Does Jorge Posada Deserve a Closer Look for the Hall of Fame?

Jorge Posada was a member of what was known as the “Core Four,” the four longtime members of the New York Yankees whose careers began in the mid-1990s and were also with the team when they won the World Series in 2009. Two of the Core Four (closer Mariano Rivera and shortstop Derek Jeter) were first-ballot Hall of Famers, with Rivera becoming the first Cooperstown inductee to be elected unanimously. Starting pitcher Andy Pettitte, a 256-game winner, has been on the BBWAA (Baseball Writers Association of America) Hall of Fame ballot for the last three years but has not gotten much support.

Posada, the switch-hitting catcher who won four World Championships with the Yankees, appeared on the BBWAA ballot in 2017 and got just 3.8% of the vote, causing his name to disappear from future ballots because he didn’t reach the minimum requirement of 5%.

Based on the Hall of Fame’s rules, Posada must wait until at least December 2027 before having a chance to be considered by the Hall’s “Today’s Game” Eras Committee (formerly known as the “Veterans Committee”.) In this piece, I’ll explore the pros and cons of Posada’s worthiness for a closer look at a possible plaque in Cooperstown.

Cooperstown Cred: Jorge Posada (C)

• New York Yankees (1995-2011)
• Career: 275 HR, 1,065 RBI, 1,664 Hits, .273 BA, .374 OBP, .474 SLG
• Career: 121 OPS+, 42.7 WAR (Wins Above Replacement)
• 5-time All-Star, 5-time Silver Slugger Award Award Winner
• Won 4 World Championships and 6 Pennants with the New York Yankees

(cover photo: Ron Antonelli, New York Daily News)

Jorge Posada: Career Highlights

Jorge Rafael Posada was born on August 17, 1971, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. His father (Jorge Posada Sr.) was born in Cuba and fled to Puerto Rico to escape the Castro regime. Jorge’s father wanted his son to become a baseball player; virtually everything father and son did together was centered around the game.

Posada was actually drafted by the New York Yankees twice. The first time (in 1989), he was a 43rd round draft pick; Posada chose to go to college instead. The Yankees took another stab at Posada in 1990, drafting him in the 24th round. He signed with the team in May 1991. As a first-year player, Posada played second base for the Oneonta (NY) Yankees in the New York-Pennsylvania League.

The Yankees moved Posada behind the dish for the 1992 campaign, where he played for the Greensboro Hornets (South Atlantic League). Posada played at two levels in the minors in 1993 before getting to AAA ball (with the Columbus Clippers) in 1994. The switch-hitting catcher spent three years with the Clippers, getting called up to the big club briefly in September 1995 and a few times in 1996 (playing in 8 games).

In the spring of 1997, at the age of 26, Posada finally became a full-time big leaguer, serving as the backup catcher to veteran Joe Girardi, who would later become Jorge’s manager. As a rookie, Posada hit .250 with 6 HR and 25 RBI (in 60 games). In the offseason, the Yankees offered Posada and minor leaguer Mike Lowell to the Montreal Expos for future Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez but the Expos preferred the Boston Red Sox’ offer (pitchers Carl Pavano and Tony Armas Jr.).

Although Girardi was still with the team, Posada’s playing time increased in 1998 (111 games played) and he rewarded the Yankees with an OPS+ of 115 (with 17 HR and 63 RBI). Additionally, Posada threw out 40% of would-be base stealers, the best caught stealing rate of his career. The 1998 Yankees were a dominant team, winning 114 regular-season games and blitzed through the postseason, ultimately sweeping the San Diego Padres in 4 games. In October, manager Joe Torre split the time between Girardi and Posada fairly evenly, with Jorge starting 6 out of the team’s 13 postseason contests. Posada hit two home runs in the playoffs, including a Game 3 blast to right-center in the Fall Classic.

Posada’s performance regressed a bit in 1999: he hit .245 (91 OPS+) with a 12 HR and 57 RBI in 112 games played. Defensively, he struggled with a 28% caught stealing rate and 17 passed balls. Girardi started 7 of the Bronx Bombers’ 12 postseason games although Posada was behind the plate for the World Series clincher (Game 4 against the Atlanta Braves).

