Nonplussed by the Career of Jorge Posada

When this site was created in 2003, the intent was to write about baseball from a fan's perspective. And while that may or may not have held true over the nine years of this site's activity, to be truthful, the writer here has too many journalistic aspirations and inspirations to really allow the fan side of things to take over completely. As a writer that writes about all baseball teams and players, a level of objectivity has long been maintained as this writer's goal. Jorge Posada defeats all of those high and lofty objectives. And because of the problems he brings to this writer's emotions, summing up his career (that reports have indicated is now over) is difficult. What kind of player was Jorge Posada?

First, the fan side problem. Since this writer was a little boy, the New York Yankees have been the favorite team. That sentiment has been avoided as much as possible in the words of this site. In fact, to this day, people on Twitter still ask about the Fan's favorite team. Which means that the goal of objectivity has been achieved somewhat successfully. Perhaps we are blowing that out of the water today with Jorge Posada. But it's not what you think. Though the 1996 to 2000 run was perhaps the most gratifying span in this Fan's history, Posada has never been a favored part of that warm and toasty memory bank. Jorge Posada has never been a Fan favorite. In fact, it's been just the opposite.

To be totally out front about things, MLB.TV has been a part of this writer's world for as long as that feature has been available. Writing and rooting from northern Maine makes watching a lot of baseball impossible except for daily Red Sox games on NESN. The money spent on MLB.TV has been largely spent to watch the Yankees. And as such, more of that team's games have been watched than any other. The overriding feeling watching Jorge Posada day in and day out was that he sucked as a catcher. Not only did this Fan feel he sucked as a catcher, he seemed like a bully, especially to young pitchers.

The bullying part will have to be explained later, but the fact that Posada was a lousy catcher, especially the last five years of his career are backed up by defensive metrics. According to baseball-reference.com, Posada only had five seasons of his sixteen total where his defensive metrics were not in the negative category. Both B-R and Fangraphs give him similar fielding numbers with B-R coming in at -32 runs for his career and Fangraphs at -22.1 runs. But it's even worse than that.

In Mike Fast's seminal work over at Baseball Prospectus, he confirmed what this writer had thought for a long time. Jorge Posada cost his pitchers a lot of strikes. Fast has a chart of his findings and put Posada third from the bottom (ahead of only Ryan Doumit and Gerald Laird from 2007 to 2011. Fast put his findings into a run format as well, and if his work is correct, then Posada cost his team slightly over 50 runs in just that four year span. So in four years, he nearly doubled the amount of runs he cost the Yankees with other facets of his defense for his career.

Add up all that negative stuff and add in that he led the league in passed balls twice and racked up 142 for his career, PLUS, he wasn't good at throwing base steal attempts out and was only successful 28 percent of the time for his career, the total picture is of a catcher that wasn't very good at his position.

The defensive beliefs of this career are easy to prove via the numbers we have available to us. There is no such defense for the bullying charge other than watching hundreds of games over the years. It is this writer's belief (that will be awfully hard to shake) Posada was a bane to young pitchers like Joba Chamberlain, Phil Hughes and others. They were going to throw Posada's pitch choices and that's all there was to it. There were an awful lot of complaints about the amount of times Posada trotted out to the mound to talk to his pitcher. And indeed that happened with maddening regularity. They almost always happened after a pitcher shook off the catcher's sign.

There were numerous times when this Fan literally screamed at the television to a particular sign given the pitcher in big situations. One that seems etched in this brain forever is a pitch to the Tampa Bay Rays' Dan Johnson. Johnson simply couldn't hit big league pitching. But the Rays always seemed to bring him up to face the Yankees and it always seemed to work. Dan Johnson hit 58 homers in his big league career. The eight he hit against the Yankees were his most against any other team. This writer can't remember the game, but at the time the Yankees and Rays were battling for first place in the division. Posada called the pitch and as soon as that finger was put down, this Fan started screaming and soon enough, Johnson was rounding the bases and the Rays had won the game. Perhaps it was the game on September 10, 2010 when Johnson hit two off of Phil Hughes.

Anyway, as you can see from this post so far, there is a lot of antipathy concerning Posada's career with the Yankees. And yet, when the numbers are compiled, they will show that since 1901, Jorge Posada was the fifteenth most valuable catcher by fWAR. Almost all the names in front of him are Hall of Fame players and others will be (Mike Piazza and Ivan Rodriguez). By those same measurements, he was the twelfth most valuable offensive catcher since 1901. Those are hard numbers to argue.

And Posada had some memorable hits during the Yankees' post season history. But as this writer has said before, when you get that many chances, good things will happen on occasion. His post season offense wasn't particularly spectacular. His .745 post season OPS is pretty good but not terrific. He has been called a clutch player, but no numbers bear that out.

There is no chance for this writer to remain objective about Jorge Posada. He was an old friend on a favored team that maintained excellence from 1996 to the present day. He'll get a lot of attention when he is eligible for the Hall of Fame. Many will vote for him. He's got five rings on his fingers. But for this simple writer, give this Fan Joe Girardi or Russell Martin behind the plate any day of the week and not Jorge Posada.

Posada's Big Day Leads to Roster Headache

Watching Jorge Posada hit his grand slam yesterday to go along with his two other hits was a bittersweet experience. On the one hand, you had to be happy for the grand old Yankee to have a moment in the sun in front of his faithful and appreciative home fans. But watching him round the bases, the first thought this writer had was: "What happens when Alex Rodriguez returns?"

You see, the Yankees have no wiggle room on their current 25-man roster--at least not for position players. The team only has four outfielders on the roster in Gardner, Granderson, Swisher and Jones. You need Nunez to spell Jeter and Cano. And Chavez can play first or third. So when Alex Rodriguez comes back, what does Jorge Posada do?

