinals can afford to pay Molina a robust salary.
- Benjamin Hochman of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch also points out that the Cardinals’ new $1 billion television contract should insure the Cardinals against worries that they can’t afford Molina. Hochman describes the deal as a “statue signing” and links Molina to a line of all-time-great catchers that also includes Johnny Bench and St. Louis native Yogi Berra.
- The deal is not a “legacy contract,” says Cardinals GM John Mozeliak, via USA Today’s Bob Nightengale. “We believe he can compete at the highest level, and we still feel that Yadi is one of the best catchers in the game,” Mozeliak says. “Today is not about a sun-setting career. This is about us retaining the greatest catcher ever to wear the Cardinals uniform.”
Yadi’s contract is well deserved. Credit both sides for getting the deal done so efficiently.
haters gonna hate, but this is exactly what needed to happen for both sides. glad it happened.
“I am a cardinals fan and thus I do not care about reality”
“I am a Cubs fan, thus I hate anything cardinals”
That’s funny because I really don’t at all. I respect the organization for their ability to continuously contend and produce mlb talent. I just don’t buy into your kool-aid. Keep thinking everyone is out to get you and that it’s not just the ridiculousness of the people that post here though. It’s a great look.
here are some examples of what i mean
headhawks3 days ago
what planet you from cali?? The man is best catcher in MLB and has been for sometime (especially on defensive side…
Michael Macaulay-Birks3 days ago
The only thing comparable in that statement is the money, Molina has been a top three catcher his entire career, there was never a point in Derek Jeter’s career that he was the best shortstop in the league, hell he wasn’t even the best shortstop on his team in the early 2000’s’s
themed13 days ago
Haven’t been a bad team for the last 30 years. Add that to your list.
themed13 days ago
Ok the last 25 years. Any other organizations come close to year in year out continued success. They have contended every year.
but it has NOTHING to do with facts, it’s just people hating on your team.
Which one of those posts are not true?
You’re joking right? You don’t see anything wrong with any of those? You’re playing right into his argument right now
Every single one of those posts are not true. Thank you for validating my point.
Seriously? If the argument is that Molina and the Cardinals have a fantastic legacy and you are arguing against that, you are going to fall short.
If the argument is that this isn’t a prudent baseball move, then that makes great sense.
The Cards did this because they want to preserve his legacy in baseball heaven. It’s not a baseball move, it’s a legacy move, despite what Rosenthal may say.
And Molina is the greatest catcher baseball has seen since Pudge, maybe Bench.
oh look more delusional cardinals homer! yay
So then what is your argument against every thing I just said?
So just to confirm, it’s easier to call people delusional than to actually discuss anything with them? I want to clarify, because I’ve seen you jump around on this forum calling every Cardinal fan every name you can think of, but I’ve never seen you actually support anything you’ve said with actual evidence. Here is your opportunity.
Posey , as for top three every year of his career is just pure nonsense and the dis on Jeter are u kidding me? Btw who was the better shortstop on his team? Not A-Fraud , I’ll take Jeters glove over a-frauds any day
What are you cards fans going to do when he doesn’t walk away from the game after this contract is up? You gonna give him another 2-3 years at 20 mil? ( and font say he’s going to walk away because none of the molinas quit before 41)
Even if we were to go along with this nonsense, Benjie didn’t catch a hi league inning after 35, and Jose didn’t after 39
Uh buster posey exists and claiming Yadi may be better than pudge is what everyone here is talking about. Delusional weirdness.
Are you kidding? He supports his statements, provides links, all the time. Personally, I think the deal is one year too long. That’s just me.
go back to the last post on molina where i showed plenty of evidence why claims were wrong.
Yours that molina is the best since pudge. here are some examples of comparable catchers. fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=c&stats=bat�…
Keep trying to play the victim though, it’s hilarious.
stalk & troll much? every team has fans who drink the Kool aid.. get over it and yourself.
Again, Mauer has caught half the innings as Molina and has been playing first for years. He’s hardly a catcher. Only Martin and McCann have caught in the same arena in innings as Molina.
Posey will pass Molina as the best since Pudge, he just hasn’t yet.