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Finally the Full-Time Backstop

It wasn’t until Jorge Posada was 29 years old that he finally became the full-time catcher for the Yankees and he rewarded Torre’s trust with a superb season, one that resulted in his first appearance in the All-Star Game. Playing in 151 games, the switch-hitter had an excellent slash line (.287 BA/.417 OPS/.527 SLG), resulting in a superb 139 OPS+. He hit 28 home runs (2nd most on the team) and drove in 86. He posted a WAR (Wins Above Replacement) of 5.5, best on the squad.

Although the 2000 Yankees won only 87 games, that was good enough to win the American League East for the third straight year. Once again, the Bronx Bombers dominated in October, ultimately winning the Subway Series against the crosstown New York Mets in 5 games. Posada didn’t hit much in the postseason (.204/.368/.278) but did deliver a key bases-loaded double in the 4th inning of Game 6 of the ALCS (against the Seattle Mariners). He started all 16 postseason tilts and had the privilege once again of squatting behind the dish when Rivera got future Hall of Fame catcher Mike Piazza to fly out to end the series.

Posada had a solid but less superb campaign in 2001, slashing .277/.363/.475 (118 OPS+) to go with 22 HR and 95 RBI. The Yankees won the A.L. East for the 4th straight year but dropped the first two games of the American League Division Series against the Oakland Athletics. With Game 3 a must-win, Posada hit a solo tater in the top of the 5th inning off Barry Zito. It would be the only run scored in the contest, with future Hall of Famers Mike Mussina and Rivera combining for a 6-hit shutout. Overall, Posada slashed .444/.476/.500 in the ALDS and would have been a candidate for the series’ MVP if those awards existed for the Division Series.

Offensively, the Yankees’ backstop slumped in the ALCS and World Series (hitting .189) but did provide a key solo HR in New York’s 2-1 Game 3 win. Ultimately, the Yankees fell in 7 games to the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Posada had another strong campaign in 2002 (20 HR, 99 RBI, 121 OPS+). He made his third straight All-Star game (and was voted in as the A.L.’s starter for the first time) and also won his 3rd straight Silver Slugger Award as the league’s best-hitting catcher. The Yankees won 103 games and their 5th straight A.L. East title but fell in the ALDS to the Anaheim Angels.

2003: Jorge Posada’s Strong MVP Finish

Posada was an MVP contender in the 2003 season, arguably the best of his 17 MLB campaigns. Posada slashed .281/.405/.518 (144 OPS+) and swatted 30 home runs with 101 RBI, the only time he would reach those benchmark numbers. Thanks to those prodigious stats, Posada posted a 5.9 WAR, best among Yankees position players and the second best to Mussina on the squad. Posada’s season was highlighted by a 17-inning game in which Alfonso Soriano and he hit solo homers on the top of the 17th to lead New York to a 10-9 win over the Detroit Tigers. (The 32-year old backstop was lucky that the Yankees had a day off after that marathon tilt).

For the second consecutive year, Posada was the A.L.’s starting catcher in the All-Star Game.

The Yankees won 101 games in 2003, good enough for their 6th consecutive A.L. East crown. After vanquishing the Minnesota Twins in the ALDS, the Bronx Bombers matched up against the Boston Red Sox in the first of two consecutive epic ALCS’s. In Game 7 at Yankee Stadium, started by Pedro Martinez and Roger Clemens, Boston had a 5-2 lead going into the bottom of the 8th. In that inning, the Yankees scored 3 runs off the tiring Martinez to tie the score at 5. Posada came to the plate with runners on 2nd and 3rd and one out; he swatted a 2-2 pitch into center field to plate both runs (Posada got a double thanks to nobody covering 2nd base on the Sox). Famously, the Yankees won the pennant on an 11th-inning walk-off tater by Aaron Boone.

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Ultimately, the Yankees were not able to parlay the classic ALCS win into another World Series title. The Bronx Bombers fell in 6 games to the Florida Marlins, with Posada posting a weak slash line of .158/.333/.211.

In the offseason, Posada’s regular-season performance earned him a close 3rd place finish in the MVP vote, behind Alex Rodriguez and Carlos Delgado. A-Rod got 242 MVP vote “points” (with 6 first-place votes); Delgado got 213 points (5 votes for first), with Posada earning 194 points (which included 5 first-place nods).

