None Younger than Yadier
technically he’s no longer a rookie — hell, he’s even started a world series game — but yadier molina is still only 22 years old. that’s young for a catcher — extreeemely so on a team that’s trying to defend a pennant. the last reigning league champ that opened the season with a 22-year-old everyday catcher was . . . . well, i searched back to 1960 on baseball-reference.com and couldn’t find a single example.
i did find one pennant-defender that put a 22-year-old behind the plate at midseason — the 1999 san diego padres, who stuck ben davis back there for 74 games. the highly touted davis, picked second overall in the 1995 amateur draft, arrived after just half a season at triple a. he hit .244 with 5 hr and 30 rbi for the padres in 1999 — not terrible stats for half a rookie season — but in the years since he has never developed. now 28, davis owns a career batting avg of just .237. he is currently the property of the chicago white sox, for whom he hit .231 last season with 6 homers.
but since davis did not open the season as his team’s ev’yday catcher, he's a lousy example. lousier still in light of the fact that by the time davis got the job, the padres were no longer really "defending" their pennant. they had been decimated by free-agency in the offseason, losing ken caminiti, steve finley, greg vaughan, kevin brown, and joey hamilton off their championship squad. then, in spring training, incumbent catcher carlos hernandez went down with a season-ending injury, forcing the pads to break camp with a backstop platoon of greg myers and jim leyritz, with phil nevin and wiki gonzalez (the only "wiki" in mlb history) available for light duty. ben davis opened the season at las vegas, stayed there until mid-june, and didn’t crack the starting lineup until june 24, by which time san diego had already nosedived into last place, 8 games under .500 and 9 behind the division-pacing dbacks. so davis was never expected (as yadier will be) to start for a contending club; he was part of a rebuilding effort, and thus not a candidate for comparison.
so, discarding that instance, we track back all the way to 1962, when the cincinnati reds opened their defense of the ’61 pennant with 23-year-old johnny edwards behind the plate. like molina, edwards came into the job after a lengthy audition for a championship team; in 145 at bats (10 more than yadier got last year) for the '61 reds he batted .186, with 2 hr and 14 rbi. and, like molina, edwards had quite a reputation as a gloveman — indeed, went on to win gold gloves in his second and third seasons (’63 and ’64).
he was not gold-glove caliber in ’62, tho not terrible either — 12 errors and 16 passed balls in 130 games. but he seemed to handle the pitching staff well enough; the reds’ era hardly changed, from 3.78 in ’61 (3rd in the league) to 3.75 in 1962 (5th), and their outstanding rotation trio (jim o’toole, joey jay, and bob purkey) sustained its success. and edwards batted .254 with 8 hr and 50 rbi, a major improvement over the five-man corporation that mucked up the position in ’61 (the group hit .209 w 4 hr and 36 rbi).
edwards helped the reds mount an admirable title defense — they finished with 98 wins, good for third place (four games behind the giants).
i did find one pennant-defender that put a 22-year-old behind the plate at midseason — the 1999 san diego padres, who stuck ben davis back there for 74 games. the highly touted davis, picked second overall in the 1995 amateur draft, arrived after just half a season at triple a. he hit .244 with 5 hr and 30 rbi for the padres in 1999 — not terrible stats for half a rookie season — but in the years since he has never developed. now 28, davis owns a career batting avg of just .237. he is currently the property of the chicago white sox, for whom he hit .231 last season with 6 homers.
but since davis did not open the season as his team’s ev’yday catcher, he's a lousy example. lousier still in light of the fact that by the time davis got the job, the padres were no longer really "defending" their pennant. they had been decimated by free-agency in the offseason, losing ken caminiti, steve finley, greg vaughan, kevin brown, and joey hamilton off their championship squad. then, in spring training, incumbent catcher carlos hernandez went down with a season-ending injury, forcing the pads to break camp with a backstop platoon of greg myers and jim leyritz, with phil nevin and wiki gonzalez (the only "wiki" in mlb history) available for light duty. ben davis opened the season at las vegas, stayed there until mid-june, and didn’t crack the starting lineup until june 24, by which time san diego had already nosedived into last place, 8 games under .500 and 9 behind the division-pacing dbacks. so davis was never expected (as yadier will be) to start for a contending club; he was part of a rebuilding effort, and thus not a candidate for comparison.
so, discarding that instance, we track back all the way to 1962, when the cincinnati reds opened their defense of the ’61 pennant with 23-year-old johnny edwards behind the plate. like molina, edwards came into the job after a lengthy audition for a championship team; in 145 at bats (10 more than yadier got last year) for the '61 reds he batted .186, with 2 hr and 14 rbi. and, like molina, edwards had quite a reputation as a gloveman — indeed, went on to win gold gloves in his second and third seasons (’63 and ’64).
he was not gold-glove caliber in ’62, tho not terrible either — 12 errors and 16 passed balls in 130 games. but he seemed to handle the pitching staff well enough; the reds’ era hardly changed, from 3.78 in ’61 (3rd in the league) to 3.75 in 1962 (5th), and their outstanding rotation trio (jim o’toole, joey jay, and bob purkey) sustained its success. and edwards batted .254 with 8 hr and 50 rbi, a major improvement over the five-man corporation that mucked up the position in ’61 (the group hit .209 w 4 hr and 36 rbi).
edwards helped the reds mount an admirable title defense — they finished with 98 wins, good for third place (four games behind the giants).
posted by L Boros at 5:22 PM
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