And again, Yadi is a league average offensive player. But he’s easily been the best defensively. Catchers defensive values are hard to quantify, but if you look at what numbers we do have (UZR, dWAR, cERA vs backups, caught stealing rate and just raw attempts against, etc) he pretty obviously is the greatest defensive catcher baseball has seen in a very long time.
You’re rather hypocritical, saying you believe that all cardinals fans believe someone is out to get them, when I’ve seen you do nothing but harass cardinals fans.
Plenty of evidence? In that thread you did the same thing here, linked to the Fangraphs leaderboard page of catcher fWAR.
We know catchers are under rated WAR wise, especially good defensive ones. And you were arguing he hasn’t been a top 3 catcher since he arrived in the league, which of course he has and your link even supports that. Unless you think Mauer has caught 8000 more innings than he has. Mauer didn’t collect that fWAR as a catcher.
That’s because he is a jealous individual especially when it comes to all of the recent Cardinal success. No organization is going to win every year but none have contended as much as the Cardinals have over the past 25 years.
It’s true. The Cards need a box office draw as the current roster descends into mediocrity.
How much are the Reds paying Votto to be the face of mediocrity?
They just beat the all mighty World Champios last night and you would have thought there was no chance of that. No the Cardinals are the most consistent organization in baseball the last 25 years. Some teams make a little run but over all the playoffs and World Series chances have to go through St Louis. We’ve seen the Brewers for a couple of years then the Reds and the Pittsburgh now the cubs but no one as consistent as the Cardinals. The cubs might have a couple shots at it but will never be as consistent as the Cardinals have been over the past few years.
Where is this fact that the Cubs will never be as consistent? Do you have a link to support this? No? That’s what I thought.
It’s an overpay for sure as far as the production he’s going to bring throughout the life of the contract, however, Yadi is the #1 factor in filling those seats. He is one of the most loved and respected players in this game by the fans. He absolutely deserved this and I’m excited to see him play out his career here.
Well, he’s also one of the most hated by certain members of other fanbases, which makes this deal even better.
Hated because they wish they had him on their team.
Partly true. He’s also a punk and instigator.
I wouldn’t say I hate yadi, but the biggest reason I dislike him is because he is vastly overrated by their fan base.
Hear hear
I’m a Cards fan, and I will say he is overrated by Cards fans.
But he is also too easily dismissed by non-Cards fans.
There is a middle ground in there, and that’s where he is.
Since 2004, his cERA is a full run better than his backups, nobody else in baseball is even close to that. That alone should raise an eyebrow of fans who dismiss him.
He also has the most pickoffs, the fewest errors, and the fewest stolen base attempts of full time catchers (by over 300 over 10 years, which is one less attempt every 5 games).
But don’t let any of that distract you from hating him.
He is over rated by Cards fans. I absolutely agree. They think he is greater than Bench and created pitching as an art form. But realistically. He has a defensive presence that is hard to quantify in todays game.
His hall of fame candidacy will be an interesting discussion.
And while Cards fans over rate him, non Cards fans too easily dismiss what he has done to create these great Cards teams over the last decade.
Stop reading your press book your stats are inaccurate
Yeah, none of those stats are in press books. But baseball reference has them for you to review if you like.
Actually he never starts a fight. He just ends them. Great man!
So I figured I would post these stats that you deny.
Chester has shared the fWAR rankings, which I think we can all agree that Yadier isn’t the same hitter that Posey and Mauer are/were.
He is similar offensively to Martin, who is also the most comparable to Molina defensively, though he is well short there.
WAR really undervalues catchers, we know that. The only real defensive value it measures is caught stealing rates and assists. We know there is a ton more to catching than that. So here are some additional defensive numbers for Molina that you may not know.
Career pickoffs
Molina – 55
Martin – 22
Mauer – 2
Posey – 5
Since 2004, Molina has had a grand total of 724 stolen base attempts against him in 13,254 innings, or one attempt every 18.3 innings.
McCann has had 1059 attempts against him in 11,508 innings. One every 10.9 innings.
Posey has had 549 attempts against and caught 5976 innings (yes, less than half as many innings as Molina). Which is one attempt every 10.9 innings.
Martin has had 1043 stolen base attempts against, in 11,644 innings. Which is one every 11.1 innings.
