When Buster Posey hit that two-run home run off Walker Buehler in the bottom of the first inning of Game 1 of the division series between the Giants and Dodgers, it felt like San Francisco's dream season --- Posey's resurgent comeback after sitting out 2020, the franchise-record 107 wins, dethroning Los Angeles for the NL West title -- was going to roll all the way to a World Series title.
It didn't happen, of course. The Giants won that game, but the Dodgers won the series. Posey didn't drive in another run in the remaining four games. His final at-bat came in the bottom of the eighth inning of the fifth game with the score tied 1-1; he struck out. Now comes the news that Posey will announce his retirement after 12 memorable seasons with the Giants, a run that included three World Series titles, the NL MVP Award in 2012, seven All-Star appearances and an enduring status as one of the greatest and most beloved Giants in franchise history.
The Giants would have certainly picked up the $22 million club option for 2022 after Posey hit .304/.390/.499 with 18 home runs in 115 games, his most home runs since 2015 and his highest OPS since his MVP season. Instead, he finishes his career in a way most stars do not -- fresh off one of his best seasons.
We'll hear his reasons for retiring, but perhaps it's not a big surprise. He sat out 2020 after he and his wife, Kristen, adopted twin girls who were still in neonatal intensive care when the season started in late July. The couple has two other children as well. He's been beat up behind the plate -- not just the infamous home-plate collision in 2011 when he suffered a fractured fibula and torn ankle ligaments (and leading to implementation of the "Buster Posey rule" on plays at the plate), but hip surgery in 2018 and the regular bruises catchers suffer. He has nothing left to prove or pursue other than the competition itself. Sometimes there are other priorities and aspirations.
Posey's retirement is obviously a blow to the Giants -- not just his offense, but his defense, leadership and steadying presence. He started 102 games in 2021, so the Giants are looking at replacing about two-thirds of their catcher games. Backup Curt Casali is under contract for 2022 at $2.25 million and as far as backup catchers go, he's fine, hitting .210/.313/.350 in 2021. But he's not somebody you want to bank on starting 100-plus games.
With the Giants needing to spend their resources on pitching -- Kevin Gausman, Alex Wood and Anthony DeSclafani are all free agents -- and perhaps re-signing Kris Bryant, it looks like an opportunity for 2018 first-round pick Joey Bart. The second overall pick out of Georgia Tech, Bart was overmatched during his big league trial in 2020, hitting .233 with no home runs in 103 at-bats and a very concerning strikeout-to-walk ratio of 41 to 3.
He spent 2021 at Triple-A Sacramento, hitting .294/.358/.472 with 10 home runs in 252 at-bats. Superficially, the numbers look OK, but for the Pacific Coast League they don't jump out. Bart's .831 OPS basically matched the Sacramento team mark of .826. His plate discipline and strikeouts continued to be an issue: 82 strikeouts against just 21 walks, with a 29.4% strikeout rate. I have real doubts about his ability to hit major league pitching, but his defense has always come with positive reviews and sometimes catchers develop late at the plate. Still, he looks like a low-average, low-OBP, moderate-power hitter.
The Giants also drafted Patrick Bailey with the 13th overall pick in 2020. It seemed like an odd pick with Bart in the system, but the Giants really liked Bailey's bat coming out of North Carolina State. He tore up low-A San Jose, hitting .322/.415/.531 in 47 games, but struggled when promoted to high-A Eugene, hitting .185 with two home runs in 33 games. Needless to say, he's not exactly on the fast track.
There isn't much available in free agency and the Reds just traded Tucker Barnhart to the Tigers, so it looks like a Casali/Bart combo and whatever veteran they can scrape up if Bart has to return to Triple-A. Posey was worth 3.5 WAR in 2021 and you're looking at replacement-level production, so this projects to a 3-to-4 win drop for the Giants -- plus whatever intangibles Posey provided.
Giants fans are calling him a first-ballot Hall of Famer. I'm not quite so sure. In an era with few elite all-around catchers, Posey certainly stands out among his contemporaries. He and Yadier Molina staged a long-running debate in the early and mid-2010s as to who deserved the title of best catcher in the game. Both have been defensive standouts (Posey won just one Gold Glove, primarily because Molina was always winning) while Posey has been the better hitter (career OPS+ of 129 compared with Molina's 97).
