With Posada’s Season in Doubt, Yanks Need Another Bat

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Jorge Posada, one of top three catchers in Yankees history (behind Yogi Berra and Bill Dickey, ahead of Elston Howard and Thurman Munson), is feared to be out for the season after once again hitting the disabled list yesterday afternoon. While a precise determination as to his short-term future has yet to be made, season-ending surgery seems foreordained. Posada’s shoulder troubles him when he throws and when he hits. If surgery is necessary, the recovery time is reportedly four to six months, which means that if Posada puts it off too much longer, he could miss the beginning of next season as well as the end of this one.

Back over the winter, there was a lot of debate as to if the Yankees should re-sign Jorge Posada to a long-term contract. Yes, he was coming off of a career year, but he was also 35, and the four-year deal he demanded would keep him under contract until he was 40. Keeping any player under contract to such an advanced age seemed risky, and doing so with a catcher seemed riskier still; between the sharp aging curve associated with catchers and the heightened risk of injury the position entails.

The Yankees capitulated, and correctly so, because they had no alternatives. All-Star catchers who make the occasional top-10 appearance in the MVP balloting are a rarity along the lines of the black rhino. Gambling on getting a little more of the same from Posada while buying time to groom a serviceable replacement (though not necessarily another star) was the only reasonable alternative short of committing to a year of a replacement-level backstop like Jose Molina.

The best plans of mice and men are often undone by shoulder problems; Jose Molina was apparently destined to start. He’s done a fine job of it, too, if only on defense. Molina is having a tremendous year throwing out base runners, but his bat is one of the worst in the majors. The league’s average catcher is hitting roughly .255 AVG/.325 OBA/.385 SLG (it’s not a great year for catchers). Through Sunday, Molina has hit .215/.255/.297. Molina is about as far from par as the Earth is from Jupiter, and the runners caught stealing don’t begin to make up for the shortfall.

If the Yankees want to stay in the race — and after the weekend’s sweep of the A’s along with the concurrent sweep of the Red Sox at the hands of the Angels, they are very much alive — Brian Cashman and the front office cohort are going to have to make a move to give the offense an extra push. While Robinson Cano seems to have turned his season around, the Yankees get mediocre to nonexistent production from too many positions to overcome the loss of Posada. Even though Posada hasn’t been the force he was last year, he was still getting on base at an above-average clip. Combine a daily dose of Molina with Melky Cabrera’s season-long effort to play his way back to the minors, Brett Gardner’s struggles to establish himself in the majors (and Gardner is ensconced in left until the just-activated Johnny Damon is healthy enough to throw), Bobby Abreu’s mediocre season (he’s hit .239/.326/.362 since May), and the poor production the Yankees have gotten at first base whenever Jason Giambi is out of the lineup, and you have a lineup with far too many soft spots. On top of this, the Yankees have shown an uncharacteristic lack of power — ranking just eighth in the league in total home runs.

Currently, the Yankees’ trading possibilities are at least partially limited by Damon. If Damon is capable of playing left field, the Yankees could try to chase a Mark Teixeira to play first base and push Giambi to designated hitter. That seems unlikely, but given Damon’s problems it’s just as well that the Yankees pursue an outfielder such as the Pirates’ Jason Bay or Xavier Nady, both capable right-handed hitters who promise to do more to solve the Yankees’ vulnerability to lefty pitching than the fading Richie Sexson.

A trade would remain a priority even if the Yankees receive a minor miracle and Hideki Matsui’s decision to forego surgery and rehabilitate his knee pays off. First, Matsui won’t be back until after the non-waiver trading deadline, after which it will be difficult or impossible to get help should Matsui’s comeback fail. Second, even if he does return to his old potency, there is still the problem of overcoming at least two dead spots in the batting order (Molina and Cabrera), if not more.

History has shown that just one replacement-level player in the lineup is enough to knock a team out of a close race. It won’t be easy for Brian Cashman to sort this one out. In some ways, it would have been easier for management if the team had played its way out of the race. Cashman could have simply sat on his prospects, claiming that a trade wasn’t worth it. The Yankees are in it, though, and Posada is out — which throws the outcome off the field and into the arms of the general manager.

Mr. Goldman writes the Pinstriped Bible for yesnetwork.com and is the author of “Forging Genius,” a biography of Casey Stengel.


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