Top 40 Minnesota Twins: #17 Earl Battey
EARL JESSE BATTEY JR. | C | 1961-1967 | CAREER STATS
G PA AVG OBP SLG OPS+ WARP WS
853 3161 .278 .356 .409 109 38.3 114
The last of his three seasons backing up Lollar was 1959, when a 24-year-old Battey lost significant playing time to another 24-year-old catcher, rookie Johnny Romano. Romano batted .294/.407/.468 in 53 games to overtake Battey for the No. 2 spot on the depth chart during the White Sox's World Series run. Meanwhile, the 34-year-old Lollar was showing no signs of slowing down, turning in his second straight 20-homer, 80-RBI season while batting .265/.345/.451 in 140 games.
Lollar had been one of the game's best catchers for over a decade, so the White Sox decided to stick with him. That winter owner Bill Veeck traded Romano and 24-year-old first baseman Norm Cash to the Indians for a four-player package that included Minnie Minoso, who the White Sox had traded away just two years earlier. Then in April, about two weeks before Opening Day, the White Sox sent Battey, 22-year-old first baseman Don Mincher, and $150,000 to the Senators for Roy Sievers.
The trades paid immediate dividends, as both the 33-year-old Minoso and 34-year-old Sievers gave the White Sox two good seasons before leaving after 1961, but the moves were long-term disasters. In 1961 a 26-year-old Cash, now playing in Detroit, batted .361 with 41 homers and 132 RBIs. He went on to make five All-Star teams and smack 377 homers during his 17-year career. While not quite the hitter that Cash became, Mincher made two All-Star teams and hit .249/.348/.450 with 200 homers.
Romano, who went on to make a pair of All-Star teams while batting .255/.354/.443 during his 10-year career, immediately took over as the Indians' starting catcher, batting .272/.349/.475 in 1960 while the 35-year-old Lollar hit just .252/.326/.356 for the White Sox. Similarly, 1960 also saw Battey become an instant starter for the Senators, winning the AL Gold Glove while batting .270/.346/.406 with 15 homers during the team's final season in Washington.
The team moved to Minnesota and became the Twins in 1961, as Harmon Killebrew starred by hitting .288/.405/.606 with 46 homers and 122 RBIs. While Killebrew was putting together the first of what would be seven 40-homer seasons for the Twins, Battey was quickly establishing himself as one of baseball's premiere all-around catchers. Now 26 years old, Battey won his second straight Gold Glove and hit .302/.377/.470 with 17 homers while starting 127 games and catching over 1,100 innings.
Battey declined in 1962, batting .280/.348/.393, but won his third straight Gold Glove and made the first of four All-Star teams. He then bounced back to have the best season of his career in 1963, hitting .285/.369/.476 with 26 homers while catching a league-leading 1,237 innings in a league-high 142 starts and finishing seventh in the AL MVP voting. Yankees catcher Elston Howard won the MVP, but Battey produced similar numbers offensively while batting 55 more times in a dozen more games:
G PA AVG OBP SLG OPS HR RBIBattey declined in 1964, hitting a still-solid .272/.348/.407, but bounced back in 1965 to finish 10th in the MVP voting. Minnesota teammates Zoilo Versalles and Tony Oliva finished one-two in the balloting and Twins starter Mudcat Grant placed sixth, with Battey hitting .297/.375/.409 as the team won 102 games and the AL crown before falling to the Dodgers in the World Series. He caught all seven games despite running neck-first into a railing chasing a foul ball in Game 3, but went 3-for-25 at the plate.
Howard 135 531 .287 .342 .528 .870 28 85
Battey 147 586 .285 .369 .476 .845 26 84
Just 30 years old, 1965 proved to be Battey's final great season as weight problems, injuries, and big workloads caught up with him. He batted .255/.337/.327 in 1966 before splitting time with Russ Nixon and Jerry Zimmerman in 1966, hitting .165 in his final season. After retiring he worked with inner-city kids in New York before going to college at the age of 45, graduating Summa Cum Laude. He then became a high-school teacher and baseball coach in Florida before dying from cancer in 2003.
Despite a relatively brief career that ended shortly after his 30th birthday and one of his best seasons coming in Washington for the Senators, Battey ranks as the best catcher in Twins history. His raw offensive numbers during seven seasons in Minnesota (.278/.356/.409 with 76 homers) look solid and the multiple Gold Gloves tell the story of his defensive reputation, but without a closer look at Battey's career it's easy to undersell his impact.
Battey's entire career was spent in one of the lowest-scoring eras in baseball history and he played a position that was both the most physically demanding and often home to no-hit defensive specialists. Battey was a stud on both sides of the ball, logging a huge number of innings while frequently catching one of the league's best pitching staffs, throwing out a high percentage of would-be base stealers, and putting up numbers offensively that were far more impressive than they initially appear.
For instance, when Battey hit .285/.369/.476 with 26 homers in 1963, the AL as a whole batted just .247/.312/.380. The AL batted .271/.338/.423 in 2007, which means that Battey's 1963 hitting line was the equivalent of batting .315/.400/.530 today and he would have cleared 30 homers with ease. As it stands, he ranked among the AL's top five catchers in Value Over Replacement Player (VORP) in each of his six full seasons with the Twins:
1961 VORP 1962 VORP 1963 VORPNo other catcher cracked the top five in each of those six seasons and the only guys to make it five times were Howard and Battey's old competition from Chicago, Romano (see what I mean about those trades not working out especially well for the White Sox long term?). And VORP only accounts for hitting. As outstanding as Battey was offensively, it's his defense--and specifically his arm behind the plate--that actually may have been the strongest part of his game.
Elston Howard 51.8 Johnny Romano 34.1 Elston Howard 43.1
Johnny Romano 41.5 Elston Howard 25.3 EARL BATTEY 40.7
Johnny Blanchard 32.1 EARL BATTEY 16.9 John Orsino 27.0
EARL BATTEY 31.6 Jim Pagliaroni 13.5 Joe Azcue 17.4
Earl Averill 22.2 Ken Retzer 12.4 Yogi Berra 13.7
1964 VORP 1965 VORP 1966 VORP
Elston Howard 41.7 EARL BATTEY 29.4 Johnny Romano 16.6
Bill Freehan 37.0 Johnny Romano 23.5 Joe Azcue 10.5
Bob Tillman 25.3 Billy Bryan 18.8 Elston Howard 8.3
Johnny Romano 21.3 Charlie Lau 10.0 Paul Casanova 7.9
EARL BATTEY 19.2 John Orsino 9.3 EARL BATTEY 5.7
Battey was never especially mobile behind the plate to begin with and became perhaps baseball's slowest player once age, the rigors of five straight 1,000-inning seasons defensively, and excess weight caused by a goiter problem sapped him of whatever limited quickness he once had. Despite that, Battey never lost his amazing arm and remained the league's best-throwing catcher throughout his career. Battey allowed just 226 stolen bases in over 6,700 innings at catcher while in Minnesota.
Allowing one steal for every 30 innings during the run-heavy 1960s is amazing enough, but Battey also gunned down nearly 40 percent of would-be base thieves. Teams rarely tested him despite the huge stolen-base numbers being posted throughout baseball, yet Battey still managed a league-leading caught-stealing total three times during his career. He also led the AL in pickoffs four times, including a career-high 15 in 1962. That year Battey allowed 34 steals and picked off or threw out 42 runners.
TOP 25 ALL-TIME MINNESOTA TWINS RANKS:
OBP .356 15th
Walks 328 16th
Hits 768 19th
AVG .278 20th
Homers 76 20th
RBI 350 21st
Total Bases 1131 21st
OPS .765 25th
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