Like any geek who cut his teeth on the Bill James Baseball Abstacts of the 1980’s, I feel slightly attached to the Kansas City Royals. They’ve never been my primary team to root for (that’s the Mets) and they’ve never been my local team (mostly the Red Sox). And let’s be honest, except for that stretch in 2014-15, they’ve rarely been a highlight reel waiting to happen. But on lazy days when I feel like taking in a day game, or when I’m facing down a rainout and searching for emergency baseball, the Royals have long been my comfortable third choice. That probably sounds like damning with faint praise, but as I see it, it’s an honor just to be nominated. Which is also true of the catchers on the following list…1
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Drew Butera 2016
Sal Fasano 1998
Jamie Quirk 1988
Brayan Pena 2009
Bob Stinson 1976
Bob Boone 1989
No, the attempt to make Mike Sweeney a catcher doesn’t count; look for him when we get to first basem*n.
The son of another backup catcher, Butera slugged .480, with 10 doubles in 123 AB, in far and away his best season. Fasano, along with A.J. Hinch, was part of a catching muddle that ensued between Mike Macfarlane in the 90's and John Buck in the 00's. Quirk played other positions, notably third base, in a lengthy reserve career. Part of the league champion teams in both '80 and '85, but didn't see action in the World Series until 1990 with Oakland. Pena was a longterm backup, hit .273-.318-.442 his first year, but declined with the bat each season until leaving KC. Stinson was one of several part-time catchers, along with Ellie Rodriguez, Buck Martinez, and Jerry May, who did alright for the Royals of the 70's but enjoyed better success elsewhere. Boone played his last full year, and won his last Gold Glove, in Kansas City, hitting .274 as the team posted a surprising 92 wins.
The Royals have now gotten decent seasons out of rookie catchers in the last two years, which would probably be more useful if Salvador Perez wasn't an ageless cyborg. But the SP-1000 just keeps going, so MJ Melendez moved to the outfield, Fermin (who turns 29 years old tomorrow, anyway) remains a backup, and someday Earth will be a post-apocalyptic wasteland with only mutated insects, the cast of that Furiosa movie, and Perez hitting his 20,000th home run. Fermin solidified his hold on a job by hitting .341 with power across June and July, but hit .210 for the year with men on base.
This is a bit of a cheat, as I've listed this season to comply with my own rules, including a player from the early aughts. But in practice you might prefer to have Mayne's 1991 season, when his relative lack of power wasn't so out of step with the times. As a defense-first lefty hitter, Mayne made a solid complement to Mike Macfarlane for several years. After a year utterly wasted in New York (only 99 AB backing up Hundley, who needed a right-handed backup anyway), journeyed West and discovered his hitting stroke, not to mention Coors Field. Then he returned to KC and went right back to hitting .240. Everything old is new again, especially if you'd prefer to let it rust.
The fourth and final time we'll visit Slaught in this series. The Royals were his original team, but they traded him for the next man on the list in a four-way trade so complicated, it requires its own cinematic Universe. The Rangers got Slaught, the Brewers got Danny Darwin and Tim Leary, KC got a Series-winning catcher, and the Mets got... Frank Wills (5.06 lifetime ERA)? There it is: Mets fandom in a factoid. Slaught hit .302 over about a season worth of games in his first two years, then got the main job and dropped to .264-.297-.379. Still not too shabby for a catcher of the era, but a weak year by his standards. Hit .324 with .523 slugging against lefties, so he had platoon value, at least.
Still hard to believe he was traded for Ned Yost, to be honest. After a decade of mostly reliable performance, Sundberg slipped to .201 in '83, so maybe the Rangers thought he was done? He wasn't, but he bounced around the league after that. Had been better (.261-.332-.399) the previous season in Milwaukee, but Kansas City was where he won the ring, and history immortalizes us as it chooses, not as we would choose. Hit for the cycle in the ALCS—that is to say, he got one hit of each kind, but it took him all seven games and 23 at-bats to do it. He drove in four runs in Game Seven, however, and played well in the World Series, cutting down three runners.
My memory of Healy is as a broadcaster; he was one of the commentators for the Mets when I first signed up for MLB's cable package to see all their games in the aughts. To be honest, I enjoy the current Gary-Keith-Ron Darling booth more. As a player, Healy was another of several catchers the Royals came up with in the 70's and, by the standards of a 70's catchers, offered a power/speed combination: 9 homers and 16 stolen bases. Full name is Francis Xavier Healy from Holyoke, Mass, a city which also gave you Mark Wohlers, Eddie Mayo, and his uncle Francis, who played (a bit) for the 1934 Gas House Gang Cardinals.
