Posada is one of the best catchers of his generation, and is definitely a better player than many guys in the Hall, and probably many catchers.

I don’t think his career has been long enough, though, to make him a legit HOF’er. But even that’s arguable. Yeah, like 11 semi-full seasons…not alot. But there aren’t many catchers who play 15-20 full seasons.

Jorge (trotting to mound): “Come on, meat, why don’t you want to throw the fastball here? You need to trust it and own it and tie him up inside strike three!”

Clemens: “Just STFU and catch the splitter away.”

Post game interview…

Clemens: “Jorge’s great, man, we were on the same page and it was just like playing catch. I have the utmost respect for him. He’s a great catcher.”

Here are OPS+ ratings in 2007: Posada 154, Giambi 108 (83g), Jeter (121), ARod (177), Matsui (123), Cano (120).

And ’08: Posada 103 (51g), Giambi 128, Jeter, 102, ARod 150, Matsui 108 (93g), Cano 86.

So while you Giambi didn’t completely replace Posada’s ’07 production, he certainly was one guy who had a big production increase for ’08. And, obviously, many guys slumped in ’08, so blaming it all on Posada is a stretch.

Here’s what’s funny…the 2008 team scored about 180 fewer runs than the 07 team, and gave up about 50 less. So while I’d still argue that its wrong to blame 2008 on Posada’s absence, pitching was actually better than in 07. Oh well.

Lots of factors contributed to the bad 2008 team. First of all bad pitching. Really bad pitching. IPK and Hughes didn’t work out. CMW got injured. Pettitte was ineffective due to his elbow problems. I mean the Yanks had to rely on guys like Ponson and Rasner.

Then there’s the offense. Jorge got injured and the Yanks relied on Molina and his .500 OPS or something to catch everyday. Matsui also got injured and missed out a lot of time in the year. Cano was slumping terribly that year. They relied on bad Melky. Jeter had his second worst season actually BA and OBP be damned. As a side note he hit .300 and had a OBP of .363 but a poor slugging made his OPS .771
I mean this is arguably Jeter’s worst seasons and he still hits 300. The dude’s a beast.

Anyways saying that losing Jorge will have a 2008-ish effect makes no sense since all those other factors are gone. Pitching is heavily improved. The offense got Matsui back, a regular god like Jeter, and a really improved Cano. They CAN live with Molina catching a few games. They CAN carry Jorge this year.

But I’m not saying Posada sucks or he is invaluable. Believe me I love Jorge. He’s definitely one of the top catchers in the league after Mauer. But having Molina catch sometimes especially when Jorge needs a rest is fine by me.

I’d love to face the Rangers in the first round of the playoffs. They’re basically a similar style club to ours…but worse on all accounts. They have decent enough pitching to go along with their offense which is 2nd best in the league. We have VERY GOOD pitching to go along with our BEST offense in baseball. And both our pitching and offense is head and shoulders above theirs.

The Red Sox with Beckett and Lester worry me a little bit. As do the Angels. The Angels have literally one starting position player batting under .300 and it’s the catcher…and he’s batting over .290. Their pitching is FAR worse than it used to be…but for whatever reason…we still can’t beat them and Boston ALWAYS does. And if Boston goes to the playoffs…they’ll have another seemingly bye into the 2nd round.

The Tigers are pretty rough with Verlander, etc a bunch of times too…

um…what?

sincerely,

NICK SWISHER