Detroit Tigers: Top Ten Catchers in Franchise History

Oscar Stanage

Detroit Tigers: 1909-1920, 1925

Top Ten lists are never easy. Oscar Stanage was one of the longest tenured catchers in Tigers history, being behind the plate for a whopping 1,073 games. That’s second in team history. It feels wrong to leave a guy who caught the second most games in team history off a top ten list.

However, Stanage was not particularly good at baseball. He caught for the Detroit Tigers from 1909-1920, playing in over 90 games in six of those seasons. That came with very little offense, with Stanage slashing just .234/.284/.295 with eight home runs, six stolen bases, 328 RBI and 123 doubles. He posted a 69 OPS+ and only a 6.0 bWAR.

Stanage’s best season was in 1912, when he hit .261 with an 83 OPS+ and a 1.7 bWAR. WAR is hard to calculate for old-time ballplayers, particularly catchers. Stanage ends up with a 6.2 dWAR for his career, which is very solid.

It’s likely that the reason the Tigers kept him for over a decade when he was a bad hitter is that his glove work was solid. That’s hard for us to measure now, but I’m choosing to believe that Stanage was likely an above average defensive catcher who caught over 1,000 games for the Tigers. Even if he was bad offensively, that’s enough for me to squeeze him into the top ten.

Nokes was clearly a superior hitter, but Stanage caught nearly five times as many games as Nokes did in the Motor City.