Set his career highs with 23 homers and 65 RBI in Kansas City, on his way to compiling 145 homers for nine different MLB teams. Hammered the ball in June, 8 homers and 17 RBI, including a stretch where he homered three straight days in Cleveland. The Royals lost two of the three games and the third was a blowout, so you wouldn't say he dominated the series, but still impressive, right? Capped the year by popping six more home runs in September, four of them in four days, culminating in a two-homer game off Mark Buehrle and the White Sox on September 18th.
A seriously annoying player for roster construction. Held the catching job in Kansas City for four-plus years, but I'm not sure he ever had, you know, an actual good year here. Then he set career-high marks for hits, doubles, homers, RBI, runs scored, batting average, OBP, and slugging (and therefore also OPS) for the Blue Jays in 2010. He did post an OBP two points higher the next year, but all the other marks remained his best. So there’s no way to argue '10 wasn't his career year, and since he never spent more than two years anywhere else, no way to argue he wasn't still a career Royal. This probably doesn't trouble you much, but let me tell you, it causes actual nightmares to a roster geek.
A modestly successful catcher—but not better than Darrell Porter. Could also play first base—but the Royals had Willie Aikens. A modestly successful manager ion '88-89—who never made the playoffs, unlike Howser and Frey and Herzog before him. Had a terrific career year in 1980—but not as good as Rick Cerone's for New York. In short, Wathan was pretty good in a lot of ways but never stellar, never really the best choice for anything. If he's memorable for anything, it might be his 92 stolen bases over his four prime years, 105 total. That's way more than Healy, making him the fastest catcher in Royals history. Let's give him that one.
Speaking of guys we don't really know what to make of historically... Kirkpatrick could hit at his best: .275-.365-.396 was a terrific line for a catcher in '72, and he'd previously hit 32 homers over two years. But he finished at .238-.325-.368 for his career, which won't win you any invitations to make speeches in Cooperstown. He was much more valuable offensively as a catcher, but played almost twice as many total games in the outfield. He made the playoffs twice in Pittsburgh, but went 0-for-11 and both those teams got ejected from the playoffs in short order. He's the second-best modern player from Spokane, Washington, a distant second to Ryne Sandberg. He and Wathan would make a fine platoon.
After five years of posting good seasons as a part-time catcher and mediocre seasons as a full-time starter, broke through in 1993 with a year of strong production in starter's at-bats: .273-.360-.497 with 20 homers, 67 RBI. Offense was exploding then, so it's not clear you'd put him on the AL All-Star Team or anything. But it was a strong year. Unfortunately he posted a reverse platoon split (.233 with 4 homers against lefties), so it's a tough season to maximize value from in a table or sim game. You can't have everything. Went to Boston, was decent for a year (.723 OPS) and made the playoffs, then came right back. He's from Stockton, California, so maybe he preferred the KC weather?
A truly spectacular catching season. I mean, you'd rather have Johnny Bench or Carlton Fisk in the 70's overall, probably even comparing best years, but Porter's line was eye-catching: He drove in 112 runs and scored 101, popped 10 triples and 20 homers, led the league in walks with 121, using up the maximum number of digits on the stat sheet (except for double-digit steals, I guess.) To put that in perspective: It's unclear whether you'd rather have the catcher with a .421 OBP and .905 OPS or his teammate George Brett in 1979—and Brett, a no-doubt Hall of Famer, was hardly in a slump; he had probably the third-best season of his career. Porter never produced another year nearly as good, but going back to the Wathan-Kirkpatrick theme, that was memorable.
Funnily enough, Perez looked to be on the consistent, no-drama track for much of his career: For ages, I would have said his career year was his first full season, .292-.323-.433 in 2013. But he kept adding power. 17 homers in '14, then 21 homers in '15. 27 homers in '17. A crazy .986 OPS in the Covid year. And then... 48 home runs and 121 RBI in 2021? I think the technical term for that is "HULK SMASH." In case a catcher nearly doubling his career high in homers, and nearly reaching 50, at the age of 31 wasn't (ahem) incredible enough, he's back to knocking the cover off the ball early in '24, after spending most of '23 in a mild-mannered off year. His career OBP (.300 at the start of this year) is a significant heroic weakness, but he'd get my Hall of Fame vote.
Porter and Perez both had terrific years at their best, and both contributed long-term, quite valuable careers for the Royals. It's the long-term improvement of Perez at the plate that impresses me. Between that and the World Series ring, he's my choice for the greatest of Kansas City catchers.
On Friday: Kansas Ci… I mean, Oakland… er, Las Vegas… Sacramento catchers? You know, the A's.
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