It's interesting to think about the legend that Yadier Molina is throughout the league. We all assume he'll be inducted as a first ballot hall of famer as one of the best defensive catchers of all time and a cornerstone as one of the golden eras for the St. Louis Cardinals. And part of why we assume Molina is a slam dunk hall of famer, aside from the obvious fact that he deserves it, is because the narrative around the league has always pushed that heavily.
On the other hand, Russell Martin was a very under-the-radar and unheralded player throughout his career. He contributed a ton of value without making a lot of noise and now nobody is thinking about Russell Martin as a hall of fame catcher. In fact, if you asked most fans about his case without looking at the numbers, they'd probably laugh at the idea.
Two years ago, someone posted a FanGraphs article on this very subreddit about Martin's HoF case and the top comment in that thread, which was ridiculing the idea of even considering Martin for the Hall, had four times the upvotes that the actual post did.
Yet, Russell Martin is one of the greatest pitch-framing catchers of all time. He was so good, in fact, that FanGraphs' WAR, which takes pitch framing into account, has him at essentially the same career WAR as Yadier Molina in 453 fewer games.
Molina was better at picking runners off (40% caught stealing rate to Martin's 30%) while Martin was a significantly better pitch framer (165.8 FRM in 13.4K innings for Martin, 145.4 FRM in 17.6K innings for Molina). They were both all-time create defensive catchers, while Martin was even slightly better as an offensive player (104 career wRC+ to Molina's 98 wRC+).
Even Baseball Reference has them as very close overall, with Martin at 38.8 career WAR and Molina at 42.1 career WAR.
Yet, despite the fact that these two historically great catchers (Molina is #10 and Martin is #11 on the all-time FanGraphs WAR list at the position) were practically even throughout their careers in the value that they created while they played, there is a massive difference in how the two are perceived throughout the sport.
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