In June 2016, Willson Contreras made his first career start against the St. Louis Cardinals, the team of one of his catching idols, Yadier Molina. That day, Molina told Contreras to keep doing what he was doing and he'd be an All-Star someday. It was a really cool moment that will forever link the two players in my mind, but for many people, that connection no doubt already existed.
Before the start of the 2016 season, ESPN analyst Keith Law ranked Contreras as the best catcher prospect in baseball, and Contreras made it to Law's No. 18 overall prospect ranking in the weeks leading up to his promotion. It's not every day that the game discovers a catcher with an impact bat and a 70-grade arm, so it's natural to want to compare Contreras to Molina, who is the epitome of that kind of player in the modern game.
It's also the case that the modern game is particularly short of good hitting catchers at the moment. Weighted runs created plus (wRC+) measures offensive production relative to league average such that a hitter with 120 wRC+ is 20 percent better than league average and a hitter with 80 wRC+ is 20 percent worse than league average. Mike Trout has exceeded 170 wRC+ the past two seasons, so that 120 threshold isn't extreme; it captures hitters who produce like an above-average MLB regular. After a five-year period from 2010-14 in which at least six catchers produced 120 wRC+ seasons with 300 or more plate appearances each season, only four catchers have accomplished the feat the past two seasons.
