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Ranking the Best Catchers in Mariners Team History

By Christopher O'Day

SEATTLE, UNITED STATES: Amidst a sea of his teammates' legs, Seattle Mariner catcher Dan Wilson displays the Barry Bonds foul ball he caught while sliding onto the step of the Seattle dugout during third inning play against the San Francisco Giants in Seattle WA, 11 June 1999. Seattle went on to win, 7-3. AFP PHOTO Dan Levine (Photo credit should read DAN LEVINE/AFP via Getty Images)
SEATTLE, UNITED STATES: Amidst a sea of his teammates' legs, Seattle Mariner catcher Dan Wilson displays the Barry Bonds foul ball he caught while sliding onto the step of the Seattle dugout during third inning play against the San Francisco Giants in Seattle WA, 11 June 1999. Seattle went on to win, 7-3. AFP PHOTO Dan Levine (Photo credit should read DAN LEVINE/AFP via Getty Images) /
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Mariners Tom Murphy
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON – OCTOBER 02: Tom Murphy #2 of the Seattle Mariners looks on before the game against the Los Angeles Angels at T-Mobile Park on October 02, 2021 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images) /

Mariners Tom Murphy – 4.2

Okay, this caught me off guard. You could’ve given me a lot of guesses, and it would have taken me a long time to get to Tom Murphy. It just shows that having a great season at catcher, and being able to play solid defense (despite not being able to catch throws home from fielders at important moments) can vault you up the WAR leaderboards.

You’ve gotta remember that, even though 2021 was a rough season offensively, Murphy was great in 2019. I don’t think I’m overexaggerating about his 2019 either.

.273/.324/.535 with a 126 WRC+ are great numbers for a catcher. Combine that with the good defense, and you actually had the 6th best fWAR season in team history at 3.2.

The more I think about it, the more I’m fine with the Mariners going into 2022 with Murphy as one of their two catchers alongside Raleigh. Murphy still has good defense, and if he can hit somewhere in between what he did in 2021 and 2019, then I think we will have a good catcher in our squad. I’m not saying he will put up another 3.2 fWAR, but an offensive rating of “0.0” and decent defense would earn him around 2.0 fWAR… and I think we should all be okay with that.

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