The Long, Disheartening Wait Is Over: Ted Simmons Is Officially A Hall of Fame Catcher
Hooray for Simba! One of my all-time favorites. Also, a real renaissance man and a liberal.
By Bernie Miklasz
https://www.101espn.com/2019/12/09/the-long-disheartening-wait-is-over-ted-simmons-is-officially-a-hall-of-fame-catcher/
"I’m assuming the voting baseball writers failed to realize the ballpark factor in Simmons’ offense. During Simmons’ 13 years as a Cardinal, Busch Stadium was a cavernous, pitcher-friendly park that substantially reduced power. Eight times during Simmons’ 10-year peak his home slugging percentage was at least 22 percentage points lower than his road slugging percentage. And in three of those seasons, his home slug was at least 58 points less than his road slugging.
Among hitters that spent at least 70 percent of their careers at catcher, Simmons ranks second in MLB history in hits, RBIs, and doubles. He’s third in total bases, and fifth in extra-base hits.Simmons accumulated more than 100 RBI in three seasons and had eight years of 90+ runs batted in. He was an eight-time All-Star who received MVP votes in seven different seasons. He won a Silver Slugger award.
During his career peak (1971-80) Simmons had the best OPS+ (131) of any MLB catcher during that time; he was 31 percent above league average offensively. And over those 10 seasons he also led all MLB catchers in hits, doubles, batting average (.301) and onbase percentage (.367). And was second in RBIs — only 31 fewer than Bench — homers, and standard OPS.
The brilliant offense and underrated endurance made Simmons one of only nine catchers with 50 or more career WAR. The other eight already were in the Hall of Fame: Bench, Fisk, Yogi Berra, Gary Carter, Ivan Rodríguez, Gabby Hartnett, Mike Piazza and Bill Dickey."
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