2004-2010: Posada Remains Strong in his mid-to-late 30s

Although he only once had a season quite as prolific as his 2003 campaign, Jorge Posada remained a productive force in the lineup for most of the final 8 seasons of his MLB career. From 2004-06, the Yankees continued to set the pace in the A.L. East as division winners but would not make it back to the Fall Classic. Posada posted solid campaigns in each of those years but was not selected to the All-Star teams, nor did he get any MVP votes.

• 2004: .272/.400/.481 (131 OPS+), 21 HR, 81 RBI
• 2005: .262/.352/.430 (109 OPS+), 19 HR, 71 RBI
• 2006: .277/.374/.492 (122 OPS+), 23 HR, 93 RBI

In May 2006, in one of the greatest comebacks in team history, Posada helped the Yankees overcome a nine-run deficit with a two-run walk-off blast to win the game 14-13.

In 2007, the year in which he would turn 37 years of age, Posada had the 2nd great campaign of his career; this one earned him 6th place in the MVP balloting. Posada posted career highs in all three slash line categories (.338 BA, .426 OBP, .543 SLG) which gave him an OPS+ of 153 (also a career-high). He hit 20 home runs with 42 doubles (another career-best), driving in 90 runs while scoring 91. Posada’s WAR was 5.4, 3rd best on the team behind A-Rod and Robinson Cano. Posada was an All-Star for the 5th and final time and also won his 5th and last Silver Slugger.

For the first time since 1997, the Yankees did not win the A.L. East; they did make the playoffs as the Wild Card entrant but lost in the ALDS to the Cleveland Indians.

After the 2007 campaign, Posada was a free agent and, coming off his big year, he was in demand. The crosstown Mets offered the 37-year old backstop a five-year contract but Posada decided to stay in pinstripes, inking a four-year, $52 million deal.

2008, the first under new manager Joe Girardi, was a lost year for both Posada and the Yankees. After playing in 137 or more games for 8 straight seasons, Posada went on the disabled list for the first time in his career in late April thanks to a sore shoulder. After missing the entire month of May, the Yankees’ backstop returned in early June but only played in 33 games before surgery to that shoulder ended his season prematurely. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Yankees failed to make the postseason party for the first time since 1993.

At the age of 38 to start the 2009 campaign, Posada was healthy and once again New York’s primary catcher, although his workload was understandably reduced. In 111 games, Posada slashed a robust .285/.363/.522 (125 OPS+) with 22 HR and 81 RBI. The Yankees won 103 games and eventually won the World Series against the Philadelphia Phillies.

In 2010, his age-39 season, Posada started to show his age. He hit just .248 but still posted a respectable 115 OPS+. The campaign was highlighted by back-to-back games in which he hit grand slams. The first slam (an opposite-field shot from the right side of the plate over the short wall in right field) was also the 250th longball of his MLB career. He followed it up with another slam the next day swinging left-handed.

The Yankees were the A.L. Wild Card, won the ALDS but lost the ALCS to the Texas Rangers.

2011: The Final Campaign

Jorge Posada had surgery on his left knee after the season and, given the fact that he was now 40 years old, the Yankees signed free-agent catcher Russell Martin to replace Posada as the starter behind the dish. The veteran Yankee backstop was now asked to be the team’s designated hitter. The proud Posada wasn’t happy about it and was even less happy when, in the midst of a long slump (hitting .176), he was dropped to 9th in the order for a game in late May.

On August 13th, four days before his 41st birthday, Posada hit the 10th grand slam of his career (and had 6 RBI overall). Despite a weak overall season for Posada (.235 BA, 90 OPS+, -0.4 WAR), the Yankees won 97 games and the A.L. East. In what would be the final postseason of Posada’s career, the Yankees fell to the Detroit Tigers in 5 games in the ALDS. Although the Yankees lost, the 41-year old DH went out in style, hitting .429 with a 1.150 OPS.

With free agency looming, Posada knew that his career might be over when the Yankees lost the ALDS.

