This morning for The Athletic, Jayson Stark, one of the greatest baseball writers in human history, published his All-Quarter Century Team, which proudly declared that Yadier Molina of the St. Louis Cardinals is the best catcher in baseball through the first 25 years of this century. Why not Buster Posey of the San Francisco Giants? Vibes.
Now, Stark states up top that his post is intended to set a tone for this series so that readers are compelled to vote in The Athletic’s polling (vote here). So, it’s plausible that he staked himself to a controversial opinion or two just to stir up the conversation. On the other hand, it’s not like he’s saying something outlandish. The Buster Posey vs. Yadier Molina conversation has been ongoing, and for most of the time it has been firm public sentiment that Yadi is better. They’re even making a movie about Molina’s greatness.
We’re hopelessly biased here because, well, he’s Buster Posey, a no-doubt Hall of Famer, and so it seems impossible that somebody could look at the field from the last 25 years and conclude otherwise. That’s precisely what Stark did, though, and where he occasionally uses stats in his piece to justify some of his selections (obviously, Barry Bonds makes it in as the left fielder for this team), he smashes that vibes button when it comes to Molina.
Indeed, Stark quotes an anonymous scout to back up his feeling and gets this gem:
“It’s Yadi,” he said. “It’s got to be Yadi. End of story. I don’t care about the numbers. Yadi has all the nuanced stuff you can’t measure. Go look at all those Cardinals pitching staffs that got better when he was behind the plate. And the second he left, they have not been the same.
This is basically advocating for the tooth fairy. He’s as good as the scout imagines in his head and that’s better than objective reality. Okay, fair enough. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I don’t know how valuable this scout is if he’s only evaluating players on his imagination but, you know what? I think that’s been a scout’s deal from the start. Glance, spit, and guess about a player. That’s tradition, right?
Now, the same could be said about Buster Posey’s absence before Patrick Bailey’s arrival. What also can be said is that “handling a pitching staff” isn’t really an important measure of a player’s greatness when you’re assembling an all-time great team that will include the best pitchers the sport has ever seen on its staff. How much more coaching up can Yadier Molina provide to Stark’s rotation (Verlander, Kershaw, Halladay, Scherzer, and Randy Johnson)?
I wasn’t personally angered by this article and the online discussion it has already generated and I’m only a little bit annoyed, which I’ll talk about later. There is a vague statistical case to be made for Molina ahead of Posey. Molina played 2,184 games at catcher and threw out 381 (40.3%) of stolen base attempters. He was basically a league average hitter over his career. It would be silly to entirely discount his defense or “managing a pitching staff,” since a player’s reputation absolutely impacts their Hall chances.
Posey, meanwhile, was an elite hitter overall and played 1,093 games at catcher. He threw out 256 stolen base attempters (32.9%). The games played and base stealing numbers represent a meaningful difference for the catcher position. If people just want to hold on to the thought that Molina is better, than so be it. That opinion has been cemented since, like, 2011, and despite Posey’s three championships, I think the Mandela effect of “The Buster Posey Rule” and the “early” retirement work against him across the sport. There’s also the fact that although Posey actually won an MVP (and Rookie of the Year), the MVP was the only time he was a top-5 MVP candidate, while Molina was a top-5 MVP guy twice who won 9 Gold Gloves to Posey’s 1.
Again, I’m biased. I think winning an actual MVP is more valuable than being in the conversation for one. A counter to the 9:1 Gold Gloves ratio is that Posey was so good he was able to encroach on Molina’s territory. A position player who can hit is more valuable than a simply elite defender. But… I’m wrong!
Vibes are real, and the Moneyball battle from the turn of the century was an attempt to counter its overwhelming power. But since Moneyball didn’t totally purge the straw hats from the sport, the Moneyball crowd’s self-inflicted burnout means vibes are back to stay. We have the best possible example in front of us: Buster Posey’s 2025 Giants. That is a vibes-based team from top to bottom, and it’s succeeding in spite of the middling numbers.
So, what I’m annoyed by is the possibility that Yadier Molina will be a first ballot Hall of Famer and Buster Posey will not, which the Jayson Starks of the world might be setting up (albeit unintentionally) by their casual dismissal of Posey’s genuine accomplishments because they just feel so good thinking about the Yadier Molina in their head. We might never understand why Yadier Molina brings such genuine pleasure to so many important baseball people, but he does, and there’s nothing Buster Posey’s career or Giants fans protestations can do about it.
