Posada's Pay-Day

You'd be smiling too, if you just got a $13.1 million a year contract.

Yes, following the 2010 season, this may look like a lousy deal. But I think the Yankees did what they had to do to re-sign Jorge Posada, closing what would have been a far bigger hole than the one at third base.

It's true that we won't be able to find a third baseman with 54 home runs, 156 runs batted in and a 1.067 OPS -- or even one with 35 HRs, 139 RBIs and a .915 OPS, what Alex Rodriguez did in his "off year" of 2006. But the drop-off from A-Rod to whoever plays third for the Yankees, even if it's a worst-case-scenario platoon of Wilson Betemit and Aaron Bleeping Boone, won't be as ugly as the drop from Posada to Jason LaRue or Damian Miller or Yorvit Torrealba. Now that Posada's off the market, the best option available is arguably Paul Lo Duca, who hit .272 but with a ridiculously empty .689 OPS, or maybe Michael Barrett, who hit .244 with a .653, but is a guy a smart organization would target with a one-year make-good contract. After that it's all guys who should be back-ups.

Posada isn't a great defensive catcher. Over the years, he's improved when it comes to throwing out baserunners -- from awful to below average -- and for a lot of people, that's the only factor they consider when it comes to evaluating a catcher's defense. But Jorge allows a lot of passed balls -- 13 in 1111.3 innings last year. On the ESPN leader board, that's the fourth-most in the majors. That doesn't count all the wild pitches that are charged to the pitcher but that an average catcher probably could have blocked. And when you watch a Yankee game, what's even more frustrating are the pitches that simply pop out of his glove. The ball doesn't get far enough away for the runner to advance, or there's no one on base anyway, so it doesn't go down as a passed ball. But how often is an umpire going to give you a strike if the catcher drops the ball?

All that said, here's a catcher coming off a career year -- .338 BA, .426 OBP, .543 SLG -- in a very weak market for free agent catchers. To quote Teddy KGB, "Pay that man his money."



Jorge isn't likely to put up those numbers again, so what's a reasonable projection for next year? How about he hits .262 with a .782 OPS, which is what he did in 2005 -- his worst numbers since '99, when he was still sharing the job with his new manager. That seems like a reasonable expectation for a minimum level of production for the next two or three years.

That's 100 more points in OPS than you'll get from any other catcher on the market. And 100 points in OPS makes up for a lot of passed balls.