The Yankees have already indicated that they will start A-Rod as the DH three or four times a week to begin with. That will put Chavez or Nunez at third depending on the pitcher. That still leaves no room for Posada. He's definitely not going to catch, not with Martin and Cervelli firmly entrenched. That leaves him no role whatsoever on the team.

The return of A-Rod will lead to the decision of whether to keep twelve or thirteen pitchers on the 25-man roster. They currently sport thirteen. The extra starter complicates matters with six of them available. Robertson, Ayala, Soriano, Rivera and Logan aren't going anywhere. Cory Wade has earned his spot with solid performance since the Yankees stole him from the Bay Rays. The odd man out would seem to be Hector Noesi.

Noesi is useful if a starter falters early and you need to eat up innings. Those innings would have to be eaten up with Ayala and Wade, which is doable as long as it doesn't happen often because Wade is needed to spell Roberston and or Soriano when they pitch back to back games.

It's not the optimal situation for Girardi to lose a swing man like Noesi. But it's just for a couple of weeks until the rosters expand in September. Posada is a useful bat off the bench and as a spot starter. It wouldn't be a surprise if he lasts the season, a fact that at times have seemed to be in doubt. He's getting paid a lot of money, which does mean something to the Yankees. Look how they stick with Burnett, pretty much because of the money he is making. Posada also adds a lot of experience in stretch runs and over the playoffs. It would be a bit of a shock if Posada was the odd man out here. It will have to be Noesi. and that is the prediction from this vantage point.

A Fine Mess in Yankee Land

The Yankees are led on the field by two former catchers. With Joe Girardi as manager and Tony Pena as his right hand man, they knew the writing was on the wall for Jorge Posada as a catcher after watching him last year.  They saw what we all saw and that was that Posada just wasn't a good option for the Yankees behind the plate any more. And so Posada was told flat out after the season that he was done as the Yankees' catcher. It was the right call. In fact, it should have been done sooner. Except the Yankees had no one else to take his place. This decision hasn't set well with Posada as anyone can imagine. This writer had posted earlier in the season that Posada's body language was terrible. If you sort through all the garbage that went down last night at Yankee Stadium, the thing that becomes clear is that all this boiled over for Posada with the news that he would bat ninth in the Yankees' batting order.

As we all know by now, Posada took himself out of the line up. The reasons behind his move have been debated and picked over as all things concerning the Yankees always are. He says his back hurt. Girardi and Brian Cashman said they had no knowledge of said injury. There were reports of a heated argument between Girardi and Posada prior to his Posada's self-scratch. What a mess. Now all parties are in spin control and none of this helps the fact that the Yankees are sinking toward the .500 mark while the Bay Rays are on a run and the Red Sox are finally charging the .500 mark.

None of this, of course, should take away from the fact that Jorge Posada had a great career as the Yankees catcher. He's got a fist full of World Series rings and he's been one of the greats as an offensive catcher. But it also seems obvious that Jorge Posada is a proud man and sometimes that pride creates situations that proud men will eventually regret. David Ortiz, who has been on his own end of the "put-up-or-shut-up" scenario in Boston defended Posada and said the Yankees were doing to old catcher wrong. And while Ortiz did say that Posada shouldn't have taken himself out of the game, Ortiz shares Posada's pride and can relate to what Posada is going through.

This Fan has the same take on things as with the Michael Young situation in Texas. When you are making that much money, you should smile while you clean the toilets. That's life. The difference is that Young got to play due to injuries around the diamond and got off to a great start. Meanwhile, Posada's performance is what led to the current crisis the Yankees now face.

Here are some other salient points this Fan can think of:

• Yes, the other member of the old Core, Derek Jeter, is struggling offensively and seems to get a pass.
• But, Jeter is manning his position capably, something Posada could no longer do.
• Posada isn't the face of the franchise like Jeter and is not pushing for a milestone like Jeter is. If Jeter is still struggling when he reaches 3,000 hits, we'll see what happens to his place in the line up.
• The Yankees helped create this situation by overpaying Posada a couple of years ago to a contract that would take the old catcher way past his point of usefulness. They are now reaping the crap of that decision.
• Jorge Posada has not handled this situation with any amount of grace. His acts, at least from what we can see, are unprofessional.

So, yes, the Yankees are magnified above and beyond any other team in baseball. When things start to go sour, the media (both social and professional) pounce on any kind of controversy to the tenth degree. It can't be any fun right now for Joe Girardi, Derek Jeter, Brian Cashman and yes, Jorge Posada. If all this was happening in San Diego, nobody would be noticing and this wouldn't add so much pressure to the situation. Posada's situation seems a lot like Ken Griffey's last year. That didn't end well in Seattle and this situation with Posada won't end well either. It's not a good thing when sagging performance due to age is combined with those struggles of the team.

Who knows where the Yankees go from here. Perhaps they stick Posada back in the nine hole (though strategically, eight seems better) and leave him there and perhaps Posada starts to hit a little bit after getting his hubris hit by this story. Perhaps the Yankees trade him to the two million teams who need a catcher. Perhaps if the Yankees start winning again, the whole story goes away. From any perspective, the whole thing is a mess right now and the Yankees and Posada better find a way to turn things around in a hurry.

Jorge Posada is Toast

Lost among some Yankee success stories and the struggles of other players in their line up (Jeter, Gardner, Swisher), the Yankees have a black hole in the DH spot in Jorge Posada. It is not easy to write this piece because the Fan's wife loves Posada and Posada is also the favorite player of one special fifteen year old girl here. But he's done. The signs were pointing that way last year and this year, he has fallen and he can't get up.

The question is: What will the Yankees do about it? Posada will make $13 million this season, but that's not a problem for the Yankees. What is a problem is Posada as a local hero. One of the original "Core Four" that hearkens back to the glory days of the recent Yankee past. But he is 39 years old and looks every day of it. And he isn't just 39 in player terms. He's a 39 year old who spent the bulk of his career squatting behind home plate.

