I'd like to start off by saying that Jorge Posada is one of the greatest Yankees of all-time and every fan should appreciate his 17 years of service to the Yankees. The agreed to his 4 year $52 million deal after he had one of the best offensive years for a catcher in MLB History in 2007 to go along with a silver slugger award, an all star berth and finishing 6th in the MVP vote. Posada has been beset with injuries likely due to the physical strain of being a starting catcher in your late thirties and only in 2009 did he catch the majority of games. As a 39 year old Catcher coming into the 2011 season a move to DH seemed warranted especially after significant time on the DL in each of his 3 previous seasons and the Yankees were confident that he would do an adequate job despite a .205 Career BA at DH. Posada was concerned about how he would do at the position as he preferred to spend the games behind the plate. I'd like to say that the Yankees brass should have listened, but I doubt that being the backup catcher would change his offensive output. Posada is currently hitting only slightly better than Nick Johnson was at this point last year and Posada currently has a sub .300 OBP and has the worst slugging percentage of his career, although that may have something to do with being slow enough that he cannot leg out doubles. Posada also has not had a single hit while batting right handed this season and he is currently in a platoon situation at DH which will help Posada some as he is hitting .211 against RHP. But still thats not much of a platoon situation when your DH for righties is barely hitting above .200 and in the Month of May he hit .219, in fact the only positives he has is that he went 1-1 with a double as a PH and when he played 1B he went 1-3 with 2BB and a double. This has gotten ridiculos, I respect Posada but as the DH your contribution is measured by your Offense and right now he is a liability. When PosadaGate occurred I was torn as I greatly respect Posada but at the same time he should be hitting 9th and the fit he threw was extremely unprofessional as was trying to pass it off as an injury issue. No Matter what nothing will be done in the short term as the Yankee Brass wants to keep Posada around at least until Jeter gets his 3,000 hit. I think the Yankees will do one of a few things, they could keep the platoon situation going with Posada/Jones and add to it when Eric Chavez comes back, this may be the option they run with for June as having another pinch hitter for Interleague can't hurt. The more painful option is that if the Yankees decide that Posada can no longer contribute to the team then they may be forced into the option of asking him to retire and if he refuses giving him his outright release, which is the last thing that the Yankees want to do. They may also try and put Posada on the DL but the phantom DL doesn't go over as well as it does in the minors, also I doubt that Posada would agree to this arraignment. The Yankees know that Jesus Montero is sitting in AAA and they would either be able to make him the backup catcher and send Cervelli down, have him be the Full time DH or have him split time between DH and being a third catcher who splits the backup time with Cervelli. In my opinion the Yankees need to make a decision on Jorge and soon because Jeter is less than 20 hits away from 3,000 at the End of May and he will undoubtedly surpass 3,000 by the end of the month and probably by the middle of June. Unless Posada drastically improves he will not contribute to this team and will need to either sit on the bench or end his Yankee career. The only real question is what is the plan, if Posada sits on the bench then he can still make occasionally starts at DH and the Yankees can provide a 1/2 day to a regular. The Yankees even have secondary options in AAA with Jorge Vazquez also knocking the ball out of the park with ease.
I think that the Yankees need to address this problem because right now I don't see what the benefit of having a DH is, because I think that our pitchers may be able to provide a better offense than Posada's -0.6 oWAR. I think that the best option would be to call up Montero and send Cervelli down to AAA and make Montero the backup catcher/DH and have Posada serve as the emergency backup/occasional DH because I don't think that the Front Offense wants to alienate Posada because they want to bring him back in some role after he retires, possibly as a scout or a coach. The fact is that Posada is currently hurting the Yankees and the Yankees are going to have to make some decisions when Eric Chavez comes back because he and Chris Dickerson will contribute more than Posada currently is. I do want to see the Yankees let Posada catch at least once this year and if that comes during interleague it could be a sign that Posada's time is nearly done.
As a side note for all of you who want to see Jorge Vazquez come up and DH there is a chance for that in September but he has nearly a 1/3 K rate to go along with his 18 Home Runs and while he is currently mashing the ball in AAA I don't think that will translate to the MLB nearly as well.
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