“Jorge Posada has reached a decision to retire a Yankee for life… My lasting memory of Posada will be the visage of him last October, standing at his locker after the Yankees had just been eliminated by the Tigers, fighting back tears while trying in vain to give his perspective on the Yankee defeat, his own vintage performance in the series and the prospect that it was probably his last game. Engulfed in emotion, he finally just gave up, pushing his way through the media horde and retreating into the trainers room. Pride of a Yankee.”

— Bill Madden,  New York Daily News, January 8, 2012

Although several teams expressed interest in retaining Posada’s services for 2012, the Yankees were not among them. Posada chose retirement rather than to wear another team’s uniform.

On August 16, 2015, the day before his 45th birthday, Jorge Posada’s jersey number (#20) was retired by the Yankees.

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In December 2016, Posada appeared on the BBWAA Hall of Fame ballot for the first time. Unfortunately, he had the bad luck of being a candidate on a ballot stacked with Hall-worthy players and was a victim of a longtime rule that the writers could only check “yes” for 10 players on the ballot.

Three players were granted Cooperstown plaques in 2017 (Jeff Bagwell, Tim Raines, and Ivan Rodriguez), with six others destined for induction in the years that followed (Vladimir Guerrero, Trevor Hoffman, Mike Mussina, Edgar Martinez, Larry Walker, and Lee Smith). With four other strong candidates (Curt Schilling, Jeff Kent, Fred McGriff, and Billy Wagner) and five otherwise obvious Hall of Famers (Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, Manny Ramirez, and Gary Sheffield) clogging up the ballot without ever reaching the magic number of 75% because of their links to Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs), it was no surprise that Posada didn’t crack enough “top 10’s” on the writers’ ballots to get to 5%.

Only 17 out of 381 writers checked Posada’s name on their ballots (3.8%). He needed 20 votes to reach the 5% threshold, which would have kept him on the 2018 ballot.

The Hall of Fame Case For/Against Jorge Posada

The case in favor of a Hall of Fame plaque for Jorge Posada is fairly simple but also a bit intangible. Simply put, for a catcher, Posada was a terrific hitter, and he was a key member of teams that won 4 World Series titles. But the reason I use “intangible” is that Posada’s numbers don’t leap off the page and scream “Hall of Fame.” He finished his career with 275 HR and 1,065 RBI, good numbers for a catcher but not other-worldly. And, thanks to a high walk rate and the fact that he didn’t become a full-time player until he was 29, his career total of 1,664 hits is low.

Thus, to make a basic stat case, you have to put his numbers in context for the fact that he was a catcher, one of the most important positions on the diamond.

• Posada is one of 7 catchers in MLB history to have at least 8 seasons with 20 or more HR. The others are Mike Piazza, Johnny Bench, Yogi Berra, Brian McCann, Gary Carter, and Carlton Fisk. Other than Posada and McCann (who is not yet eligible for the BBWAA ballot), it’s a list of Hall of Famers.
• Posada’s 275 career taters are the 9th most among catchers in history. The players ahead of him on the list are all in Cooperstown except for Lance Parrish and McCann.

OK, let’s be fair. Those points are not especially compelling. McCann and Parrish, incidentally, are #1 and #2 on Posada’s “similarity score” list on Baseball-Reference.

So, let’s make a more exclusive list, a list of catchers with career slash lines above .270/.370/.470 (Posada posted a .273 BA, .374 OBP, and .474 SLG). On this list, it’s Posada with three Hall of Famers: Piazza, Bill Dickey, and Mickey Cochrane. Of course, this list is gerrymandered to Posada’s benefit using slash line minimums just below his career numbers. If you lower the bar to .260/.360/.460, all of a sudden there are 9 players on the list, including Roy Campanella, Gabby Hartnett, Negro League star Biz Mackey, Chris Hoiles, and Buster Posey, who is still active. The presence of Hoiles (.262/.366/.467) on this list diminishes it as a Hall credential for Posada.

Still, Posada’s ability to get on base and hit for power while squatting behind the plate for 9 innings remains impressive. But, forgetting for a moment the “extra credit” one gets for owning four rings, an offensive catcher Hall of Fame case for Posada has yet to be made. Let’s delve a bit further.

