Advanced defensive metrics — known as sabermetrics — show he is a top defender among catchers in MLB history. Molina ranked second all-time among catchers at the end of the 2014 season on Baseball-Reference.com's career defensive runs saved (DRS) with 120, behind only Iván Rodríguez (167), and ahead of Jim Sundberg (114), Bob Boone (107) and Gary Carter (106), the only catchers with over 100 on the list. He was the season leader in the NL every year from 2005–14, except 2008 and 2011–12. Fangraphs tallied his career DRS at 106, with a career-high of 20 in 2010. The sabermetric stat defensive wins above replacement (DWAR) has also ranked Molina's defense highly; he has never had a full season with a negative DWAR, and he had a career-high 2.9 DWAR in 2010.