The Yankees took care of the first part of the equation this year by removing Posada from catching. He was the second worst defensive catcher in the game last year and his skill back there were seriously hurting the team. Russell Martin has been a brilliant acquisition who even if he doesn't continue to hit this well, has been terrific behind the plate and with the pitchers, something the Yankees haven't had in ions. But the Yankees softened the blow by still giving Posada a full-time position as the DH. After batting .248 last year, his lowest since 1999, Posada is hitting .130 after 78 plate appearances. His on base percentage is a paltry (for him especially) .232.

Complicating the decision has been Posada's power production early this season. He does have six homers. But the reality is that Posada has never had this high an ISO. His career number is .228. His current ISO is .261. There is no reason to believe that he will keep that up. His homer to fly ball rate is also sitting at 27.3 percent. His career average is 15.8 percent. Again, he won't sustain this power clip.

Normally, when someone is struggling this badly, you look at the BABIP and surely, Posada's is incredibly low at a freakish .091. Again, normally, you would say that would even things out over the course of time. But you have to couple that thought with the fact that Posada has a career line drive percentage over 20 percent. Last year, that sunk to 18.5 percent and this year, the figure is down to 12.2 percent. Simply put, Posada isn't getting good wood on the ball.

When a player gets to Posada's age, the normal trend is not being able to catch up to a good fastball. That doesn't seem to be the case with Posada. To avoid that, he is probably looking for fastballs so he can gear up and he's not getting them. Pitchers have never thrown Posada so few fastballs. He's seen 58 percent of them over his career. This year, he's seeing only 46 percent fastballs. That seems to mean that pitchers have gotten the word not to throw him any. And they are probably right. Posada is getting eaten up by curves and change ups.

And this Fan has watched quite a few Yankee games and Posada's body language has been awful. Perhaps since he lost the catcher position, he has also lost his place as an important member of the team...at least in his own mind. He often sits by himself in the dugout and looks downcast. Could his self-esteem have taken a hit with his demotion from behind the plate? It's very possible. He does seem to have a good relationship with Martin and that is helpful and professional. But not being in a good frame of mind can't be helping a 39 year old hitter.

Projection systems gave Posada a projection of .233/.331/.454. That certainly is on the low end of what you want from your DH. And now those numbers look fantastically optimistic. Can the Yankees win without a DH? They did it last year and the Bay Rays have done it two of the last three years. But will they choose to do so? They certainly have a problem on their hands. Posada looks like toast at this stage of his career and it remains to be seen what the Yankees do about it. They either bite the bullet and get Posada out of there or they bite the other bullet and keep Hip Hip Jorge in there as a mascot of sorts.

The Jeter Play

Wednesday night's game between the Yankees and the Bay Rays featured an incident in the top of the seventh that almost gave the Yankees a victory. For those of you who follow the MLB Network, they were all over this one, but if you didn't see it, this is what happened:

The Yankees had fallen behind 2-1 on yet another Hughes - Posada home run allowed. I list both players because this Fan will go to his grave thinking that Hughes gives up gophers because of the pitches that Posada calls. But anyway, back to the seventh inning. As stated, the Yankees were behind a run and the Bay Rays have just as good a bullpen now as the Yankees do. It's the biggest improvement for these Rays over the 2008 version. The Yankees needed base runners and the Bay Rays' bullpen doesn't give up many of them. That's the scenario that led up to the Jeter Incident.

Chad Qualls was on the mound. Where Qualls has suddenly come up with a 95 MPH fastball is a subject for another blog post, but Qualls now throws extremely hard. Derek Jeter has been scuffling as just about all the world knows, but he needed to get on base. Knowing that, Jeter found an opportunity to...umm...cheat a little bit. Qualls' pitch darted inside and the replay showed that the ball hit the knob of the bat. Jeter acted like his arm got blown off. The umpire, seeing Jeter in obvious supposed pain, gave Jeter first base. The Rays protested and the umps got together to talk about it. Apparently none of them were quite sure, so Jeter took his base. Joe Maddon went ballistic and got himself thrown out of the game.

Again, the MLB Network was all over the development. They showed the replay over and over again and were having so much fun laughing at Jeter's acting ability. The network even froze the replay to show Jeter's eyes looking at the umpire to see if the umpire was buying his pain routine. He did. The Network also played a feed of the Tampa broadcast and the Fan takes everything back he ever said about Kevin Kennedy as a color man. Kennedy totally lost his composure and was extremely vile in his condemnation of the umpires. It was ugly. But anyway, one of Kennedy's points was that the ball went in fair territory and should have been an out. But he was wrong.

The replays that they showed over and over again did show that the ball hit the knob of the bat. Jeter  had indeed pulled a fast one. But the replays also showed that the ball glanced off of Jeter after it hit the bat's knob. Thus, it wouldn't have been an out, but it should have been a strike. Kennedy missed that since he was so upset and the MLB Network guys missed it because they were too busy laughing at Jeter's checkered play.

Granderson was up next and hit the ball out of the park that put the Yankees ahead. But the lead didn't last long as for some reason, Girardi left Hughes out there in the bottom of the seventh to face the same guy who hit the first homer. Sure enough, that guy, Dan Johnson, hit another two run homer off of Hughes - Posada. Both homers were on fastballs, the first was a two-seamer that went right to the sweet spot for a power-hitting left-handed batter (down and in). The second was on a cutter in roughly the same spot. Great call, Jorge...again. No way you throw Johnson fastballs. Ever. And why would you leave him in there, Girardi?

Anyway, the Bay Rays won the game, which goes to show the kids that once again, cheaters never prosper.

Battle of the Heavyweights - Round Two

The Rays and Yankees played the second game of their series in Florida on Tuesday night. The Bay Rays won the first one on a brilliant pitching duel between the two starters and each team's relievers until the Yankees had to cry, "Oh Sergio," in the bottom of the eleventh when Mitre gave up a quick gopher to Reid Brignac. Tuesday's game had much the same script except for the starting pitching. Garza was bad for the Bay Rays and Nova flamed out in the fifth like the Chevy his name brings to mind.

