called the "The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading And Bubblegum Book". You can still buy it on Amazon.

One of the funny things the author talked about was a game he and his friends played as kids called "Lousy Catcher" where one guy would come up with a name of a lousy catcher and then the next guy had to come with the name of another lousy catcher. One I remember from the book was Charley Lau, who played 9 years but had a paltry 2.0 WAR. He became a very successful hitting coach, though. Those who can't do, teach.

Another lousy catcher that would qualify was Bruce Bochy, who had close to the same career numbers Lau did, with a 2.3 WAR, also in a 9 year career. I'm not sure they'll mention any of that on his plaque in Cooperstown, though.

Yet another one: A.J. Hinch, career WAR 0.0 in 7 years.

And of course, Bob Uecker, -1.0 WAR in 6 years.

Lousy catcher can often be a springboard to fabulous success.

And even Girardi, who I wouldn't have called a bad catcher, only put up 5 WAR over 15 years.

is that there have been so many of them in baseball history. And It didn't matter if they were terrible hitters like those we've mentioned or great hitters like Yogi Berra and Joe Torre, so many have been successful. In contrast, there are really pretty few pitchers who became managers. Yes, Tommy Lasorda, Roger Craig, Bob Lemon, etc. but the numbers are pretty small for such a large group of players, and I would bet my life that in baseball history there are more catchers as managers than pitchers.

And just looking at the list of managers right now in MLB, there are only 2 pitchers (Pat Murphy and Bud Black) but there are 8 catchers by my count - besides Melvin, Bochy and Hinch, there's Brandon Hyde, Pedro Grifol, Scott Servais, Kevin Cash and Brian Snitker.

As I said, it's interesting but not the least bit surprising. They're the field generals.

I’m very surprised at the negative WAR also. I’m certain the guys in the dugout would disagree.

Looking at his Baseball Reference page it makes even less sense.

Supposedly, the dWAR is where he positional adjustment is added. However, the value of his dWAR and his oWAR does not equal his final WAR. I previous thought this was because oWAR and dWAR did not account for the positional adjustment but that's not what their explanation states.

I believe the acronyms belong over on the political board.

I don't remember the exact criteria that was defined

Major leaguer for an extended time as a starter

Low Wins above replacement number

Lack of awards as a player

Now you're one of the cool guys since you know the secret