Munson was an excellent backstop. With his quick release, he led the American League in runners caught stealing twice and won three Gold Glove awards (Fisk only won one Gold Glove). Other regular season defensive statistics:
- Caught 120+ games for 7 consecutive seasons (‘72 to ‘78) and ’70 (117 games in ’71 due to reserve duty) or would have been 9 consecutive seasons
- Top 5 for games caught – 8 seasons (Led the league 3 times with 1 runner up )
- Top 5 for Putouts – 6 seasons
- Top 5 for Assists – 8 seasons ( Led the league 3 times with 4 runner-up)
- Top 3 for DPs turned as C – 5 seasons ( Led league 2 times with 1 runner-up)
- Top 5 for runners caught stealing – 5 seasons (with 1 runner-up)
- Top 5 Caught % – 7 seasons ( Led the league 2 times with 1 runner up )
- 11th ranked catcher for career caught stealing percentage (44% v league average 38%)
- led the league in COMPLETE games caught in the 1970’s 3 times (Fisk 2, Bench0)
- led the league in innings caught 4 times (Fisk 2, Bench 0)
He was renowned for his handling of pitchers and caught 20-win seasons by Ed Figueroa, Ron Guidry, Catfish Hunter and Fritz Peterson as well as two different Cy Young Award winning pitchers (Sparky Lyle 1977; Ron Guidry 1978) in consecutive seasons.
Post-season Defensive Statistics-
In the post-season, he is the only Catcher in the history of baseball to throw out at least 7 base runners CS in 3 different postseasons and the only Catcher to throw out at least 3 base runners CS in 6 different postseason series. And, in fact, he is second on the all-time list of postseason defensive CS with 24 in the 30 games he played in.
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Thurman Munson’s Postseason Defensive Caught Stealing Performance |
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Year |
Playoff Round |
Opponent |
Games |
Defensive CS |
Attempted Steals |
CS % |
|
1976 |
AL Championship Series |
Royals |
5 |
5 |
10 |
50.0% |
|
1976 |
World Series |
Reds |
4 |
4 |
11 |
36.4% |
|
1977 |
AL Championship Series |
Royals |
5 |
4 |
9 |
44.4% |
|
1977 |
World Series |
Dodgers |
6 |
4 |
6 |
66.7% |
|
1978 |
AL Championship Series |
Royals |
4 |
3 |
9 |
33.3% |
|
1978 |
World Series |
Dodgers |
6 |
4 |
9 |
44.4% |
|
24 |
54 |
44.4% |
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Analytical Point 1: Thurman Munson is the only Catcher in history to throw out at least 3 base runners CS in 6 different postseason series. |
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Analytical Point 2: Thurman Munson is the only Catcher to throw out at least 7 base runners CS in 3 difference postseasons. |
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Analytical Point 3: With 24 Postseason CS Munson broke a 55 year old record held by Wally Schang, and then held the record himself for 26 years! |
The all-time leader in defensive CS amongst Catchers is Jorge Posada with 33 which is only 9 more CS than second place Munson despite the fact that Posada played in 94 more games! Until Posada passed Munson in 2004, Munson had held the record of 24 career CS for 26 years. The previous record holder by a Catcher was Wally Schang whose record of 21 postseason CS was established in 1923 and stood for a full 55 years until Thurman broke the record! In fact, on a CS per postseason game basis Thurman Munson’s 0.80 is higher than all but one every Hall of Fame Catcher (Ray Schalk) .
Most Postseason Base Runners Caught Stealing by Catchers All-Time
Base stealing was a key component of the 40 teams that made the playoffs in the 1970s. Indeed, Munson faced the top 3, and 4 of the top 6, in base-stealing productivity, including the famous 1976 Royals who had an unsurpassed 7 players with at least 20 steals during the season. These 76, 77, and 78 Royals teams were the early iterations of “Whitey-ball” and Thurman was ready… beating them each year just to make it to the World Series!
The Teams That Thurman Munson Faced in the Playoffs:
Rank for Regular Season (RS) Stolen Bases (SB) Among the 40 Playoff Teams of the 1970s
Munson needed to elevate his game to face a new level of attempted steals to WIN in the playoffs! It is also worth noting that Munson’s postseason Caught Stealing percentage of 44.4% (24 of 54) matches exactly his regular season CS% (427 of 960) even though teams in the postseason attempted to steal against him at more than twice the rate that they attempted steals against him in the regular season (1.8 attempts per postseason game vs. 0.75 attempts per regular season game). As much as Whitey Herzog, Sparky Anderson, and Tommy Lasorda tried to get the Yankees pitchers off balance by stealing with great frequency, Munson rose to the occasion and delivered!
The fact that he was able to do this while simultaneously delivering his .357 postseason batting average is an important element to fully appreciate the contribution that Munson made at the position in these critical games.