Rob Neyer leaves ESPN.com

[SouthSideRyan]

his name is chet, what do you expect?

 

Busey will [expletive] end you

[Tracer Bullet]

in predicting the best catchers for the rest of this decade, he didn't mention Soto among his top 5 (or even honorable mention). so i hate him.

[Splendid Splinter]

in predicting the best catchers for the rest of this decade, he didn't mention Soto among his top 5 (or even honorable mention). so i hate him.

 

 

Who is his top 5 and honorable mention? Who will realistically still be a catcher at the end of this decade anyway? LOL I mean Posey/Wieters/McCann are my 3 guesses here. Mauer will be 1B/DH by then. Soto will be like 38 by the end of the decade.

[TruffleShuffle]

they don't have to be catchers for the whole decade, just most of it, or even part of it if they're extremely productive their first few years.

 

i would assume that posey, santana, mauer and mccann are ahead of soto. maybe wieters?

[Tracer Bullet]

yeah - it's best player at each position over the next 9 years. Doesn't mean you have to still be playing that position (or at all) in 2020. But when looking back, who will people think were the best player over the 2010s. It's actually a decent read if you like Neyer (link). In an earlier post, he also mocks his complete failure at this exact exercise before the 2000s.

 

Mauer is his choice, with McCann, Posey, Wieters and "Suzuki or one of the prospects" rounding out the top 5. He admitted in the comments that he sort of forgot about Santana, but doesn't think anyone can really challenge Mauer since he'll be so good over the next several years that none of the prospects will catch him.

 

Personally, I think McCann could if he stays healthy but the Twins have been careful with Mauer, so maybe he'll catch long enough to be the best of the decade.

[Tracer Bullet]

and i was joking about soto

[Careless]

I understand Geo not topping the list, but if you mention 9 catchers in the article and he's not one of them, you're doing something wrong or something strange.

[bukie]

His list so far:

 

C: 1. Mauer, 2. McCann, 3. Posey, 4. Wieters, 5. Santana

1B: 1. Pujols, 2. Cabrera, 3. Votto, 4. Gonzalez, 5. Morneau

2B: 1. Cano, 2. Pedroia, 3. Kinsler, 4. Utley, 5. Someone Else

SS. 1. Tulowitzki, 2. Hanley, 3. Castro, 4. Andrus, 5. Someone Else, Jr.

[Tracer Bullet]

Is it just me, or has this little game been handled very lazily by Neyer? I usually really enjoy his writing. But so far, he seems to say "who were the 2-3 best players the last 3 years? ok, it's one of those guys." Why wouldn't you give Castro more than the 2 sentences he gave him? why not go into a touch more detail in the discussion of the young stud catchers? I don't really care who he picks for these, but I thought it would be a more interesting read, I guess.