Mauer has had 545 stolen base attempts in 7883 innings. Which is one every 14.5 innings played.
Nobody is more afraid to run on a catcher than they are to run on Molina. No other catcher in baseball even comes close to the suppression of the running game.
Mauer, who is leading in the WAR category, hasn’t been a catcher for years, and has played half as many innings as Molina there. He is ahead by 12-15 WAR depending which measure you want to value. But let’s not pretend he has been doing all of his production as a catcher. 56% of the innings he has been involved in on the field (includes time as DH) has been at the catcher position. But he’s less than 50% ahead in total WAR.
cERA vs backups. This one took awhile to calculate because I had to manually calculate it.
Molina – 3.61
Backups – 4.21
Difference +0.60
Martin – 3.67
Backups – 3.65
Difference -0.02
Mauer – 4.05
Backups – 4.48
Difference – +.43
Posey – 3.50
Backups – 3.69
Difference – +0.19
Assists to other bases (doesn’t include dropped third strikes)
Molina – 223 – One every 59.43 innings (also the most assists to second and third base)
Martin – 197 – One every 59.11 innings
Mauer – 55 (has never thrown a player out at second or third for an assist) – One every 143.33 innings
Posey – 98 – One every 60.99 innings
This is why Molina has been the greatest catcher in baseball since Pudge.
If you just want to value fWAR, and pretend like there isn’t more to catching than hitting and throwing out base runners, be my guest.
And I didn’t get into frame rates, because that’s even more time than I feel like spending on this.
He’s one of the most lived by cards fans
I’m happy to see Yadi with the birds on the bat for 3 more years!
This is just the beginning of the Cardinals downfall folks! It started with the Astros scandal, then injury to Reyes, and now this contract will look bad with a steep decline for Molina!
k
I can’t stand the cardinals because they are always beating up my reds, but I think this was a great signing for both. He is just a winner and great leader, plain and simple. I tip my cap to Molina and the cardinals.
You’re a joke.
he’s a mediocre player, worth 5 mil a year at the most
You’re overcompensating the cardinals overrating of him by under rating him criminally
2.4 fWAR, as a catcher…..is only worth 5 mil?
Boy, that’s gonna be a hard sell to the rest of the league.
They will probably be paying $20m for 1ish WAR production in 2 years, but… what the hell not my money. BUT, that being said, he is not a HOF player, he isn’t a top 100 hitting catcher and as he declines he might fall out of the top 10 defensively. Bob Boone isn’t in, then Molina shouldn’t be in. he will probably end up with a sub .800 OPS under 40 fWAR and under 150 homers to go with a sub 100 wRC+. how do you make that guy a HOF player? He wouldn’t even be a top 25 catcher all time with those numbers.
if he’s a HOF’er than Brian McCann is, he’s been a better player.
That’s not really true.
McCann is a better hitter, I won’t deny that. But defensively, He isn’t even in the same ballpark, much less anywhere close.
Molina complete castrates the runner game, while they run freely on McCann. And his ability to suppress offense basically doesn’t exist in comparison.
to the down vote
McCann has allowed 1059 stolen base attempts, 788 successful in 11,508 innings since 2005.
Molina has allowed 722 stolen base attempts, 421 successful in 13,245 innings since 2004.
But let’s pretend the 15 OPS+ bump is worth that, plus the massive cERA, pickoffs, errors, and additional defensive values that are created by Molina vs McCann.
Would you like the defensive cERA vs backups for additional values? Or should 300 less attempts which more are not successful enough to squash this negative vote?
Of course Molina has been more valuable than McCann since they entered the league, that’s pretty obvious.
While I love Boone, you are talking about 98 OPS+ vs 82 with the same dWAR
I’m a Cards fan and wouldn’t vote for Yadi into the Hall. But Boone couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn. Boone was basically another pitcher at the plate.
If he handled the pitching staff so well last year, how did they have such a poor year dealing with the running game? And what of his lousy passed ball stats?
what i have learned from these posts is that a majority of cardinals fans that post here do not function in the same reality as other people. Themed1 is by far the worst. I am just waiting for him to make blatantly false claims about molina.
