Jorge Posada: Is he a Hall of Famer?
No matter what happens with Jorge Posada and the Hall of Fame, he’ll always have a place in Yankees history. He’s part of the Core Four. He’s got four World Series rings. Over a 15-year period, his Yankees team made the playoffs 14 times. And he was their catcher for all of it.
Posada actually started his career a little later than you might realize. He wasn’t able to nail down the full-time catcher’s job until 1998, when he was 26. At one point, he was blocked by his future manager, Joe Girardi. And then he played until he was 39, spending the vast majority of that time as the Yankees’ everyday catcher. In fact, he didn’t start to regularly DH until 2011, his final season.
Posada has some great accomplishments to pin to his career, but will they be enough to earn him a ticket to the Hall? Let’s take a closer look.
PREVIOUSLY
This is Posada’s first year on the ballot, so there are obviously no previous vote totals to look at. So we can look at how Posada’s doing in Ryan Thibodaux’s Hall of Fame ballot tracker. Of the 183 ballots he’s tracked, Posada has eight votes, which comes to 4.4 percent. At this point, since there are 435 total ballots that are going to be cast, Posada doesn’t have enough votes on the public ballots to make it into the Hall of Fame this year. The big question is whether he’ll get enough support on the remaining non-public ballots to be considered for 2018. He needs 5 percent, which comes to 14 more votes.
WHAT THE SUPPORTERS SAY
Much of Posada’s case rests on his position with the ridiculously successful Yankees dynasty of the ’90s and ’00s. He’s one of the Core Four from that period, and he walked away from the game after being on 14 playoff teams, earning six pennants and four World Series rings. Those are his bona fides, and he was a key part of those incredibly successful teams. In fact, the Yankees failed to make the playoffs just once during Posada’s full-time career, and that was 2008, the year he needed season-ending shoulder surgery and was limited to just 51 games.
He displayed an emotional leadership that the team needed, which no doubt came from his ability to handle his pitching staffs well. Managing pitchers like Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Mike Mussina, Mariano Rivera and many more over his career required a finely tuned emotional radar: a catcher needs to know what his pitchers need and how to handle them, and Posada was fantastic.
He was also a capital C catcher for a long, long time. He caught 1,574 games for the Yankees, which is 26th all-time. That comes to nearly 13,000 innings behind the plate. And he provided great offense at a critical position. He has a lifetime triple slash of .273/.374/.474, with 275 homers and 936 walks. When you look at catchers with at least 500 games behind the plate, he ranks first in walks and fifth in both on-base percentage slugging. He was an All-Star five times, and was a five-time recipient of the Silver Slugger award.
WHAT THE SKEPTICS SAY
Being a solid player isn’t really enough for the Hall of Fame. For a catcher, he was really great. But it’s not the Catcher Hall of Fame. His counting stats need to be excellent in every regard, and Posada’s just aren’t. His accomplishments are great, but Posada didn’t win those pennants or World Series rings by himself. You could classify Posada as very good, but that’s not quite enough to make the Hall.
When you add in his defense, the case against him gets even stronger, because he just wasn’t a good defensive catcher. He had problems keeping baserunners in check, and blocking pitches wasn’t his forte. Looking at the last few catchers to be elected to the Hall of Fame, you can see the disparity between them and Posada. He’s just not quite as good as Mike Piazza, Gary Carter, and Carlton Fisk. All three have over 2,000 career hits, and Posada falls far short with 1664. All three have over 300 home runs, and Posada tops out at 275. And not that All-Star selections mean too much, but Piazza, Carter, and Fisk all have at least 11 each, and Posada has five. Posada is very good, but he doesn’t quite reach that Hall of Fame level.
Posada probably could have continued playing after 2011, which would have helped his Hall of Fame case with more hits and homers. However, he never liked DHing, which is what he primarily did in his final year. At 39 it’s hard to stick at catcher, but the only options for a 39-year catcher are DH or retirement. Posada took the latter option.
OUR BALLOTS
The Big League Stew writers don’t have Hall of Fame votes, but if we did, here’s where we stand on Jorge Posada:
Chris Cwik
No — He’s not a Hall of Famer, but he’s an exceptionally underrated catcher. Over 17 years, he hit an excellent .273/.374/.474. That’s really good for a catcher. Posada may fall off the ballot after one season, and that would be a shame. He had a tremendous career, even though it wasn’t good enough for the Hall.
Mike Oz
No— Immortal by association, but just very good on his own, that’s Jorge Posada. He’s one of those players who we remember more fondly than his individual numbers warrant — and that’s a good thing. Honestly, you could say the same thing for Vladimir Guerrero to an extent. With Posada, his glory will come in the rings and all those years in the postseason. He’s just not a Hall of Famer.
Liz Roscher
No — Posada was so important to those Yankees teams, providing a steady hand for the pitching staff and good offense to boot. Most catchers can’t do both. (Some can’t even do one.) But looking at other Hall of Fame catchers, I just don’t think that Posada measures up. He deserves more than one year on the ballot, though, just so there are more opportunities to talk about his career and the value of catchers like him in the game.
Mark Townsend
No — Great career. A catalyst for the Yankees amazing success in the ’90s into the 2000s. But he’s just a Hall of Very Good guy to me.
ALSO IN THIS SERIES:
• Jeff Bagwell
• Barry Bonds
• Roger Clemens
• Vladimir Guerrero
• Trevor Hoffman
• Edgar Martinez
• Mike Mussina
• Tim Raines
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Liz Roscher is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at lizroscher@yahoo.com or follow her on twitter! Follow @lizroscher
