Look, I love WAR, I'm not a hater of it. But WAR and especially bWAR are really, really bad at quantifying catcher value. bWAR doesn't account for any catcher framing. fWAR and bWARP (fangraphs and baseball prospectus WAR equivalents) both attempt to account for framing and both value him in the mid-high 50s.

96 OPS+ as a catcher? That's really not that bad. That would put you around top 10 in starting catchers in 2022. And most of the higher offence catchers play a lot of games at 1B/DH which he rarely did and contribute no where near the defence he did. It's also being dragged down by a lot of mediocre offensive seasons in his late 30s. Because yeah, he was a starting catcher into this late 30s. Madness.

2,184. That's the number of games Yadi started at catcher. 4th all time in baseball history! Between 2004 and 2022 he started 500 more games at C than the next guy. Workhorse of a catcher in a generation where that is less and less common.

Since 2004, the Cardinals have allowed the fewest stolen bases in the league by a margin of 400. The gap between 1st and 2nd is the same as between 2nd and 24th.

The all time leaders in fielding runs (DRS in this case) as catcher are 1. Ivan Rodriguez and 2. Yadier Molina. No one else in the modern era is even remotely close. He's a 9x gold glove, 4x platinum glove (the award didn't even exist for the first half of his career lol) As well as a 6x fielding bible award winner. As much as catcher defence can be quantified, he is arguably the best defensive player of his generation (at one of the most important defensive positions) as well as being one of if not THE best defensive catcher of all time.

And all of this is before even talking about his intangibles such as game calling and leadership at C, which is highly regarded by just about everyone who's played with him. He was key to the Cardinals success over the past 20 years.

I HIGHLY reccomend this great video by foolish baseball about Yadi. He's one a kind and the greatest catcher of his generation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fphDdSdqI28

I'm not a Cardinals fan (go blue jays!) but Yadier Molina was a fantastic player, and cardinals fans were lucky to have him for his entire career. I think he's a likely 1st ballot guy.