Jorge Posada could have stuck around with another team, perhaps as a DH, perhaps as an insurance policy behind the plate, primarily on board to tutor a young catcher.
Surely, he could have pocketed another $1 million or more. But Posada, 40, has too much pride for that. He will retire as a Yankee.
Numerous outlets including the Associated Press and radio station WFAN reported Posada’s decision via unnamed sources on Saturday.
A member of five World Series champions, Posada’s retirement will leave only Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera from the Yankees’ core that captured four titles from 1996-2000.
And Posada was at that core, taking the job from his future manager, Joe Girardi, and handling a pitching staff that included Andy Pettitte, David Cone, David Wells, Orlandon Hernandez and Rivera on a 114-win Yankee team in 1998.
When the Yankees won it all in 2009, Posada remained highly relevant, catching the likes of CC Sabathia and Andy Pettitte. In between came Mike Mussina, Randy Johnson and Roger Clemens.
Posada realized the end of his Yankees’ career had come when New York’s postseason hopes were extinguished by the Tigers in the ALDS. The final year of his four-year contract up, Posada was highly emotional, fighting to hold back tears after the final game.
He’d given the Yankees all he had.
Only Hall of Famers Bill Dickey and Yogi Berra caught more games for the Yankees. Posada finished with 275 homers and a .273 career average, winning the Silver Slugger Award five times as the league’s outstanding hitter as his position.
Twice he finished in the top five of MVP voting: 2003, when he hit 30 homers and drove in 101 runs and 2007, when he batted a career-high .338.
Posada was good, not great, defensively. For his career he threw out 28 % on steal attempts. But he was an excellent handler of pitchers and a confidante in the clubhouse to the pitching staff and his close friend, Jeter.
Off the field, Posada has been a contributor, too, establishing with wife Laura the Jorge Posada Foundation to fight Craniosynostosis, a skull condition that afflicted their son and affects one in 2,000 newborns in the U.S.
Posada struggled last season, batting a career-low .235 with 14 homers in 115 games. So frustrated was he at one point early in the season, he asked out of the lineup. Still, he contributed down the stretch with a six-RBI game, a winning hit against Tampa Bay in the victory that clinched the AL East and a homer that drove another spike into the Red Sox coffin. Moreover, he batted .429 against Detroit in the ALDS.
Posada was no longer in the Yankees plans, which include young catcher Jesus Montero. But he won’t be forgotten. His body of work will merit Hall of Fame consideration in the same vein other career-long Yankees such as Don Mattingly and Bernie Williams.
Courtesy of USA Today
