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2008 We think of Pudge as being durable, but he's caught 130 games or more just once since 1999 (doing so with the Marlins in 2003). His legendary arm may be slipping a bit as well; the 68 attempts against him last year tied his high since 1999, the 47 steals he allowed were his most since 1993, and his 31 percent throwout rate, though still above average, was the lowest of his career. Given where his offense has gone-39 unintentional walks since 2004 and sub-.300 OBPs twice in three years-he's now an average player at best. He's also a 36-year-old backstop who has been catching in the major leagues since he was 19. 2007 Catchers do not age gracefully; the position takes too high a toll on their knees and backs. The one saving grace is that catching does not require a lot of mobility, so they can remain extremely valuable defensive players late into their careers. Rodriguez was well-deserving of his twelfth Gold Glove last year, limiting opposing base-stealers to 25 swipes in 51 tries and allowing only 4 passed balls while catching one of the harder-throwing staffs in baseball. His bat will never recover to 2004 levels, but if I-Rod is the fourth- or fifth-best player on your team, you can win a few pennants. 2005 Year One was a roaring success. Rodriguez flirted with the league batting crown for much of the season, provided plenty of extra-base power, and broke Johnny Bench's record by winning his 11th Gold Glove (his caught stealing numbers aren't as good as they once were, but he prevents most runners from attempting to steal in the first place). More importantly, he actually appeared to enjoy playing in Detroit, participating actively in promotional and charity work, and providing some badly needed credibility to a franchise whose once-loyal fans were convinced that the organization was throwing in the towel.
But Rodriguez's was a four-year contract. I-Rod contributed 8.2 wins above replacement last season after factoring in his defense. PECOTA, which understands the long history of poor aging patterns from catchers, figures that Rodriguez will be worth 5.9 wins this year, but just 3.9 in 2006 and 2.7 in 2007. That would work out to $40 million for 20.7 wins, or about $1.93 million per, which is a pretty decent deal by today's standards, and especially compared to that bilked out of the Red Sox by Scott Boras for Jason Varitek. The trouble is that there is the usual structural problem involving escalating salaries and declining production: This could easily look like a bad deal in 2007, even if the Tigers had gotten pretty good bang for their buck to that point. We don't mean to take away from Rodriguez's fine season, nor from Dave Dombrowski's ballsy signing; this doesn't need to be a problem, it's just something that the Tigers need to be prepared for, rather than becoming spoiled or complacent after Pudge's 2004 success. 2003 Reports of Pudge’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. Yes, the four significant injuries the past three seasons (broken thumb, bruised heel, knee surgery, and herniated disc) are a concern, but so far none of them have turned out to be chronic problems. Other than the missed time, he’s shown virtually no signs that the injuries are affecting his on-field performance, and no tendency to aggravate old injuries. His hitting was as good as ever last year after recovering from his back woes, and his defense, even if it may have slipped a bit, is still strong. Even with an expected post-30 decline, he should still be one of the top catchers in the game over the next two or three years. 2002 In baseball history, only Johnny Bench caught more games through age 29 than Ivan Rodriguez has. Of the catchers in the top ten for games caught though age 29, only Gary Carter subsequently managed even four seasons of more than 100 contests behind the plate, and almost without exception, none of those catchers were much more than average offensively by the time they reached 33. Using similarity scores, the three players judged "essentially similar" to Pudge at age 29—Ted Simmons, Yogi Berra, and Joe Torre—were all at various stages of a position switch by 33. The effects of Rodriguez’s heavy workload are beginning to show, namely the patella tendinitis that required surgery and shortened his 2001 season. He is a free agent after this season; if the Rangers decide to try to re-sign him, they need to be aware that history shows he’ll soon be a liability, not an asset, especially at the salary he'll command. 2001 As everyone knows, Ivan Rodriguez missed a good chunk of 2000 due to injury. Rodriguez has stated that he might be interested in switching to another position over the next few years to cut down on the wear and tear on his body. Can’t say I blame him, but he’s a pretty darn good catcher. The only thing missing from his offensive game is plate discipline, but it’s hard to nitpick a guy hitting .330 or better. Scary thought: if Rodriguez does move to second base or the outfield, it wouldn’t surprise me to see him pick up his numbers at the plate a bit. Damn. 2000 It's tempting to look at Rodriguez's consistent improvement at the plate and attribute it to the normal progression of a young player. But there's more than that here. 1999 marked the fourth consecutive year that Rodriguez improved his OPS by 20 points or more over the previous year. He's only the 15th player in major-league history to accomplish that feat with a minimum 400 at-bats in each year. Nevertheless, a player can't improve forever, especially one who endures the abuse of catching at least 130 games every year. Rodriguez is now on the wrong side of 27, so the safe money is on his dropping off a bit from his outstanding 1999.
He wasn’t the most valuable player in the AL in 1999. That said, this wasn’t like the Juan Gonzalez awards in 1996 and 1998, when Gonzalez had no business in the discussion. Rodriguez had an excellent offensive season, excels at the one part of catching we can measure well and would have been a great candidate in a lot of years. Just not this one. 1998 Had a good September for a change. Texas says they want to rest him more; giving a catcher a long-term contract will convince you to do stuff like that. I wonder if teams ever consciously think that way? When you aren’t sure where a player will play in the future, you say to yourself, “what do I care if we overwork him and cut a couple of years off his career?” Then you give him the long-term deal and start caring. 1997 You can’t catch 147 games without fading in September, the second year in a row he’s collapsed under the workload down the stretch. He—of course—led all major league catchers in CS and CS%. And while Hundley was getting a lot of attention for the all-time catchers’ home run record, Pudge was busy shredding the all-time catchers’ doubles record of 41. 1996 Another example of Gold Glove voters latching onto the wrong fact. Pudge isn't the best plateblocker in the world, and he isn't getting great marks for his gamecalling and receiving skills, but he is the best catcher in baseball when it comes to stopping the running game or intimidating it out of existence (a major league low of 99 steals were attempted against the Rangers last year), so he gets the reward over Ron Karkovice or Terry Steinbach.
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