Posada’s OPS+

Jorge Posada’s career OPS+ (121) is very strong for a catcher. If you’re unfamiliar with the stat, it’s on-base% plus slugging%, adjusted for ballpark effects and the overall quality of offense on a per-year basis. 100 is the MLB average, so an OPS+ of 121 means that he was 21% better than average in the all-important skills of reaching base and hitting with power.

Posada is one of just 8 catchers in MLB history to post a 121 OPS+ and log at least 6,000 career plate appearances (Posada had 7,150 PA).

Best OPS+ for catchers (minimum 6,000 PA & at least 50% career games as a catcher)

• Mike Piazza (143)
• Mickey Cochrane (129)
• Bill Dickey (127)
• Johnny Bench (126)
• Ernie Lombardi (126)
• Gabby Hartnett (126)
• Yogi Berra (125)
• Jorge Posada (121)

Aaaaah, now we have a really good list: 7 Hall of Famers and Jorge. If you extend this list, you get Ted Simmons (118), Carlton Fisk (117), Wally Schang (117), and Gary Carter (115). Simmons, Fisk, and Carter are Hall of Famers (Simmons is getting inducted next month). Schang is not but has a very strong case as the best-hitting A.L. catcher for the first three decades of the 20th century. (Schang, like Posada, won multiple World Series Championships, earning rings with the Philadelphia Athletics, Boston Red Sox, and the Yankees).

(Incidentally, if we were to reduce the catching requirement to 47% of all games played as a catcher, Joe Mauer would be on the list with his career 124 OPS+. Mauer will be on the BBWAA ballot in 2024).

Anyway, we now have it, the “elevator” pitch for Jorge Posada for the Hall: 5-time All-Star, 4-time World Series Champion, a switch-hitting catcher who was proficient from both sides of the plate, had the 8th best adjusted OPS+ in MLB history with at least 6,000 plate appearances and 50% career games as a catcher. And he was durable, never hitting the disabled list (as a catcher!) until he was 37 years old.

The Case Against Jorge Posada for Cooperstown

OK, now that we have a case in favor, it’s time to be fair and look at the negatives. As previously mentioned, Posada’s career counting stats (275 HR, 1,065 RBI, 1,664 Hits) are weak. Excluding the Negro Leaguers, for whom statistical records are incomplete, there are only 17 Hall of Famers with fewer base knocks than Posada’s 1,664. Every single one of them played before 1958. In fact, there are no Cooperstown inductees since Roy Campanella (whose career ended after the 1957 season due to a horrific car crash) who have fewer than 2,000 hits.

Of course, now that we have a community of baseball analysts that understand that “times on base” (which includes walks and HBP) is more important than a player’s hit total, that may change, but Posada is way below the 2,000 hit line.

(By the way, if you count the total number of times Posada reached base in his career (with 936 BB and 74 HBP), the total is 2,674. That’s better than 9 Hall of Fame backstops although, again, none who played since Campanella).

What does WAR (Wins Above Replacement) say? Well, Posada’s career 42.7 WAR (from Baseball-Reference) is the 18th highest for catchers in baseball history. He’s behind 11 Hall of Famers plus Mauer, Schang, Gene Tenace, Thurman Munson, Bill Freehan, and Posey. Just behind Posada on the list (from 40.0 to 42.6) are two Hall of Famers (Campanella and Roger Bresnahan), the still-active Yadier Molina, Jason Kendall, Darrell Porter, and Jim Sundberg.

Anyway, Posada’s proximity on the WAR list to some of these names does not augur well for his Cooperstown candidacy although it would be fair to point out that the catching position is underrepresented in the Hall of Fame.

Jorge Posada’s Defense

One of the interesting names on the catching WAR list, just behind Posada, is Yadi Molina’s. In certain ways, the Cooperstown cases for Posada and Molina are very similar; they’re both longtime backstops for just one team, winning multiple World Series rings. In another respect, their cases are completely the opposite. Molina is a 10-time Gold Glover whose entire Hall of Fame argument will be based on his superior defensive ability. Molina’s career OPS+ is 97, which is below average and way, WAY below Posada’s 121. But, when it comes to the catching position, superior defense is generally preferred to superior offense.

