japes Era - Catchers Part 2

Catchers of the japes Era part 2

For the final portion of this section of the Flashback Friday I give you the second grouping of Catchers in the great age of baseball known as "the japes Era".  These aren't a second tier of players as last week as you will see.  Just 5 more for the set including three Hall of Famers and two with aspirations to someday be there as well.  

So once again...barely into this thing and I'm breaking my rules again.  I didn't plan to add any active players to this set.  However, since he already announced that 2022 would be his final season (and the possibility that season doesn't happen) I decided why not.  Full disclosure, my son asked me if Yadi was going to be in the set and he wasn't thrilled to learn that he wasn't.  This is also the reason we have 11 catchers in our set of 10.  If you haven't noticed a theme here already shame on you.  If my son want's the player...he's probably going to be in the set.  So here is Yadier's 4th place MVP season of 2012.  

Ted Simmons is in the Hall of Fame, he was an 8x All-Star, Silver Slugging Catcher that had THREE top 10 MVP seasons.  Yet he never seems to get brought up when talking about great catchers from any Era.  Yet he was once the most potent offensive catcher of his time.  About the only knock against Ted was...he's not Johnny Bench.  But that sort of like saying Barkley, Malone, and Hakeem weren't any good because they weren't Jordan.

So because of that I decided that I wasn't going to let that happening this time.  This zone is my world after all so I get to make the rules.  So, if you don't know who Ted Simmons is, then you are probably one of many.  If so, I'm glad I was able to introduce you, now go look him up.  He's worthy of your time.

Our next player in the japes era is a name well known to showdown players but hey, more options are always nice.  I did steer clear of the two best years since they already have official cards in the 2000 and 2001 set.  I also debated adding in a card from another team but in the end I decided to go with the 1998 GG and SS card.  He finished 10th that year in the MVP race setting himself up for the win next season.

four times Gary Carter was in the top 6 for MVP yet never reached the top.  He was the runner up for Rookie of the Year.  He spent much of his career in Montreal where his team struggled to have a winning season.  Yet he still managed to win 5 Silver Slugger and 3 Gold Glove awards and make 11 All-Star appearances winning All-Star MVP twice.  Oh yeah, and he was one of the key pieces to the puzzle that would be the 1986 Mets World Series Champions.  

Next up I could have gone a lot of directions here. Pure catchers such as Varitek and other split duty names like Victor Martinez and Napoli stood out. In the end I chose Mauer and his three batting titles settling in on his 2009 MVP season.