Cooperstown’s Baseball Hall of Fame features plaques for 19 catchers from the sport’s long history (22 if we include Connie Mack, Al López, and Wilbert Robinson, who played behind the plate during their playing careers but landed in the HOF as managers). The group is small; alongside relief pitchers, it’s among the smallest position classes to be inducted into the HOF.

Joe Mauer was the last to be welcomed to the group in 2024. Buster Posey will become eligible on the 2027 ballot (this winter). Yadier Molina will follow the next year. Both look like locks to join.

Discourse surrounding a player’s “Hall of Fame likelihood” is always a subjective exercise. Those discussions have already begun for Salvador Perez. They’ll soon begin for J.T. Realmuto.

Let’s see how the two really stand up against the standards set by that group of HOF’ers.

Long-time MLB writer and sabermetrician Jay Jaffe (he currently writes full-time for FanGraphs, but he’s worked previously for Sports Illustrated and contributed directly to MLB.com at times) developed the JAWS scoring system several years ago. In short, JAWS “averages a player’s career bWAR with their 7-year peak bWAR” as a means to measure a player’s “HOF worthiness”.

The current group of HOF’ers (not including those from the Negro Leagues, meaning Josh Gibson and Biz Mackey were excluded) is grouped by position, and an average JAWS score is computed. For catchers, this comes to a JAWS score of 44.3.

For perspective, the JAWS scores of some other notable catchers (overall rank among catchers in MLB history):

Sticking to JAWS, neither Realmuto nor Perez would appear to be likely HOF’ers. There are several names ahead of them on the list who failed to receive the required 75% of the vote to earn induction into the Hall of Fame. Some even failed to reach the 5% mark required to return to the ballot for a second season.

Of course, the members of the BBWAA who vote for the Hall of Fame each year look beyond a single metric when making these decisions. JAWS is merely a strong starting point.

Perez has a long list of accolades and awards won during his career: 9 All-Star appearances, 5 Gold Gloves, 5 Silver Sluggers, a World Series title and MVP (2015), plus the Clemente Award.

Realmuto’s list is shorter: 3 All-Star appearances, 2 Gold Gloves, 3 Silver Sluggers.

Contreras (3-time All-Star, a WS title (2016)) and Smith (3-time All-Star, 3-time WS champ) also lag behind.

But accolades and awards don’t always push the discussion far enough. Posada was a 5-time All-Star, won 5 Silver Sluggers, and 4 WS titles. Still, he fell off the ballot after just one year.

More perspective, using Baseball Reference’s Versus Finder:

Again, Posey and Molina are each viewed as near-locks to be inducted into the HOF. Martin and Posada each fell off the ballot after just one year.

It’s not looking promising for Perez and Realmuto, though neither is at the end of their respective careers. Perez, who turned 36 on Sunday, is still signed through the 2027 season ($12.5 million). Realmuto, who turned 35 in March, remains under contract through the 2028 season ($15M each year).

Realmuto holds the higher JAWS score. He was the better baserunner of the two, beyond just the 104 stolen bases (Perez stole six). His career 109 OPS+ also tops Perez’s 104 (entering play on Monday). Ultimately, that’s where the comparisons really end. There’s little about Realmuto’s career that necessarily screams “he’s a Hall of Famer!”

Perez would appear to be the more likely candidate among the two, in part thanks to his long ties to the Kansas City Royals. Perez first signed with the club as an international amateur free agent in Oct. 2006, and he’s spent his entire 15-year career in Kansas City. Entering play on Monday, Perez ranks high on the Royals’ all-time leaderboards in games (7th, 1726), at-bats (5th, 6629), plate appearances (7th, 7067), runs scored (7th, 724), hits (6th, 1741), total bases (3rd, 3012), doubles (6th, 325), home runs (2nd, 308), RBI (2nd, 1033), and strikeouts (2nd, 1340).