The Yankees took a quick 5-0 lead on Matt Garza who had little command in his brief outing. Garza was relieved by Jake McGee making his major league debut and it showed. He walked the first two batters he faced to allow the sixth run. McGee did record a strikeout to end his inning and Garza's final line.

Then the Bay Rays came up in the bottom of the fifth. Nova had been flirting with disaster all night and somehow kept squeaking out of it. There was no squeaking out of the fifth as the Bay Rays put on a light show and before Nova knew what hit him, his lead was gone, his day was done and his win was history. Boone Logan didn't help any with a three run blast given up to Aybar when he came in to rescue Nova. Nova would have probably preferred a St. Bernard.

Strangely, Joe Maddon left McGee in there to start the top of the sixth and after a first batter walk, Maddon thought better of his decision and brought Hellickson in. This rookie thing with great young starters finishing out the year as relievers isn't working with Hellickson. It worked for David Price two years ago, but Hellickson is lost in relief. He gave up a couple of hits, including a game-tying double to Cano to knot the game at 7 each. The threat ended though because the Yankees were futile in their attempts to hide Kearns and Curtis who stunk up the bottom of the order and left several men on base.

From there it was a bullpen masterpiece. Qualls, Benoit and Soriano shut down the Yankees and Logan (after the homer), Chamberlain, Wood and Robertson blew away the Bay Rays. The game again went into extra innings but only because Curtis Granderson made an unbelievable diving catch in center to save the game. Granderson sped after the ball and extended fully and it was a fantastic play.

Maddon had no choice but to shut down Soriano after an inning and had to turn to Wheeler. The first batter he faced was Jorge Posada pinch hitting for Cervelli. And the old veteran, who can still hit, crushed a Wheeler offering up and over the restaurant in dead center--a mammoth shot. Wheeler escaped further damage. That left the game in the hands of Mariano Rivera.

The first batter Rivera faced was Carl Crawford, the last person any Yankee fan wanted to see start an inning like that. And sure enough, Crawford got on first with no outs. Uh oh. Rivera blew his last save opportunity and this one didn't feel anywhere close to being a lock. Everyone in the building and those of us watching on television expected Crawford to steal. But Longoria swung at the first pitch before Crawford could go and made a quick out. Crawford didn't wait around after that and was soon on second base.

That brought up Matt Joyce, a great-looking young hitter. Joyce battled Rivera and got the count in his favor, but the old and still buck reliever induced Joyce to lift a medium distance fly to right. The catch was made by Greg Golson, a September call up and defensive replacement. Crawford, who didn't steal third like the Fan expected, tagged up on the fly to go to third. But Golson threw a rocket that roped on a line to third and short hopped Alex Rodriguez. A-Rod made a great adjustment on the ball and scooped and tagged in the same moment and Crawford was out. Just like that, the game was over. Crawford looked stunned. Those of us that were watching were stunned. The Yankees were jubilant and fists were pumped all over the infield.

Of course we can debate the old saw about never making the last out at third base. But the Bay Rays live and die by playing aggressive. If you were to bet odds on how many times Crawford would make it to third in that situation, the odds would be in Crawford's favor most of the time. It just wasn't meant to be. The other side of the argument is that it was a meaningless 90 feet. Crawford would have easily scored on a single from second. But those points are all moot.

These heavyweights have played two extraordinary games and split them. What thrilling games! The Yankees regained a half game lead back into first and the two teams will go back at it tomorrow afternoon. What thrilling baseball! And this was just one game. The Padres won a thriller. The Phillies increased their division lead because Livan Hernandez proved us all wrong one more time. September baseball is like nothing else on earth.

Yes, Another Posada Rant

One pitch. That was all it took to ruin young Phil Hughes' night against the Bay Rays. One pitch. He was in complete control. Yes, there were two runners on but there were two outs and young Matt Joyce was at the plate. A pitcher like Hughes should feast on rookies like Joyce. But one pitch cost him a three-run homer and the ballgame. Of course, it didn't help that the Yankees didn't hit as the tiresome A-Rod watch plods on for his 600th homer, but let's forget about that right now and talk about that pitch.

Hughes had two strikes on Matt Joyce. The second strike came on a nasty breaking ball that Joyce didn't come close to hitting. That is what you throw young rookies. You throw them breaking balls until they prove they can hit them. Joyce entered the game hitting .227 by the way. All you have to do is look at the splits for Matt Joyce to see what the Fan is talking about. Against power pitchers (read fastball pitchers), Joyce has a 1.192 OPS. Against finesse pitchers, he has a .674 OPS. Finesse pitchers throw more breaking stuff. You always throw breaking stuff to a rookie.

So the perfect pitch selection in that situation would have been to throw him another breaking ball. Like the Fan just said, he hadn't come close to the last one. But Posada put down the sign for a fastball. For crying out loud. It had to be the dumbest pitch call of the year. Joyce's eyes lit up and he smashed it where only fans were going to catch it. Three runs. The ballgame. A two game swing in the standings all based on that one pitch. That one stinking pitch.

The Fan's wife was trying to understand how her normally mild-mannered husband was spitting epithets in odd combinations. She asked the Fan why the pitcher couldn't just tell the catcher what he wanted to throw? Excellent question. The answer is that Posada has five rings and is one of the Core Four. There is no way he is going to let a kid like Hughes throw what he wants to throw. Posada is a pro. He's the experienced one. He knows what he is doing. So no, Hughes isn't going to call him off that pitch. He's going to dutifully throw it. There is no way that Sabathia would throw anything but what he wanted to throw. But in the pecking order, he outranks Posada. Hughes doesn't. At least not yet.

And so Posada put the fastball sign down to a young rookie who already showed he couldn't hit a curve and the rookie's homer won the game for his team. That one pitch lost it and it's the pitch that Posada called. Terrible.

