The next time Jorge Posada plays in a game for the New York Yankees, he will be nearly eight months past his 37th birthday. The next time Jorge Posada plays in a game for the New York Yankees, he will expect to be the starting catcher with three years and $39.3 million left on his contract. The next time Jorge Posada plays in a game for the New York Yankees, the debate over his contract will have more than run its course.

But let’s begin. We start prior to last season when the Yankees were hesitant to sign either of their two veteran free agents-to-be to long-term contracts. Both Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada were due for a pay raise by the end of 2007, but the Yankees, rightly concerned about their ages, opted to negotiate after the season. While Rivera had a sub-par year (for him, at least), he was handsomely rewarded and has earned his keep this season.

Posada, on the other hand, starred in a whole different tale. Jorge had a career year in 2007, turning in an MVP-caliber .338/.426/.543 line and a 154 OPS+. Always valued for his bat, Posada really took his game to the next level, and the Yanks paid dearly for it. Jorge inked a four-year, $52.4 million deal and promptly injured his throwing arm during the first game of the season.

When the Yanks signed Posada to the deal, baseball analysts were surprised. Giving a 36-year-old catcher a four-year, $52.4-million contract is hardly a sound baseball move, but the Yankees, with their deep pockets, knew they were paying for one of the team’s key leaders and offensive movers. They knew that Posada, by the end of the deal, would hardly be a viable option behind the plate, but they also knew that Posada, due to an early-career platoon with now-manager Joe Girardi, didn’t have as much wear and tear on his legs as other 36-year-old catchers.

Today, Posada’s 2008 is a far cry from his 2007. He managed just 234.2 innings behind the dish and just 195 plate appearances. His throwing, sapped by a seriously damaged shoulder, was impacted, and his power was nearly gone by the time he opted for season-ending surgery. The .268/.364/.411 is well below Jorge’s normal production levels.

Already, critics of the Posada deal are howling about the Yanks’ wasted money. What team in its right mind would ink a 36-year-old catcher to such an exorbitant deal? This injury, they say, is just indicative of things to come.

Now, I admit that a four-year deal for a catcher may not have been the wisest, but I believe, for now, that line of thinking to be spurious. Posada injured himself in a way no one expected and in a way not usually associated with aging catchers. He threw out his shoulder. It happens to outfielders and pitchers. It could happen to Derek Jeter or Alex Rodriguez tomorrow.

The real question concerning Posada’s deal will come in his recovery. If the doctors can clean up his labrum and if he can rehab himself back to full strength, then the deal will have looked bad for one year. If he can come back and hit, all will be forgotten. His value, after all, lies in his bat. But if this injury impacts the rest of his career, then we can bemoan the contract.

The Yankees today sit at something of a crossroad in 2008. They are on the verge of an important three-game set against the Red Sox in Boston. They’ve gained a lot of ground in both the division and Wild Card and could see their play this weekend determine whether they are pretenders or contenders.

Meanwhile, one of their star players and biggest money-makers, number 20 himself, Jorge Posada has a decision to make as well. On the one hand, we have doctors — many of them — calling for Posada to get surgery. It is a foregone conclusion that, at some point, he will need surgery on his ailing shoulder, and recovery time for this surgery is at least six months. If he has the operation now, he’ll be ready for the start of Spring Training if all goes according to plan. His window for this decision is about two weeks.

But at the same time, Jorge Posada sees the Yankees winning and doesn’t want to give up. He also knows that the Yankees rewarded him with a high-risk, four-year contract. While this shoulder injury isn’t indicative of the problems likely to show up in the latter years of the contract, that Posada is missing so much time at age 36 is sending off alarm bells left and right.

To that end, Jorge is considing a position change that would keep him in the lineup. He might play first; he might DH; he won’t be catching. Some reports have pressure on Posada originated with Yanks’ Team President Randy Levine. Others have it coming from Jorge himself and his desire to play.

But the reality is that the Yankees need Jorge Posada to be healthy for next season. They don’t need him to delay surgery, and they know that his bat isn’t what it should be with his shoulder hurting. In fact, Jorge has said so himself, and the numbers bear him out. Since returning from the DL in June, Jorge has hit .248/.380/.371 over 129 plate appearances. Since July 1, those numbers — .214/.365/.262 — look even worse.

For the Yankees and for Jorge, it’s not worth the risk. Posada should get the surgery and come back next year. The Yankees — 6-0 in the last six games — can win without Jorge, but next year, they’ll need him healthy and ready to go.

With his catching (and throwing) abilities severley compromised, Jorge Posada may be done for the year. According to numerous Internet reports, Johnny Damon has replaced the Yanks’ catcher on the active roster, and Tyler Kepner notes that Posada, whose damaged right shoulder is still bothering him, may opt for surgery sooner rather than later in order to be ready for Spring Training in 2009. While missing Posada’s bat looms large for the Yanks, he’s hitting just .214/.365/.262 in July and has seen his power suffer with this shoulder injury. The Yanks now will hope that Bobby Abreu can pick it back up as the bottom third of their lineup — Jose Molina, Melky Cabrera, Brett Gardner — have not shown much in the way of offense lately.