In all likelihood, he’ll pass George Brett (317) as the franchise’s all-time home run leader before the end of the 2026 season. Six HOF catchers have hit more: Rodriguez (311), Carter (324), Berra (358), Fisk (376), Bench (389), and Piazza (427).

Perez will surely be remembered in the Royals team HOF — and likely will see his uniform number retired at some point — but the totality of his career likely won’t be enough to sway a majority of Hall of Fame voters.

It’s been a tough stretch for long-time members of the baseball world. Legendary Yankees broadcaster John Sterling passed away on May 4 at age 87. Two days later, former Braves owner and media mogul Ted Turner passed away at age 87.

On Saturday, three days later, Bobby Cox passed away at age 84. On Sunday, former Astros Spanish-language broadcaster René Cárdenas passed away at age 96.

Bobby Cox enjoyed a brief playing career. He initially signed with the Dodgers as an amateur free agent ahead of the 1959 season. Several years and clubs later, the Yankees would acquire him from the Braves in Dec. 1967. Cox would appear in 220 games, almost exclusively at third base, between the 1968 and ‘69 seasons, hitting .225/.310/.309 (88 OPS+) in 719 PA with 9 HR and 58 RBI.

Cox returned to Triple-A for the 1970 season, and as MLB.com’s Mark Bowman notes, he was preparing for life after baseball (Cox was looking to become a high school football coach) before Yankees general manager Lee MacPhail offered him the chance to manage the club’s Class-A affiliate the next spring.

Cox played in four games for Ft. Lauderdale in 1971 (going 1-for-9) before beginning his managerial career. The team finished 71-70 (.504) under Cox that season. He’d be promoted to Double-A the next year, and then spent four seasons managing the Yankees’ Triple-A affiliate (then in Syracuse, NY). By 1977, Cox was on Billy Martin’s coaching staff (as first base coach) with the Yankees.

Ted Turner hired Cox to manage the Braves in 1978, but famously fired Cox (and regretted it) after the 1981 season. The Blue Jays swooped in to hire him, and Cox is credited with turning the franchise around, ultimately leading them to their first division title in 1985.

Turner came calling again, offering Cox the Braves’ general manager job beginning in 1986. Cox didn’t have any prior front office experience, again, as Bowman notes, but Cox “oversaw Tom Glavine’s development, traded for a Tigers minor leaguer named John Smoltz, drafted Steve Avery and famously took Chipper Jones with the first pick in the 1990 Draft”.

He’d return to the dugout in 1990 and ultimately led the organization to an unprecedented stretch, including 14 postseason appearances in 15 seasons from 1991 to 2005. He would retire after bringing the Braves back to one last playoff appearance in 2010, but has remained an advisor to the organization.

Cox spent 29 years in an MLB dugout, with his teams finishing 4497-2496 overall (.555). He was unanimously elected to the Hall of Fame as a manager in 2014.

René Cárdenas became a broadcasting pioneer when he was hired by the Dodgers in 1958 (the club’s first season in Los Angeles) in MLB’s first full-time Spanish-language radio booth, as MLB.com’s Thomas Harrigan writes. Three years later, he was hired away by the expansion Houston Colt .45s (now, the Astros).

Cárdenas spent 14 years in Houston, where he is credited with expanding the club’s radio reach internationally (expanding to 13 Central and South American countries). After that stretch, he returned to his native Nicaragua to broadcast games — where, as Harrigan notes, his family was “deeply rooted” in the sport; his grandfather, Adán Cárdenas, is credited with introducing the sport to the country, while his uncle, Adolfo, played for the Nicaraguan national team.

He became the Rangers’ first Spanish-language broadcaster in 1981, before returning to the Dodgers in 1982, where he’d remain until retiring in 1998. Nearly 10 years later, Cárdenas returned to the Astros radio booth for part of the 2007 season, and he’d work 15 games on television for the team in 2008.

Cárdenas spent nearly four decades in a radio booth calling MLB games (as well as broadcasting several other high-profile sporting events) and is a four-time finalist for the BBWAA’s Ford C. Frick Award.