Whew! THAT Was a Long Day

We woke up at 3:45 A.M yesterday and left Mom's by 5:15 for the airport. The first plane took off at 7:00 and landed in JFK at 9:30. Then we had to wait around that very boring airport until 1:30 P.M. and then boarded a flight to Portland. We landed in Portland at 2:55 and called the motel (we did a park and fly) to come pick us up. At 3:30 they did and by 3:45 we were in our car and headed north. After picking up our dog in Houlton at his doggy hotel, we got home at about 10:15 P.M. Man, that's a long day.

Along the way, the Fan had lots of time to think and one thing kept coming to mind, the Fan's brother's reaction to the Posada post the other day. The Fan's brother was also vacationing with Mom this year and his first day overlapped with the Fan's last day, which was nice. But he blew up when we discussed Posada. "He's the best offensive catcher in the history of the game and you want to sit him!?" The Fan wilted and did not respond to such an emotional outburst.

But isn't that typical? Fans of teams latch onto biases and never let go. There are probably a lot of fans in Milwaukee who think that Prince Fielder is the best first baseman in baseball. There are a lot of fans in Florida who think that Hanley Ramirez tries hard and concentrates every game. There is no way to refute that kind of thinking.

But then that thought led to a new one. It's no wonder that the Yankees are so hated. Sure, we've already seen that fans are passionate and they are biased about their own players. But there are simply more New York fans than there are...say...Tampa fans. They also probably have triple the media outlets of most teams. So the biases of the fans and the bias of the media overwhelm all others. That forces the biases to go mainstream and thus cause smart baseball fans everywhere to say, "Yeah, right."

Posada isn't even close to being one of the best offensive catchers in the history of the game. He might be one of the best offensive catchers during his career. Though guys like Ivan Rodriguez (in his prime), Joe Mauer were probably better than Jorge Posada in his youth and now at his old age. But guys like Bill Dickey, Yogi Berra, Johnny Bench, Carlton Fisk and others blow away Jorge Posada offensively. And every other catcher mentioned so far in this piece had one thing that Jorge Posada has never had: Defense.

But Posada has five rings. That's impressive. This Fan has been a Fan of Posada. No doubt. But there has always been this huge and nagging doubt about him. That doubt has been crystallized by stats that supported good reason for the doubts. The facts at the end of the day are that Posada has had his share of clutch hits in crucial situations for the Yankees over the years. His defense has probably cost as many runs as he's driven in though. The Fan cringes to type this, but the Yankees have probably won five rings more despite Posada than because of him. His defense, his game-calling skills, his receiving of pitches, his passed balls, his throwing, his blocking of balls at the plate are all sub-standard.

Look, the Fan loves Posada. Truly. But that's the Fan's heart. The Fan's head is looking forward to the day when Posada is in the Hall of Fame and the Yankees have a star catcher that can actually catch and that the pitchers actually enjoy throwing to.

The Joba Question

Joba Chamberlain lost another game last night for the Yankees. Javier Vazquez pitched brilliantly for seven innings without giving up a run and turned the ball over to Chamberlain with a 1-0 lead. These are the kinds of games that last year, the Yankees always won. This year has been an adventure. Chamberlain came in and promptly gave up four runs on a grand slam and the Yankees lost 4-1. It was Joba's fourth loss, all in relief. The big question is whether the Yankees can go as far as they want to go with Joba bridging the gap between the starter and Rivera? The answer has a surprising conditional answer.

Joba Chamberlain is facing what happens to relief pitchers who have bad outings. The lack of innings compiled allow a couple of bad outings to blow up their ERAs. Joba still has 9.6 strikeouts per nine innings. He still has an almost three to one strikeout to walk ratio. He has given up 39 hits in 36.1 innings pitched, which is too high for a high power relief pitcher. But his BABIP for this season is .369 which shows that he's unlucky so far. Last night's grand slam was the first homer he's allowed all season.

Regular readers of this blog are going to groan at this next statement because the Fan has harped on this all year. Part of Joba's problem depends on who is catching him. Yeah, there is a difference when Chamberlain pitches to Cervelli and when he pitches to Posada. When Joba pitches to Cervelli he has a 3.71 K/BB ratio. When he pitches to Posada, that figure drops to 2.33. Joba's OPS against is .649 with Cervelli and .766 with Posada. This simply continues a trend that is over two years long which the Fan has proven over and over again.

And what about Javier Vazquez's beautiful performance last night? Is it a coincidence that it occurred because Cervelli started the game behind the plate? No. Vazquez has a 3.28 ERA pitching to Cervelli and a 7.52 ERA pitching to Posada. It's not a coincidence. The Yankees have to know this stuff right? Do they have high powered statisticians in their organization? This Fan doesn't know. But either way, the evidence is overwhelming.

The Yankees will win if their pitching holds up. Plain and simple. The playoffs and World Series are all about who pitches better. The Yankees have spent millions to get the pitching they need. So why then do they throw that pitching to a catcher who doesn't do them any favors? If the Yankees would want to maximize their pitching, then put Cervelli as the number one catcher and put Posada at DH without delay. There are questions on whether Cervelli can hit long term. Doesn't matter. They need to pitch well and they will have enough offense.

Oh, and in case you think this is a new phenomenon, remember the first time Vazquez pitched for the Yankees? Remember how that didn't go so well? That was 2004 in case you've forgotten. That year, Vazquez pitched 28 times to Posada. His ERA was 5.23 in those games. He pitched five games to John Flaherty in 2004. His ERA in those games was 3.31.

So where did this post go wrong? It probably got lost because this is a subject that frosts the Fan's hide like no other because it is so obvious. If this writer can at least finish it up with Joba and tie the post up in a bow, that would be nice. Okay, here goes: Joba has had a few bad outings, but his stats are still impressive and he can still dominate. Stick with him (as there are few other options out there anyway) and at the very least, bring Cervelli in for a defensive replacement in the late innings and things will work out just fine.

