I agree that he was both a superstar and a blowhard: he played well, and through pain, but went to great lengths to let others know he did it.

Was he wearing a toupee, or was that a comb-over? Wow, what a bad hair choice.

But what can't be argued is that he belongs in the same breath as Carlton Fisk and Johnny Bench when it comes to talking Best Catchers of 1950-2000.

Can't be argued? Um ... OK, gauntlet thrown.

First, let me introduce you to a lad named Piazza. I am sure this is simply an oversight on your part. Defensively, the worst of those mentioned, but not all that much worse than Simmons (as I remember him) and the offense more than makes up for it.

Second, let me quote the great Sparky Anderson when asked about Thurman Munson before the 1976 World Series. "Don't embarrass anyone by comparing them to Johnny Bench."

Carter belongs in the same breath as Simmons, both Pudges and even Piazza. But they're all in the next breath after "Bench."

What am I, chopped liver?

Sorry, guys -- I was too close to the target on Piazza; he was right there and I missed him. Please amend my list of catchers and make it six. And yes, it really should be Bench and everyone else.

Geez, guys, comparing Bench as a hitter to Mike Piazza is like comparing Mike Piazza to... I was going to say Barry Bonds, but Bonds isn't a good enough hitter. Like comparing Piazza to Lou Gehrig.

(Bench .21 runs created per out for his career, Piazza .31, Gehrig .41. Bonds is at .34)

Bench had a longer career, but assuming he can play another three or so seasons, my list of great catchers is going to start "1. Piazza". He doesn't have to do anything special, just have OK seasons.

Bench was a great player, and still my all-time all-star (take a seat on the bench, Yogi) but he is being caught and passed.

I don't know, Craig...

Gehrig: Late '20s, early '30s
Bench: '70s
Piazza/Bonds: '90s, early '00s

One of these eras is not like the other, at least from a hitter's perspective. Career stats can also be harsh on those who faded quickly, like Bench. His most comparable hitter is Yogi Berra, who played most of his career in a more favourable era as well.

Bench was slightly before my time, but from what I've read, a case can be plausibly made that he was the best ever at each and every defensive skill, from receiving to throwing to fielding to calling a game to blocking the plate. Gary Carter was good at those things, and hit like Bench, but was no Johnny Bench.

My first memory of Carter was playing right field in '75 I believe. The comparisons to Pete Rose were already being made then. I was a huge fan of his, more than anyone on the Expos, and I rooted for him with the Mets as well.

Having said that, there was a side of slick self-promotion that turned me off at times. He belongs in the Hall.

That comb-over has to go too.

Any love for Yogi Berra?

a case can be plausibly made that he was the best ever at each and every defensive skill, from receiving to throwing to fielding to calling a game to blocking the plate.

While I think this is just terrifically far-fetched, let's assume it's true. If it's true, what does that mean? How many runs a year would Bench be saving over a typical catcher? Over Piazza?

We can say at the start that Bench will start 25 runs a season behind Piazza; this isn't quite fair to Piazza who is in fact about 35 runs a season better than Bench with the bat, but we'll haul back ten runs for offensive context even though it's nowhere near that (32 points of OPS if you want to be precise... Piazza has played in some monster pitcher's parks in Dodger and Shea).

We'll go through the skills in turn.

(1) Receiving. Other than "framing pitches" (which we will deal with later, in the "game calling" section) this mainly consists in avoiding passed balls and wild pitches. I wish I had these numbers for Bench; I don't. For Piazza, he has 87 passed balls in his career, about nine a season. Tangotiger was nice enough to give me the run value of a passed ball/wild pitch in a recent e-mail; he estimates it in current context to be about .35 runs apiece.

So let's say that Bench was so good that he could halve that total (anyone got his PB totals?) and also halve the average WP totals. That wouldn't put him any ahead of Piazza; Piazza's teams have had good WP totals the last few years (superlative in 2002... Piazza was over 60 "wild pitches" better than Ivan Rodriguez and the Rangers in 2002). The most Bench might be saving is 15 wild pitches a year, and that's stretching it. Call it five passed balls and fifteen wild pitches; an extraordinarily large difference really and would make Bench far and away the best catcher in the league at preventing WPs. That would give him an advantage of seven runs.

(2) Throwing. This is the big one. Piazza allows about eight to nine runs per season more in stolen bases than the average catcher; I did that math last year sometime on Primer, I can't find it right now. Bench's assist totals aren't much higher than Piazza's, so if he is gaining any runs on Piazza it's in the stolen bases allowed. Call it eighty stolen bases in a year, why not. At .18 runs per stolen base (the XR value), it's 14.4 runs a year. Call it 15... we'll say Bench is 83 SBs per year better with the same runners thrown out. We're up to 22 runs, Piazza is 3 ahead.

(3) Fielding. We dealt with assists already in the "throwing" part, and Bench can't get double credit for them here. If Bench is really that much better at grabbing popups, it's going to amount to six to eight plays a year at most. Catchers, now or then, just don't miss that any popups. This sort of thing is totally lost in the defensive stats, but if it really is, say, six plays a year, then we have another run for Bench. Piazza is two runs ahead. (Remember, if Bench's good fielding makes teams afraid to bunt, that's a net loss to his team run-wise).

(4) Blocking the plate. Yeah, right. Piazza blocks the plate well; if Bench is better, it might mean two runs a year because you just do not see that many close plays decided by a catcher's plate-blocking ability. I'm willing to give him two runs. They're even.

(5) Game calling and framing pitches. I like to call these things the "Catcher's ERA" skills because if they could be measured, they'd show up in Catcher's ERA better than anywhere else.

I know that studies done of CERA indicate that there's no skill to it, but humor me. Piazza, we know, is pretty good CERA-wise... on average, he's about eight or nine runs better than his teammates per year, throughout his career (same as he gives up in SBs), but let's say for now that he's average.

It comes down to this... did Bench have a better CERA than his backups? Does anyone have the numbers? If he did, and it was a good advantage (has to be better than Piazza's 8-9 runs a season, I'd want to say) then I'm willing to contemplate that he might be a better player. They are very close.

I've been more than fair to Bench in this, I've bent over backwards to find advantages for him. But I don't see it adding up to more than 25 runs of defense, just as I expected... catchers don't have the huge "defensive benefit" over an OK catcher that a super-elite centerfielder or shortstop does. (They do over the non-catchers, of course) No matter how you slice the numbers, you can't make them work.

I'm going to have to throw my hat in the ring in support of Piazza as well.

Separated as I am from you guys by the width of the Atlantic, I don't have the benefit of being immersed in baseball for my formative years. I got the baseball "bug" from my dad, who used to regale me with tales from his days of watching Koufax at Dodger Stadium in the early 60's. This, in turn, led to nights of listening to less than perfect AFN broadcasts (I still remember where we were when Kirk Gibson hit his legendary home run).

Then baseball came to television in England in 1998 - twice a week, starting around midnight on Sundays and Wednesdays, courtesy of ESPN. And in one of the first broadcasts that was shown, Piazza hit one out of Dodger Stadium (shame on me for not remembering the details) and I was hooked from then on. As my knowledge of the game improved(?), I marvelled at how a catcher could put up with the rigours of his day-to-day job and be such an offensive threat, especially playing the whole of his career in pitchers' parks.

I hope that Piazza overcomes his injury crises to cement his place as the foremost offensive catcher of his time, but he'll always be responsible for my love of the game.