On the Baseball-Reference WAR page for catchers, Posada’s offensive WAR (oWAR) is tied for the 11th best, behind 9 Hall of Famers and Mauer. Molina’s career oWAR (28.4) is just 38th best. Defensively, Molina’s dWAR is 26.3, second-best all-time behind Ivan Rodriguez. Posada’s career dWAR (2.6) is tied for 293rd. Ouch!

Let’s be honest. Posada was never known for his defensive prowess. His career rate of throwing out base-runners (28%) was below the MLB average (30%) for the years of his career. (Molina’s career rate, incidentally, is 40%). In 7 different seasons, Posada had the most or 2nd most passed balls in the American League. In 5 different seasons, he had the most, 2nd most, or 3rd most errors for catchers.

Jorge Posada and Catcher ERA

Even more than fielding and throwing out base-runners, a superior catcher must be able to manage the game, to help his pitcher navigate the opposing team’s batting order. One way to measure this is to look at the catcher’s ERA, the ERA posted by the team’s pitchers when that catcher is behind the dish. Posada’s career catcher ERA is 4.33, which is slightly better than the MLB average (4.42) from 1997-2010 (I excluded 1995, ’96, and 2011 when Posada only caught 6 total games).

If you look at the Yankees team as a whole (from 1997-2010), the team posted a 4.23 ERA, which is slightly lower than the 4.33 ERA posted in Posada’s games. That seems somewhat trivial but, when you consider that Posada caught 63.4% of all team innings during those 14 seasons, it looms a bit larger:

Yankees team ERA in games caught (1997-2010) by…

• Jorge Posada: 4.33 ERA
• All other catchers: 4.07 ERA

What does this mean? It means, simply that the Yankees gave up 0.26 more earned runs per game with Posada behind the dish. That doesn’t seem like much but it adds up to 42 more earned runs on a 162-game basis. Did Posada over-compensate for that by driving in 42 more runs per year than his backups would have? Maybe, maybe not? 42 is a lot.

Here’s another way to look at it. The Yankees overall team ERA from 1997-2020 (4.23) was 10th best in Major League Baseball. If the team had managed a 4.07 ERA for those 14 years, that would have been tied for the 4th best in MLB. If the team’s ERA had been 4.33 for those years, that would have put them in 15th among all teams.

Incidentally, since we’re talking a lot here about Molina, his career catcher ERA is 3.70, which is vastly better than the league average of 4.21 from 2004-2021.

Cardinals team ERA in games caught (2004-2021) by…

• Yadier Molina: 3.70 ERA
• All other catchers: 4.13 ERA

That’s a huge difference, nearly a half a run per game and it’s one of many reasons why I believe Yadi deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.

Pitch Framing

Finally, there is an aspect of a catcher’s game that has received a tremendous amount of ink over the last 10-15 years or so, and that is “pitch framing,” the ability of a catcher to catch borderline pitches in such a way that a human umpire will lean towards calling a strike rather than a ball. As previously noted, Jorge Posada’s career WAR (per Baseball-Reference, his bWAR) was 42.7; Yadi Molina’s is 41.8. There is another reference site, one that delves into more granular detail for sabermetrics, called Fan Graphs. If you read an article about a player and it says fWAR, that means the author is citing the Fan Graphs version of WAR.

The two sites have different formulas in which they calculate a player’s WAR, which can result in vastly different numbers. (Incidentally, this is one of the chief criticisms of the statistic, in that different subjective opinions of how to calculate the yield different results. Every player’s HR and RBI are identical but their WAR is based on the eye of the beholding programmer).

When it comes to the calculation of WAR for catchers, FanGraphs includes pitch-framing data; Baseball-Reference does not. One drawback with the FanGraphs version is that you can only compare catchers back to 2004.

Anyway, it probably won’t surprise anybody to learn that, when accounting for this critical skill, Molina is (according to FanGraphs) the best defensive catcher since 2004. By adding the pitch-framing data, Molina’s overall career fWAR is 55.3; Posada’s is 40.4.