A. J. Burnett Is Killing the Yankees

The arguments on whether A. J. Burnett is just flat out bad, or only bad when he pitches to Jorge Posada is a moot point. Jorge Posada is the Yankee's number one catcher. And if Burnett can't pitch to him, he is of little use to the Yankees. Watching the game on Monday night in Arizona, Burnett and Posada looked like a couple of middle high students dancing together for the first time. But why would that mean that Burnett couldn't hit a target if he had a hundred chances to do so? It's hard to fathom.

Burnett has pitched 39.2 innings to Francisco Cervelli. his ERA is 3.63 and his OPS against is .705. He's pitched to Posada for 28.2 (not including Monday night's fiasco) and his ERA with Jorge is 4.71 and his OPS against is .866. This is certainly not an isolated statistic. Overall, for the Yankee pitchers in 2010, they have an ERA of 3.54 with an OPS against of .680 when pitching to Cervelli and a 4.26 ERA with a .725 OPS against with Posada. That makes this year no different than last year when the same phenomenon occurred.

It would be interesting to get a catcher's perspective to break that down and figure out why. Does Posada call a bad game? Does he set up too late? Does he receive the ball badly and not get strike calls? The Fan hasn't seen enough games to detect a difference. But something is different when Posada catches. And that difference affects Burnett more than any other Yankee pitcher.

Whether you blame Burnett or blame Posada, the situation is untenable. The Yankees don't have enough wiggle room in a three team horse race for two spots in the playoffs to give away games when the tandem are together. Monday night's game was the fourth straight bad outing for Burnett. The last two have been with Posada and the previous two with Chad Moeller. Without throwing any of those games to Cervelli, you can't rule out if Cervelli would have made a difference.

The problem with Burnett has always seemed to revolve around two problems. Burnett can't seem to finish an inning when he gets two quick outs. And he can't seem to finish off a batter when he gets two quick strikes. Burnett's first seven runs given up against the Diamondbacks all came with two outs and all with nobody on base after those two outs.

So what do you do about this situation? Do you have to catch Cervelli every time Burnett pitches? Posada makes a lot of money and is one of the cornerstones on the Yankees. Burnett makes a lot of money and would be impossible to trade and is too expensive to put in the bullpen. In a perfect world, Posada would DH every game for the rest of the year, but you know that won't happen. It's a problem. It's a very big problem

Two Stories from the Yankees - Orioles Game

After a bullpen meltdown the previous night that gave the Orioles their fourth win of the season, the Yankees came back tonight and put a near perfect game together resulting in a 4-0 win. Players having a positive impact were Jeter with two hits and a run scored, Marcus Thames who went three for three with a walk and a ribbie, Robinson Cano who had ten total bases and scored three runs and drove in three, and A. J. Burnett who pitched eight scoreless innings on three hits, and more importantly, with only one walk. The latter two are the two stories the Fan has in mind. Let's start with Cano.

Simply put, the man has had an incredible April. His current line with one day left in the month reads: .407/.444/.790. Woof. Plus, he's made only one error. He has eight homers, five doubles, has 17 RBIs and has scored 21 runs. Oh yeah, he has one triple too. That's a pretty good month. After last year's 205 hit season, it seems that Cano seems poised to shatter that this year and is headed for his best year yet.

There is only one small reservation in this story for this here Fan. You can't have a much better night than by going three for four with a double and two homers. Got it. Plus, the Fan also has the month of stats. But here is what concerns the Fan. Cano got all that done on seven pitches. In other words, he averaged 1.75 pitches per plate appearance. So far this year, he is averaging 3.39 pitches per plate appearance, which is 73rd in the league. The good news is that this is up from Cano's career average. But sooner or later, the pitchers are going to realize that their best bet is to pitch just off the strike zone and let Cano get himself out. This will bear watching. But in the mean time, Cano sure is having himself some fun, eh?

The second story of this game was A. J. Burnett. The Fan called this one right on the head on Thursday morning during the daily game picks post. The Fan was going to pick Matusz to win for the Orioles, and the kid pitched great (except for Cano) and gave up only three earned runs. But then the Fan remembered that Posada got hit in the knee on Wednesday and probably wouldn't play today and then announced that Burnett would have a great game. That's exactly what happened. And that's a problem.

Burnett bent over backwards all spring and said he had no problems throwing to Posada. The two were in tandem all during Spring Training. But facts are facts and Burnett just performs better when he's not throwing to Posada. And he's been good so far with a 3.20 ERA. His walks per nine up until tonight was 2.86 and his WHIP was 1.421. On Thursday night with Cervelli, he walked only one in eight innings and he had only four base runners in eight innings. But it's only one game right? And it could have happened with Posada. Well, maybe. But let's look at last year.

Last year, Burnett walked 4.22 batters per nine innings with Posada, 3.82 with Molina and 3.85 with Cervelli. His hits per nine innings with Posada were 9.45, 7.39 with Molina and 6.42 with Cervelli. His K/BB ratio with Posada was 1.72. With Molina it was 2.66 and with Cervelli, it was 2.50. The Fan doesn't think that's a coincidence.

So far this year, pitchers thowing to Cervelli have walked 3.00 per nine innings, while throwing to Posada, they've walked 3.62. The K/BB ratio with Cervelli is 2.31 and 2.00 with Posada. The hits per nine innings with Cervelli come to 6 per nine innings compared to 8.56 with Posada. The sample size is small and you have to factor in that the majority of Cervelli's starts have been with the big guy, Sabathia. Why is that by the way? And why hasn't that been a major news story? Posada caught Sabathia's first start and it's been Cervelli ever since. Hmm.

