Yardbarker: Jorge Posada

A few Yankee notes for a slow Monday

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 08:14:44 -0500

Just a handful of New York Yankees notes this morning. Was Watching says the Yanks Should Move Posada To D.H. In 2010.My guess is there is a lot of agreement around here with that statement. Especially when you consider some of the numbers Was Watching highlighted. In "The Bill James Handbook 2010" the Fielding Bible’s "Runs Saved" leaders over the last three years are listed at each defensive position. At "catcher," over the last three years, Ya...

Quick Bits: Mariano, Nady, Posada

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 19:30:50 -0500

Here are three quick items on the day: Happy Birthday to Mariano Rivera, who is officially 40 years old. Per MLBTR, Xavier Nady might be Matt Holliday insurance for the Cardinals. Steve at WW thinks the Yankees should make Jorge Posada their regular DH for 2010. Back with more later… Photo by Jared Wickerham/Getty Images

Borden: Replace Posada With Mauer

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:23:00 -0500

American League MVP, Joe Mauer, is set to be a free agent at this time next year, and Sam Borden thinks it would be a good idea for the Yanks to make a run at him. So do I. Here's some more from Sam:What would Mauer mean to the Yankees? Plenty. Pitching is forever the holy grail for success in major-league baseball, but a catcher — especially one who hits as well as he fields — comes right behind. The Yankees have had a distinct advantage over their competition for more than a decade with...

Jorge Posada a Hall of Famer?

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 08:12:46 -0500

More photos » by Matt Slocum - AP Jorge Posada Browse more photos » Is Jorge Posada worthy of election to the Baseball Hall of Fame? Occasionally throughout the 2009 season, and recently during this off-season, I keep seeing the phrase "Future Hall of Famer" attached to Posada's name. Is that really true? It might be, but each time I have read that statement I have questioned it. So, let...

Morning Bits: Free Agency, Posada, Top 50 FAs

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:00:10 -0500

Here are today’s morning items: - Doug Miller (MLB) issues a preview of the now open free agent market. - Pete Caldera cites an inside source who predicts a slow winter for FAs. - Joe P. at RAB ponders Jorge Posada’s offensive production as he ages. - Keith Law (ESPN) offers his Top 50 Free Agent Rankings list (insider). Today, I’ll be discussing free agents and will [...]

Is Jorge Posada Hall of Fame Bound?

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 06:20:49 -0500

Image via Wikipedia

Jorge Posada has played for the Yankees since 1995, and started since 1998. He is a popular player, and as he approaches the end of his career, some noise is being made about electing him to the Hall of Fame. But does he deserve it? Is Jorge Posada a future Hall of Famer?

Teams, and by extension fans, evaluate all players based on how well they contribute to the team’s success. Contributions to the team fall into two categories: offense and defense. Let’s look at some of Posada’s numbers, in comparison with catchers already enshrined in the Hall.

Let’s start with OPS+. Here’s a list of the catchers in the HOF, sorted by OPS+, and where Posada falls on the list.

Note: 3 Negro League catchers – Josh Gibson, Biz Mackey, and Louis Santop - are also in the HOF, but no statistical data for them is currently available, at least not at baseball-reference.com. I would be interested in learning where data on them could be found on-line.

Name

OPS+

Buck Ewing

129

Mickey Cochrane

128

Bill Dickey

127

Johnny Bench

126

Roger Bresnahan

126

Gabby Hartnett

126

Yogi Berra

125

Ernie Lombardi

125

Roy Campanella

124

Jorge Posada

124

Carlton Fisk

117

Gary Carter

115

Rick Ferrell

Ray Schalk

Posada’s career OPS+ is 124, which falls in the lower third in the above table. However, since most of the catchers in the Hall had career marks between 124-129, based just on OPS+ Posada has a case for enshrinement.

Hitting is only one part of the puzzle. Baseball games are won by the team that scores more runs, so perhaps some sort of run production metric should also be used. Runs Produced (RBI+R-HR) would fit the bill.