The big difference between the two is longevity and durability. Molina has played 2,146 games - 2,107 of them as catcher -- and will return for one more season in 2022. Posey ends up with just 1,371 career games, 1,093 as catcher. That's 1,000 fewer games behind the plate than Molina.
Indeed, that's the biggest knock against Posey's Hall of Fame chances: There hasn't been a modern position player elected to the Hall of Fame with a career so short, as voters -- both in the BBWAA and the various veterans committees -- have emphasized longevity over peak value. Here are the shortest careers for Hall of Fame position players who started their careers after 1950:
Kirby Puckett: 1,783 games
Mike Piazza: 1,912 games
Larry Walker: 1,988 games
Edgar Martinez: 2,055 games
Jim Rice: 2,089 games
Piazza is the only one of those players who was a catcher. Other than Roy Campanella, who didn't play for the Brooklyn Dodgers until he was 26 because of the color barrier, all the other post-World War II Hall of Fame catchers played a lot more games than Posey did:
Piazza: 1,912 games (1,630 at catcher)
Yogi Berra: 2,120 games (1,699)
Johnny Bench: 2,158 games (1,742)
Gary Carter: 2,296 games (2,056)
Ted Simmons: 2,456 games (1,771)
Carlton Fisk: 2,499 games (2,226)
Ivan Rodriguez: 2,543 games (2,427)
Posey caught 537 fewer games than Piazza -- nearly five seasons worth of a normal catcher's workload. That doesn't mean Posey won't get elected, perhaps even on the first ballot. Puckett, while not a catcher, is the obvious similarity. Like Posey, he played just 12 seasons, with an eye injury leading to his sudden retirement after the 1995 campaign (he had hit .314 with 23 home runs that year, so he was still going strong). Like Posey, he was a fan favorite, and he helped the Twins win two World Series. The freakish nature of his injury seemed to put him in a different bucket and voters overlooked the short career and elected him on the first ballot. Puckett's bad off-the-field behavior didn't surface until after he had already been elected to the Hall of Fame.
Still, Posey's short career shows up in his counting stats: 158 home runs, 729 RBIs, 1,500 hits. You may be aware of the unofficial rule of 2,000: No position player who played in the past 50 years has made the Hall of Fame without getting 2,000 career hits.
Posey's case, then, rests on his peak value and those three World Series titles -- although it should be noted that he was a mediocre postseason performer in his career, hitting .252/.321/.345 in 58 games, including .230 with two home runs and seven RBIs in 16 World Series games. Using a seven-season standard for peak value, here is how Posey compares with the other modern Hall of Fame catchers via Baseball-Reference WAR:
Carter: 48.4
Bench: 47.2
Piazza: 43.1
Rodriguez: 39.7
Berra: 38.1
Fisk: 37.6
Posey: 36.7
Campanella: 35.1
Simmons: 34.8
Posey fares better here, but even his seven-year peak doesn't come close to the top of the group. Now, the WAR metric may be missing a lot of hidden defensive value, but, frankly, other than Piazza and Simmons, the others were all also regarded as outstanding defensive catchers.
Indeed, Posey's most comparable player may be a non-Hall of Famer: Thurman Munson, whose career ended during his age 32 season when he died in a plane crash. Like Posey, Munson won an MVP Award, and he also led the Yankees to three World Series appearances (and two titles):
Munson: 1423 G, 113 HR, 701 RBI, 1558 H, 116 OPS+, 46.1 WAR
Posey: 1371 G, 158 HR, 729 RBI, 1500 H, 129 OPS+, 44.9 WAR
Munson was a popular player, but despite his tragic death he topped out at 15.5% of the vote in the BBWAA balloting. Posey no doubt will fare far better than that, but I think it's pretty clear he'll struggle to get in on the first ballot.
We'll get a good test for Posey when Joe Mauer hits the ballot for the class of 2024. Mauer crossed the 2,000-hit barrier, won an MVP, and finished with 55.2 career WAR -- 44.6 coming while he was still a catcher. Mauer caught fewer games than Posey with 921, but his overall value is a good match for Posey, including a seven-year peak of 38.9.
The difference, of course: Posey won three rings. In the end, I think that's what will push Posey over the top and into Cooperstown. Just not on the first ballot.