This is the first part of a three-part series on Jorge Posada. Part I takes a look at how impressive his 2007 season was. Part II compares Posada’s season to other top performances by catchers through baseball history. Part III will be the downer, explaining why our expectations for 2008 should pretty much ignore 2007.
It’s next to impossible for a Yankee to be underrated, but that’s definitely the case with Jorge Posada’s 2007 season. Alex Rodriguez is the undisputed league MVP, but Jorge Posada is a top five candidate. Let’s play Rob Neyer’s favorite game: which anonymous batting line is more impressive?
Player AVG OBP SLG wOBA Guy A .338 .426 .543 .407 Guy B .324 .403 .547 .371 Guy C .340 .405 .607 .394 Guy D .282 .411 .627 .421
You probably went with Guy D, who was Carlos Pena, and I’d agree — for now. Guy C is Matt Holliday, likely NL MVP, whose stats get a huge boost from playing in Coors (wOBA is park-adjusted, however.) Guy B is Vlad Guerrero, who had a very good, but overrated season. That leaves Posada as Guy A, sporting a spectacular OBP and very good power numbers.
I did leave two important pieces of information off that list, however. One is plate appearances, where Posada’s 589 are about a hundred short of other full-time players. That’s one reason he trails a bunch of guys in offensive runs above replacement:
Player RAR Rodriguez,AlexNYA 100 Ordonez,MagglioDET 86 Ortiz,DavidBOS 81 Pena,CarlosTB 75 Guerrero,VladimirLAA 75 Granderson,CurtisDET 65 Posada,JorgeNYA 62 Sizemore,GradyCLE 60 Suzuki,IchiroSEA 59
But the other piece of missing information is defensive position. Jorge Posada’s a catcher, making his contribution more important compared to first basemen and corner outfielders. It’s much tougher to find decent catchers who pound the ball than it is to find decent first basemen. On the defensive spectrum and over a full season, catchers are worth 15-20 runs more than those weaker positions, and 25 runs more than DHs. Just imagine putting Pena or David Ortiz behind the plate. Yikes.
With a positional adjustment to offensive runs, the list looks more like this:
Player RARP Rodriguez,AlexNYA 99 Ordonez,MagglioDET 82 Granderson,CurtisDET 71 Guerrero,VladimirLAA 70 Posada,JorgeNYA 70 Ortiz,DavidBOS 68 Pena,CarlosTB 67 Sizemore,GradyCLE 66 Suzuki,IchiroSEA 66
Ordonez, on the strength of his hitting, is still a full win above Posada. But Posada’s now in a big bunch for third place, and jumps ahead of Carlos Pena by a few runs.
The last piece of the puzzle is of course how well each player fields his position. Curtis Granderson and Ichiro Suzuki take large steps forward as good-to-excellent fielders. Magglio Ordonez, Grady Sizemore, and Carlos Pena stay where they are, while Vlad takes a small step backward.
Posada’s tough to gauge, as are all catchers. They really aren’t responsible for turning many batted balls into outs. Instead, catchers prevent passed balls, frame strikes, and help control the running game. Only that third factor is easily measurable and it’s difficult to separate out the contribution of the pitcher. Surely Posada is a league-average catcher (43 fans agree) and I’d be ok with giving him 5 runs above that.
In the final value standings, that leaves Posada fifth, behind ARod, Magglio, Ichiro, and Granderson — not necessarily in that order.
Therefore, yes, Posada was definitely in the top handful of AL position players in 2007. He got on base an absurd percentage of the time (3rd-best in the AL), hit for power, and played the toughest defensive position. While ARod was worth about 10 wins to the Yankees, Posada was worth between 7 and 8. Without Posada, the Yankees likely would have lost the Wild Card to Detroit. Yankee fans realize Jorge’s 2007 contributions were huge, but even the Yankee-haters should give him his due.
Part II will examine where Posada’s 2007 ranks all-time among seasons by catchers. Tease: in one regard, it was the best ever.
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Sky is a baseball fan and racket sport afficianado living in upstate NY. His favorite color is orange and is just about ready to give up on his life-long dream to become the next Magnus ver Magnuson (World's Strongest Man). His favorite baseball teams are the Yankees and Red Sox, proving that there's hope in the Middle East.