This morning's Frosty Mug included a note that surprised me: Wilson Ramos of the Nationals caught his 23rd consecutive game on Sunday, and he's the only catcher in all of baseball to make 23 consecutive starts behind the plate this season. Ramos is not the guy I would've predicted to hold this mark. Due to knee and hamstring injuries, he's appeared in just 93 games over the last two seasons.
Across baseball, though, catcher workloads appear to be down a bit. Every MLB team has played between 148 and 151 games at this point and only three players have caught 120 of them. They're all American Leaguers: Matt Wieters of the Orioles, J.P. Arencibia of the Blue Jays and Salvador Perez of the Royals. Perez is the only one of the three with an OPS over .700.
In the National League, Yadier Molina will likely catch his 120th game tonight but recently missed some time with a knee injury. Russell Martin has caught 118 for the Pirates and Jonathan Lucroy is third with 116. If Luc catches four more games he'll be the first Brewer backstop to catch 120 games since Jason Kendall in 2009, and only the second since Mike Matheny in 1997.
Lucroy is almost certainly having his most valuable season as a Brewer. His rate stats are down a little but he's already set career highs for plate appearances (525), hits (134), doubles (22), home runs (17), runs scored (51), RBI (78) and walks (40). Despite the fact that he comes out from behind the plate every fifth day so Martin Maldonado can catch Wily Peralta, you can make a case for Lucroy as the most valuable 2013 Brewer.
Even if Lucroy isn't this season's best Brewer, though, he's almost certainly the best Brewer catcher in a long time.