Truest statement posted here so far
Last year was Yadi’s worst year defensively by a mile. He allowed the most runs, the most stolen bases, and just did not play as well.
Any Cards fan that wants to gloss over as though he was great last year wasn’t paying attention.
He has been fantastic over his career, but last year, he was pretty rough.
Not every signing makes complete sense from a $/expected return on the field analysis. He’s likely to underperform towards the back end–but I would imagine the Cardinals took that into account before agreeing.
Ya and they’re definitely not a poor team so they can afford to make a deal like this
“The deal is not a legacy contract”
Yes, yes it is.
The Cardinals and their fans needed this. Yadi is the face of the franchise. He also has ties to previous teams that started this very good stretch. Is it an overpay? Yes. Can they afford it? Yes. There aren’t very many players worthy of spending an entire career in one uniform. The ones that are, should. Picture Jeter in San Diego, Molina in Tampa, etc. Teams spend for advertising, this is advertising built in. Statues are hard to come by and Yadi’s should be getting started. Carson Kelly is close and if Molina falters then you have a low cost alternative. It’s a 3 year deal, not 10. Go Cards
This contract is a win/win for both sides; it will allow Carson Kelly to apprentice under the best until he’s ready to take over full time. It reminds of Yadi’s apprenticeship under Mike Matheny in 2004.
So all you guys saying molina is bad and is not a HOF are flat out dumb .285 career avg out of 5591 at bats. He’s thrown out 301 people stealing and has a career fielding avg of .995 . Also having 7 straight all star games, 4 platinum gloves, 8 gold gloves in a row. All these stats make him well worth this deal and basically an HOF.
you’re not allowed to call people dumb and then use fielding percentage as a stat. He’s a borderline hall of famer, and it’s mostly only old school people who think he is, which won’t bode well for him when he is retired
No hall of fame , offensive stats not even close enough — I’d take posey every day of the week
Max can prolly makes more than that why didn’t he ask for more
Mccan
His value to the Cardinals is undeniably huge. I’m so glad they worked out an extension, and I hope he ends his career as a Cardinal.
I don’t know what’s more annoying, Cardinals Fan Complex or Cardinals Hater Complex.
Not a Cardinals fan but I do like how they refuse to surrender to the latest fads in the game. It will be an uphill struggle for them to compete against the Cubs for the next few seasons but you never hear them talking about rebuilds or selling off core players. Too bad the rest of the Central seems content with waving the white flag every year.
With Maddon in charge, the Cards will have a shot.
With Matheny in charge, the Cards will have a shot.
At the 2nd Wild Card.
Great extension for one of the all time greats. Great for St.Louis and really great for baseball. Sure fire Hall of Famer no matter what these jealous hatters say here. 7 time all star 8 gold gloves 4 World Series and 2 World Series Championships. Quite the resume! And I’m sure he’ll add to the list before he’s done.
Great extension would’ve been 3/45. Or, 2/40. It’s a year too long. He’ll be injured again this season, and next, and the year after. Can’t run, his bat is not what it was. Has he had a great career? Absolutely. You pay for future performance, not past. Your post indicates that he got paid because he’s one of St Louis “all time greats.” Zero chance he lives up to this contract extension.
GM’s also have to play to the majority of their fan base. If they let him walk, it could have been worse than the Pujols fiasco. If I’m the franchise, I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same thing. I’d certainly have the kid sitting next to Molina every single moment possible over the next three seasons, and I’d be thinking about starting his service clock around June 2018.
what Pujols “fiasco” are you talking about here? Albert is going to be paid 30 million bucks at the age of 42! He hasn’t delivered the numbers for LAA that he did for STL….plus, he’s been injured and missed a lot of games. A great player and sure hall of famer, but the Halos made a horrible decision. Also consider them not signing Heyward and that’s turning out just fine for STL. It’s just a three year contract for YM…hardly a huge hammer hanging over their heads likie the Cubs and Angels are stuck with.
themed1:
Those darned Hatters again ! The Stetson Hatters fans out there really don’t like the “BFIB” picking on them, do they?
He does deserve it but it’s WAY too much money per year and a big risk.
Jonathan Lucroy of the Texas Rangers chimed in with “Woohoo! Woooooohooooooo!”