But, how do we account for the rest of Posada’s career (prior to 2004)? Well, there’s another sabermetric site (Baseball Prospectus) that tracks pitch framing back to 1988. Jay Jaffe from FanGraphs (the creator of JAWS on Baseball-Reference) wrote an excellent piece a couple of years ago about how pitch framing might change the Hall of Fame debates for certain players. He was writing in particular about Brian McCann and Russell Martin (the best two framers ever, by the numbers, better even than Molina). Jaffe took all of the data (Baseball Prospectus from 1988-2003, FanGraphs from 2004-19) and combined it into one number. When using the Baseball Prospectus numbers in Posada’s career (1995-2003), his WAR plummets to 33.8.

This leads me to the latest mind-bending revelation: there’s a third version of WAR, from Baseball Prospectus: it’s called “WARP.” This version is brutal to Jorge Posada’s Hall of Fame candidacy because it includes pitch-framing data for his entire career. For the record, here is how Posada’s career stacks up against other catchers from 1988 and beyond, showing all three versions of the metric.

WP Table Builder

As you can see, there’s a massive disparity here. That’s because Baseball Prospectus has pitch-framing data from 1988 and beyond, FanGraphs from 2004 and beyond, while Baseball-Reference doesn’t use it at all. Use these numbers as you will. Unfortunately, they validate the narrative that Jorge Posada was not a good defensive catcher, a narrative also backed up by the catcher ERA numbers that we discussed previously.

Conclusion

In my personal opinion, Jorge Posada, despite an excellent career, did not do enough to warrant a spot in baseball’s Hall of Fame. I would have the same conclusion even if I had never taken us down the pitch-framing rabbit hole. He was a prolific batsman but only the 4th best of his era, behind Mike Piazza, Ivan Rodriguez, and Joe Mauer. Regarding Rodriguez (career slash line of .296/.334/.464), his lack of walks gives him a much lower OPS+ (106) than Posada’s 121 but you have to give I-Rod credit for playing in 714 more games, resulting in 311 HR, 1,332 RBI, and 2,844 Hits.

The fact that Posada only made 5 All-Star Games hurts his cause but is not a deal-breaker. However, the fact that he only earned down-ballot MVP votes twice in his career (2003 & 2007) is a problem. By comparison, Mauer got MVP votes in 5 different seasons (winning the award in 2009). Buster Posey has gotten MVP votes 6 times (winning in 2012) and will probably get some votes this year as well. Molina received MVP votes 5 times. Given that MVP voters can vote for 10 names, when you don’t get any MVP votes it means that there were only two seasons in Posada’s career that he was considered one of the 10 most valuable players in the American League.

What about the fact that Posada won 4 World Series titles as a catcher? Well, that’s a good thing obviously but his overall postseason numbers are rather pedestrian: in 125 games (with 492 plate appearances), his career playoff slash line was .248/.358/.387 with 11 HR and 42 RBI. Remember also that, for two of the World Series championships (1998 & 1999), he was splitting time behind the plate with Joe Girardi.

I’ve occasionally used a term called “Rings Above Replacement,” which is a mental exercise meant to determine how many World Series titles a player’s teams won because of their presence on them. The answer for Posada is one, the World Series win in 2000. With a lesser catcher, the 87-win Yankees probably would not have made the playoffs. Posada’s WAR that year was 5.5 which means, theoretically, he turned the Yankees from an 81-82 win team to the 87-win team that they actually were.

It’s a great thing to be able to say, “if Jorge Posada had not been on the 2000 Yankees, they would not have won the World Series.” But, on a team that sneaks into the playoffs with only 87 victories, there are a lot of players whose presence was indispensable to the World Series cause. Given that the Yankees won the A.L. East by 2.5 games, one could extrapolate that any player with a WAR of 2.5 or more was indispensable. That list for 2000 includes Bernie Williams, Derek Jeter, Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, David Justice, Orlando Hernandez, and Mariano Rivera.

If you’re looking for a second position player from the Yankees dynasty from 1995-2012 to put in Cooperstown, I would suggest Williams, who was, overall, the best hitter on teams that won four Fall Classics. If you’re looking for another Yankee catcher to join Yogi Berra and Bill Dickey in the Hall, I would suggest Thurman Munson, who was almost as good a hitter and a vastly better defensive player than Posada.

Jorge Posada had a splendid career, but not quite a Hall of Fame career.

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