Posada: I Don’t Know, Man…

I’m just not a huge Jorge Posada fan. There’s no doubt- from an offensive standpoint-that when he’s hitting, the Yankees are a better team. However, there’s also the evidence that he’s not tremendous from a defensive standpoint. He’s not horrible, but he’s not great either.

There has also been the chatter that pitchers feel increasingly uncomfortable pitching to him when he’s behind the plate. This is countered by the argument that the Yankees won three titles with him as a regular part of the battery. I feel comfortable tackling this one.

When Posada was catching for the championship Yankees, they had pitchers like Roger Clemens, David Wells, David Cone, El Duque, Andy Pettitte, and Mariano Rivera hurling. Issues aside, there are arguments for the Hall of Fame for 5 of 6 of those pitchers. It didn’t take a defensive game-calling marvel to get prime performances out of these guys, so the argument that his catching them somehow buffers him from criticism is patently ridiculous.

Right now, he’s the best combination of offensive/defensive catching we have right now, though, but I look skeptically forward to the development of Cervelli, the continuing maturation of Jesus Montero and Austin Romine, and whatever else they have planned. They’re going to need something by 2012.