Puerto Rico is well known for producing baseball talent, and this includes a number of really solid catchers over the years. 

The purpose of this brief article is to focus on these catchers. 

We showcase all Puerto Rican catchers that played in Major League Baseball (MLB) during the 2022 season.

¡Sigue leyendo para aprender más sobre catchers puertorriqueños en los grandes ligas béisbol!

Puerto Rican Catchers as a Percentage of MLB Total

During the 2022 MLB season, 120 different catchers caught at least one inning during the year. 

The majority of these catchers (around two thirds) were from the U.S., not including Puerto Rico.   

Catchers from various Latin American and Caribbean countries represented the other one third. 

The country with the most MLB catchers outside of the U.S. is Venezuela, with 19. 

Next up? 

Puerto Rico. 

There were eight catchers from Puerto Rico that played in the MLB during the 2022 season. 

The eight Puerto Rican catchers represented nearly 7% of the nationality of all MLB catchers in 2022.

Puerto Rican Catchers in 2022

As detailed above, there were eight Puerto Rican catchers that played in the MLB in 2022.

Each of those eight are listed below along with their statistics from the season.

• Mario Feliciano
• Michael Perez
• Tomás Nido
• Victor Caratini
• Christian Vázquez
• Roberto Perez
• Martín Maldonado
• Yadier Molina

 

Mario Feliciano, Milwaukee Brewers

2022 Stats: 0.0 bWAR, 1 hit in 4 at bats, no errors in 14 innings caught.

Michael Perez, Pittsburgh Pirates and New York Mets

2022 Stats: -0.2 bWAR (Pirates), 0.2 bWAR (Mets), 18 hits in 121 at bats (.149), eight runners caught stealing. 

Tomás Nido, New York Mets

2022 Stats: 0.3 bWAR, .239/.276/.324, 68 hits, 3 home runs, 28 RBIs, .994 fielding percentage, 21% caught stealing percentage.

Victor Caratini, Milwaukee Brewers

2022 Stats: 0.6 bWAR, .199/.300/.342, 54 hits, 9 home runs, 34 RBIs, .995 fielding percentage, 27% caught stealing percentage.

Christian Vázquez, Boston Red Sox and Houston Astros

2022 Stats: 2.2 bWAR (Red Sox), -0.1 bWAR (Astros), .274/.315/.399, 109 hits, 9 home runs, 52 RBIs, .991 fielding percentage, 27% caught stealing percentage. Member of the 2022 World Series champion Astros.

Roberto Perez, Pittsburgh Pirates

2022 Stats: 0.6 bWAR, .233/.333/.367, 14 hits, 2 home runs, 8 RBIs, .994 fielding percentage, 33% caught stealing percentage.

Martín Maldonado, Houston Astros

2022 Stats: 0.3 bWAR, .186/.248/.352, 64 hits, 15 home runs, 45 RBIs, .998 fielding percentage, 26% caught stealing percentage. Member of the 2022 World Series champion Astros.

Yadier Molina, St. Louis Cardinals

2022 Stats: 0.2 bWAR, .214/.233/.302, 56 hits, 5 home runs, 24 RBIs, .994 fielding percentage, 39% caught stealing percentage.

Cities Where Puerto Rican Catchers Are From

The eight Puerto Rican catchers are from various cities across the island. 

However, there is one city that is home to three of the eight catchers - Bayamón, the hometown of Yadier Molina, Christian Vázquez and Mario Feliciano.

Outside of Bayamón, hometowns of other Puerto Rican catchers include Naguabo (Martín Maldonado), Mayaguez (Roberto Perez), Ponce (Victor Caratini), Guaynabo (Tomás Nido), and Catano (Michael Perez).

We made a simple map below which shows where each of these cities are in Puerto Rico. 

Best Puerto Rican Catcher in Baseball History

The best Puerto Rican catcher to play the game is, in our opinion, none other than Yadier Molina. 

Yadi played 19 years in the majors, all of which were spent with the St. Louis Cardinals.

He was a 10 time National League (NL) all star, won a silver slugger award, had a total bWAR of 42.1, and he was a member of two World Series championship teams in St. Louis. 

Yadi's career slash line was .277/.327/.399, and he is one of the rare catchers to have more than 2,000 hits (2,168) and 1,000 RBIs (1,022) during his career.

While he was a great offensive catcher, he was arguably even better from a defensive point of view.

Yadi earned nine gold glove awards and an impressive four platinum gloves - the latter of which is second all time to his former teammate, Nolan Arenado. 

His total fielding percentage as a catcher is .995 and he gunned down 381 runners attempting to steal, good for a 40% caught stealing percentage. This was 13 points higher than the league average over this same period of time.

Due to his leadership value and impressive career stats - especially when compared to other catchers - we believe Yadi will one day be elected to the Hall of Fame.

Two other incredible Puerto Rican catchers who played in the big leagues include Jorge Posada and Javy Lopez, both of whom were some of the best in the game in the 90s and 2000s. 

No disrespect to Jorge or Javy, but if they're compared with Yadi, in our opinion Yadi stands out as the best among the three.  

That’s A Wrap!

Thanks so much for reading this article and checking out Catchers Home. Please explore our site to read more interesting articles about all things catchers.

Also, feel free to contact us if you’d like to share any comments or questions.