While the Yankees are dealing with injuries that have shelved their number one starter and starting DH, they’re also attempting to handle the Jorge Posada situation. Posada, suffering from a shoulder heading to surgery, is no longer a viable option behind the plate this year. He’s thrown out just 7 of 39 would-be base stealers and can’t command the running game. His back up — Jose Molina — has thrown out an astounding 25 of 52 attempting basestealers but has a pathetic OPS+ of 48. Jack Curry checked in with Posada and Joe Girardi today and finds that Posada is frustrated with his shoulder but won’t have the surgery sooner. The Yanks need Jorge’s bat, but they can’t afford to stick him behind the plate. How Joe Girardi handles this over the next few months will go a long way in determining the Yanks’ success this season.

The Yankees have now been carrying three catchers on their 25-man roster for nearly a month, and during that stretch, third catcher extraordinaire Chad Moeller is a whopping 1 for 4 with 5 plate appearances. Clearly, then, to our uniformed eyes, the Yanks are wasting a valuable roster spot. But perhaps not. According to a notebook piece in Newsday, the Yanks seem to be hedging their bets with Posada’s injured shoulder. The Rangers stole four times in four tries on Tuesday, and Brian Cashman’s quote is rather telling.

“We’re staying with three catchers for a reason, because we’re still evaluating how he’s coming through this. I’ve seen some good throws and I’ve seen some times when he’s not throwing well. He’s not feeling any pain, he’s doing his work. Every day is a test and we see how he comes through those tests,” the Yanks’ GM said.

When Jorge Posada returns to the lineup tomorrow, the Yankees will in all likelihood field what would have been their starting nine all along. It will be a good day for a Yankee fanbase growing sick of Jose Molina and Chad Moeller. But for how long will it last? Posada admitted today to Ed Price that he will need surgery this year. I just hope he doesn’t make his shoulder worse by playing now instead of getting the surgery over and done with.

Barring any setback, Jorge Posada will return to the Yankees either on Wednesday or Thursday of this week. In his rehab in extended spring training this afternoon, Posada made two throws to second and said he felt good, just like he knew that he would. With the Yanks on a current streak, getting back their All Star catcher will be an even bigger boost.

As the Yankees are finally starting to look like the competitive team we knew they could be, one more missing piece of the puzzle could rejoin the Bombers on the next home stand. Jorge Posada will head down to extended spring training to play in a few games this week. He’ll test his in-game throwing for a few days, and if all goes well, he could be back in the lineup during the first week of June. Teams will run on him until he throws out a few guys, and I hope the Yanks don’t aggravate Posada’s arm further. It will no doubt be a relief to have his bat in the lineup.

When Alex Rodriguez went down with a quad injury that will keep him on the shelf for a few weeks this year, he hadn’t been off to the same start he enjoyed last year. Admittedly, that’s not a fair comparison. How often does any player hit 14 home runs in a month while single-handedly carrying a team?

But despite a slower start, he still had a vital role in the lineup. As the cleanup hitter, he was hitting .272./330/.506 with 4 HR and 10 RBI in 81 at-bats. Those are poor numbers by A-Rod’s standards, but to suggest that the team doesn’t miss him is wishful thinking at best.

In his absence, the Yankees’ replacement third basemen have been downright awful. The three replacements — Wilson Betemit, Alberto Gonzalez and Morgan Ensberg — have now enjoyed 70 plate appearances as third basemen this year. Collectively, they are hitting .239 with a .271 OBP and a .269 slugging percentage. That is utterly woeful.

Things don’t look much better behind the dish either. As a catcher, Jorge Posada hit .321/.345/.429 this year in 29 plate appearances. The other three catchers have put together 114 plate appearances and are hitting .224/.263/.348.

While it’s easy to say that the Yankees were a .500 team without A-Rod and, hey, wouldn’t they still be a .500 team now, that ignores the reality offered by those who have tried to replace Jorge. The Yankees are missing a ton of offense right now, and it’s showing in the product on the field. The middle of their lineup is weak; Shelley Duncan had to hit cleanup against lefties, and even Derek Jeter found himself penciled into the four hole for one game. The bottom of their lineup — drawing well below league-average production from the C and 3B spots — has become a terrible liability. It’s a cascade issue.

The Yankees probably could have withstood an injury to either A-Rod or Jorge. They probably would be two games behind Boston had just one of them gone down. But with both out, this team’s offensive production slides off the table. Get well soon, guys.

In an Ed Price notebook today, we learn that a few anonymous sources claim that Jorge’s injury is not season-ending. An official diagnosis is forthcoming. More interesting and concrete, however, is the news about the Yanks will handle Jose Molina. They recognize that Molina cannot catch every single day; he is, after all, a career backup catcher. Expect Molina to play three days in a row with Chris Stewart sinking or swimming during those other games. Molina’s health and freshness is riding on Stewart quite a bit.