Happy Belated Birthday to Ted Simmons, one of baseball’s best offensive and overshadowed Catchers. Over a career that lasted twenty-one seasons, Simmons played for the St Louis Cardinals, Milwaukee Brewers and Atlanta Braves.

Career Statistics/Accolades (1968-1988):

.285 BA, 2,472 HITS, 248 HR, 1,389 RBI, 1,074 RUNS, .348 OBP

• 8x All-Star

• Silver Slugger (1980)

I say “Overshadowed” because Simmons played in the NL for the Cardinals, who never made the playoffs once during his time in St. Louis from 1968-80. Also, playing in the same league at the same time with Johnny Bench, arguably the greatest Catcher who ever lived, doesn’t help. Despite being overshadowed, Simmons batted above .300 seven times, hit for 20 or more Home Runs six times, and had a Walk-STrikeout ratio of 855-694.

Defensively, while he never won a Gold Glove, he had a lifetime Fielding Percentage of .987% behind the plate. Simmons caught a total of 122 Shutoiuts, which ranks 8th all-time.

What Simmons did from an offensive standpoint was incredible, especially when you factor in the number of games he was behind the plate. In 1975, the best year he had offensively when he hit .332; he caught behind the plate 154 games that year. Imagine how much better Simmons would’ve been offensively had he played First Base instead of Catcher. As someone who is really tough when judging a player being considered Hall of Fame-worthy, I’m stunned that it took over forty years to be inducted.

References:

1. Ted Simmons Career Statistics via Baseball-Reference: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/simmote01.shtml

Ted Simmons via Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Simmons