So okay, not much can be gained from this year's sample size. But let's look at last year. Walks per nine innings with Cervelli were 2.91. With Molina, it was 2.72. With Posada? 4.09. Cervelli's K/BB ratio was 2.58. Molina's was 3.35. Posada? 1.79. The most damning evidence? Pitchers throwing to Cervelli had a 3.43 ERA, 3.36 to Molina and a whopping 5.06 to Posada.

Facts are facts. Teams win with pitching. The Yankees pitch better with Cervelli than with Posada. The numbers are right in front of us. Burnett's night on Thursday night was not a fluke. It wouldn't have happened with Posada behind the plate. It just wouldn't. The problem for the Yankees is that Posada is one of the "Core Four." He's a fixture and a borderline Hall of Famer. He's got a great clutch bat from both sides of the plate. But the best answer for the Yankees, if they were to fully admit it, would be to put Cervelli behind the plate and use Posada as the DH. Nick Johnson isn't doing that well anyway. Plain and simple, the Yankees pitch better to Cervelli and there is no getting around it.

Yankees Need to Consider Catching Change

The Boston Red Sox know when to cut the cord. Despite the spring debacle of the Nomar Garciaparra retirement party, the Red Sox are quite good at separating reality and devotion. They won a World Championship with Damon and set him free. Pedro? Gone in a heartbeat. Lowell? Thanks for the fine work. Last year, they understood that Varitek was done as a viable catcher and despite his mythical stature in Boston and despite his captaincy, they brought in Victor Martinez to take over. David Ortiz already looks bad this year. Don't expect them to let that go as far as it did last year. The Yankees are starting to learn (letting go of Damon and Matsui was the right call) but in the case of their catcher, they have a blind eye.

Look, the Fan gets it. It's Posada and Jeter and Pettitte and Rivera. The stalwarts. The legends. But when it gets to the point where it hurts the ball club, it's time to take a second look. Two games are certainly a small sample size. But we've already seen a passed ball that cost a run and possibly the game and a throwing error that cost another run in Tuesday's game. But small sample size or not, it's a pattern. His defense was staggeringly bad in the post season last year and his incessant trips to the mound are enough to drive everyone batty. The reality is that Posada is simply a liability on defense.

But he can hit and there is some intrinsic value in his leadership. But you have to prevent runs as much as you have to score them. Posada was a wash on Sunday. He homered. He missed a fastball and let a run in. That's a wash. Washes aren't good. It's time to do something creative.

The Fan will even state with understanding that it can be a gradual process. Here is what the Fan would do. Make Posada the DH against every lefty starter. He would be more effective than Nick Johnson in those situations as the DH. This way you get him out of harms way as often as a lefty starts. He still gets his hacks and hopefully his dignity stays somewhat intact. But the heck with dignity. The Red Sox don't worry about that do they? Cervelli is a better catcher. And it appears that he isn't too harmful with a bat in his hand. So a Cervelli/Posada, catcher/DH combination cannot hit any less against lefties than a Posada/Johnson combination. Plus, you get better defense behind the plate.

The future is a Montero/Cervelli catching mix. All Yankee watchers realize that. Posada's shelf life is limited and he could go all Varitek at any time. His defense already has.

A Tale of Four Old Catchers

This post isn't a comparison really. Three of the old catchers we will be discussing start. The other just plays once a week. But what is really striking is how different old catchers age. Johnny Bench was basically done as a young man and even moved to the infield. Carlton Fisk excelled into his forties. Generally, catchers don't hold up over the long haul. After all, it's a tough position. Catchers get beat up every single game they are behind the plate. Part of their job is to smother balls in the dirt even when it means bruised chests and shoulders (and shins, etc.). The four catchers we are going to talk about have all aged differently. They are: Brad Ausmus, Jorge Posada, Ivan Rodriguez and Jason Varitek.

Brad Ausmus is now forty years old. In all those years, he's never been very good offensively. Well, he did have two seasons at league average. But he's averaged 61 on the OPS+ scale for the three seasons before this one. It's easy to state that nobody has ever paid Ausmus to hit. In fact, the only thing he ever led the league in was grounding into double-plays (2002). But he's always had a great reputation as a catcher behind the plate, not only defensively, but for his handling of pitchers. The Fan still doesn't know how you measure that kind of thing. During his prime, he did throw out anywhere from 35 to 48 percent of base runners trying to steal against him. That's pretty good. In 1914 games behind the plate, he's only had 61 passed balls in his career. That's pretty darn good too.

But the last four years haven't been great for Ausmus. Not only has he not hit well, but his caught stealing rate fell into the twenties. How can you explain then that a 40 year old catcher has thrown out 38% this year? Or that he has his highest batting average in fifteen years? Or that he has his highest OPS+ in nine years? You can't other than his playing time is way down and he picks his spots in odd starts. Still, it's a nice swan song for the old guy.

Ivan Rodriguez has been a major league catcher for nineteen years now. When you think of Rodriguez, you think of his arm. Always the arm. And his numbers back up the hype. He's thrown out 46% of base runners trying to steal in his career. That's a weapon. Since the ideal success rate for stealing is 70%, the 54% success rate versus Rodriguez is outstanding. And he is still dealing there. Even at 38 years of age, Rodriguez has thrown out 33% this year. Still very good.

The one thing about Ivan Rodriguez though is his hitting. For twelve years, he was an offensive force. In those twelve years, he averaged an OPS+ of 112. He won the MVP in 1998 when his OPS was .914. He still has a career batting average of .299. He is no longer a force. In fact, he has become a rather easy out, especially since he basically forgot how to take a walk for the last eight years. He's pretty much a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame unless the whispers of PED use become confirmed.

Jorge Posada got a later start than those last two guys. But he's just as old. Now 38, Posada is still dishing it pretty well at the plate. Since Posada became the regular Yankee catcher in 1998, he has only had a sub-100 OPS+ season since. His lifetime OPS+ is 124, which is outstanding for a catcher.