Name

Runs Produced

Yogi Berra

2247

Carlton Fisk

2230

Johnny Bench

2078

Bill Dickey

1937

Gary Carter

1926

Gabby Hartnett

1810

Mickey Cochrane

1754

Jorge Posada

1538

Ernie Lombardi

1401

Rick Ferrell

1393

Roy Campanella

1241

Roger Bresnahan

1182

Ray Schalk

1162

Buck Ewing

Buck Ewing did not appear on the list I generated at baseball-reference.com, which encompassed players who played half their games at catcher. Posada currently sits in the bottom half of HOF catchers for runs produced, but is just short of being right in the middle. So after two metrics, he’s definitely worth considering based solely on his offensive output.

The last aspect of his game we need to look at is defense. Quantifying the defensive abilities of catchers seems to be one of the last frontiers of sabermetric analysis; I found a fair amount of articles on theory of how to measure good catchers from bad, and some numerical examples, but one must comb through databases at one of several sites to develop refined data to evaluate. I did find some finished analysis pieces, however, and referenced that work below.

First, there’s a paper by Jim Weigand on rating catchers arms. He based his yearly arm leader board on 2000 outs (or roughly 80 games played), and his career arm leader board on 20000 outs (or roughly 10 years of 80 games played at catcher per year). Posada made the yearly cut from 1998-2007, and has enough outs to qualify for the career board. Weigand used data available from 1954-2008, because that’s as far back as the data he had access to went, which means most HOF catchers were left off or had their careers not fully covered. Those who had part of their careers included in this data base (Campanella and Berra as two prominent examples) were left out of the table; I didn’t want to evaluate Posada against part of a HOF career.

For those players whose careers started after 1954, and are in the HOF, here are the numbers:

Name

Arm

Years

Rank

Bench

32.49

1967-1983

Fisk

11.8

1969-1993

Carter

-4.33

1974-1992

Posada

-8.77

1995-2008

There were 91 total entries on Weigand’s career list. You’ll note Posada falls in the bottom 15% of all catchers evaluated.

There are a couple of other good articles on methodologies to evaluate catcher defense, and I’ll mention two: One by Justin Inaz, and one by some dude named devil_fingers over at Driveline Mechanics. Then, there’s the work Tom Tango’s done on the subject as well.

As I began to try and evaluate Posada against the HOF catchers, I quickly realized I’d bitten off much more than I can chew and get this done in a reasonable amount of time. I made a command decision and decided to shift the analysis, looking at how Posada rated against his peers in the league. Using the data presented at the first two links in the preceding paragraph, we can at least look at Posada’s defensive numbers for 2007 and 2009. Note that two similar, but slightly different, methodologies were used to arrive at these conclusions.

2007 (Inaz): Posada ranked 33 out of 42 catchers evaluated.

2009 (Driveline): Posada ranked 109 out of 114 catchers evaluated.

In fairness, these two seasons represent the 10th and 12th full season Posada’s caught in the Majors (assuming 80 games as a full season, in line with Mr. Weigland’s thoughts). He’s now 38, meaning these are seasons after he passed his physical peak, so he may have been a better defensive catcher earlier in his career.

That said, there’s a fair amount of evidence indicating Posada has not been, and is not now, a very good defensive catcher, both when compared against those already in the HOF, and when compared to contemporaries in the majors.

Does his defensive liability torpedo his HOF resume? Not necessarily, but it should give the voters pause. Posada certainly is a very good hitting catcher, and has the numbers to merit consideration for enshrinement; but his all-around game should be considered, and he doesn’t appear stack up against the greats defensively.

So going back to the original question: Does Jorge Posada deserve to be in the HOF? No when the whole player is evaluated, but he’ll probably get in just because of his bat.

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MLB could discuss Yankees' mound meetings.... WHAT?

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:26:00 -0500

Have you heard this one? Apparently there has been a little bit of an uproar over the frequent mound visits the Yankees have been taking this October, so much so that MLB will likely discuss the matter in the offseason. Here's more from CBS Sports:All those meetings on the mound called by catcher Jorge Posada and the New York Yankees are giving Major League Baseball pause, too....MLB vice president of umpiring Mike Port said frequent mound meetings by all teams would likely be discussed b...

Bloomberg Names “Baseball’s Power Couple,” Says I’m Gay

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:15:19 -0500

I keep seeing that Yankees catcher Jorge Posada and his wife have bravely endorsed incumbent New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s campaign for a controversial third term. Which is sweet since the Posadas are actually Florida residents, and Bloomberg is way ahead in the polls and has a spending advantage over his Democratic opponent similar to a certain Bronx team’s usual payroll advantage over the Marlins. I was pretty sure I even saw an ad showcasing the notoriously stupid marginal catcher’s endorsement in the sidebar of Rays Index, the best Devil Rays site on the internets. Trying to find that I stumbled upon Bloomberg’s campaign website which proudly proclaimed BASEBALL’S POWER COUPLE LAURA AND JORGE POSADA ENDORSE MAYOR MIKE BLOOMBERG. Was there some sort...

The Last Time Jorge Posada Didn't Start a Playoff Game

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 06:37:00 -0500

Tonight Jorge Posada will be on the bench watching Jose Molina catch AJ Burnett. He's on the bench because Joe Girardi believes Burnett has better chemistry with Molina than with Jorge and Jorge does not seem pleased by the entire idea. Why? Well this won't be the first time that Posada hasn't started a playoff game because the manager thought a pitcher had more chemistry with a catcher without enormous ears. In 2005 Joe Torre decided to start John Flaherty over Jorge in hopes tha...

Posada Suspended Four Games, Fined $3K

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:05:00 -0500

From Mark Feinsand:Jorge Posada has been suspended four games and fined $3,000 for his role in Tuesday night's bench-clearing brawl between the Yankees and Blue Jays, a baseball source told the Daily News. Toronto reliever Jesse Carlson received the same punishment. It is unknown whether either player plans to appeal.Well, this was expected. Time for Cervelli and Molina to step up for a few days. Also, he better take the suspension now, and not risk missing the Angels or Red Sox games com...

For Posada, Suspension Could Be A Blessing In Disguise

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 08:12:00 -0500

Most are speculating this morning that Jorge Posada will be suspended five games for his actions during last night's game against the Blue Jays. That will be five days during which he will not even be allowed on the field, let alone play in a game.It is late in the baseball season. Posada is an aging catcher. Put these two statements together and you have one very tired baseball player. He'll never admit it to anyone (perhaps, not even to himself), but five days of rest will do him go...

Thank You, Jorge Posada

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 09:06:00 -0500

My heartfelt thanks go out to Jorge Posada this morning. Without his game-winning home run last night, the Yankees might have lost, and, had they lost, all we would have heard from Derek Jeter regarding catching Lou Gehrig was the following:"Bottom line, I just wanna win."Yes, I'm exaggerating, but surely we would not have heard much more than that. Everyone knows that Derek Jeter, rightfully so, is all about the team, all about winning. Jorge Posada made it possible for us to ...

Did Posada Have AJ On The Brain Last Night?

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 14:35:00 -0500

After hearing that Jorge Posada lost track of the count in two of his at-bats last night, I can't help thinking that it was because he had his mind on AJ Burnett's lousy performance.There was Burnett stinking up Camden Yards and shouting at himself in the process, no doubt causing some who were watching to believe he was shouting at Posada. That in itself probably did not bother Posada as much as the overall fact that Burnett was having another bad outing while he was behind the plate...

Burnett Takes Blame For Boston, Has No Problems With Jorge

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 09:00:00 -0500

First from Jack Curry:A.J. Burnett and catcher Jorge Posada talk in the dugout between innings whenever Burnett starts. But they barely exchanged a syllable while Burnett was being hammered in a 14-1 loss to the Boston Red Sox on Saturday. “He told me, ‘Dude, I didn’t want to come up to you because you looked so ticked off,’ ” Burnett said in explaining why Posada grabbed a different seat in the dugout. Burnett said he was ticked off, angry at himself for not being mentally prepared and for t...