But Posada has never been nearly as good a defensive catcher as Ausmus and Rodriguez. His overall RTOT for his career is -15. Compare his 133 career passed balls in 15 seasons to Ausmus's 61 in 19 or Ivan Rodriguez's 122 in 19. Both Rodriguez and Posada have had run ins with pitchers over calling a game. You never hear that about Ausmus. And Posada hasn't been great at throwing out base stealers. His career 29% is way below the other two. He is at his career average this year in that category, which is a surprise for a 38 year old.

Jason Varitek was probably the soul of the Red Sox during their championship years. As such, he has been the Red Sox captain which speaks volumes about his leadership during that time. He has the reputation as a fiery guy who is great for pitchers. Those are all intangibles that can't be measured. But you can't discount them either. What can be said is that he was the starting catcher for two champions. You can't take that away from him.

Varitek was a good offensive catcher for a stretch too. Though it took him longer to break into the major leagues than the others (the 37 year old is in his 13th season), he had a nice five year stretch where he averaged an OPS+ around 120. But three of the last four years have been abysmal. In his early years, he didn't strike out that much. But in the last five seasons, he has averaged well over 100 strikeouts a season. His one saving grace is his ability to take a walk, something Ivan Rodriguez has never been very good at. Varitek has something else over the other three we've talked about: He's the only one of the four that has not led the league in grounding into double plays.

Varitek has been a good defensive catcher on the RTOT scale with a positive number for his career. But like Posada, he's never been great at throwing out runners. His career number of 24% is even worse than Posada's. So you can't lump him into the same category as Rodriguez and Ausmus. And unfortunately, this year has been historic in failing in that category. He's thrown out only 12% of base runners this season. He's been stolen on 106 times and has only caught 15 of them. Ugh! Those are similar to a certain former Dodgers/Mets catcher.

Of these four old catchers, all of them have had bright moments with playoff teams. All of them have been among the best of their era for differing reasons. Ausmus has had a nice swan song this year. Ivan Rodriguez is no longer a valuable major leaguer. Posada is still an elite offensive catcher. Jason Varitek unfortunately, looks like he has played one season too many.

Went to the Fights and a Yankee Game Broke Out

As much as the MLB would hate to admit it, every baseball Fan loves a good fight once in a while on the baseball field. There is the unexpected thrill of it when the normally placid game of baseball is interrupted by a good old melee. Heck, that's why so many hockey fans go to games in the NHL. It's the same reason NASCAR fans love to see crashes. We're all sick, but that's for the anthropologists to figure out. The Yankees played the Blue Jays last night. Halladay wasn't great, but he was a darn sight better than Mitre (which is not hard to do). Then in the eighth inning of a game all but over, all hell broke loose.

The Fan has to admit being oblivious to the whole thing until he read Sports and the City's blog this morning. The Fan went to bed early. Blog buddy, eyebleaf, naturally had a Toronto slant to the proceedings, which is understandable. So the Fan had to check out all the highlights and watch the condensed game to see what it was all about. Here is hoping that a balanced view of the happenings proceeds from the rest of this post.

First of all, the Yankees have to get rid of Mitre. The guy just flat out stinks. Even though the Yankees have a playoff position pretty much wrapped up, wouldn't you want to go into the post season on a roll rather than a whimper? Why have a guaranteed loss every fifth game? To top it off, after Mitre gives up four homers, he decides to plunk Encarcion, who hit one of them.

Encarcion did not pose after his homer. He ran the bases at an acceptable speed and he smiled after crossing home plate and went into the dugout. He didn't kiss the heavens (which is getting real old in baseball) or anything. But Mitre decides to pull a Padilla and plunks the guy. Terrible. Release the guy. Release him right now!

Later in the game, the Yankees' young pitcher, Melancon, plunks Aaron Hill. This one looks more like an accident. Melancon was all over the place and it looked like one got away. This writer doesn't blame the Blue Jays for being sensitive to the deal though after Mitre's actions. It was one of the inevitable reactions after what Mitre did. That brought up the scenario of Jesse Carlson versus Jorge Posada.

Carlson, no doubt acting on orders, backed up his teammates by throwing at Posada. Don't blame him a bit. That's the way baseball is and that's the way you take care of your players. Posada reacted (even though Carlson failed to hit him) but did not charge the mound. The veteran had more brains than that, which is a good thing. And the game went on after the typical bunch of players mulling around on the field and the absurdity of the bullpens pouring onto the field.

There is nothing that irks this writer more than the bullpen thing. Those guys aren't even in the freaking game. What are they, the cavalry or something? Once nothing happens, all those guys have to go back to where they came from. Stupid. It should be outlawed or something. But things didn't end there.

Carlson wasn't sharp and the Yankees got some more base runners and after another hit, Posada starts chugging for home. This was the critical juncture of the event that next took place. Carlson, who should have been backing up the plate, instead decides to lallygag around the plate. That was the one thing that led up to what Posada did next. After he crossed the plate, Posada brushed Carlson slightly and no doubt said something as he did so. Carlson took a second to realize what happened and then turned around and started jawing at Posada. Posada charged him and the donnybrook was on.

This Fan's take? Carlson shouldn't have been standing where he was. He was out of position. Posada should have run by him without the (albeit harmless) brush when running past Carlson. So both are to blame. Don't blame Carlson for protecting his teammates. Don't blame Posada for taking exception to that fact. But Carlson should have been in position and Posada should have run past him without incident. So there is enough blame to go around.

For what it's worth, Posada got the better of the fight. Carlson had a gash on his forehead and Posada was pulled off after being on top of Blue Jay's catcher, Barajas. The Fan wouldn't want to tick Posada off in a back alley as the guy can obviously take care of himself. The bottom line is that Posada will get a few days off for his stupidity and Carlson will for taking one for the team. Heck, if Posada gets a few days off, A. J. Burnett might actually win a game.

It was a fun fracas, as these things go. It shouldn't have happened. But oh well. It was fun, wasn't it?