Buster Posey to retire

[Hyde Park Factor]

I saw Buster Posey and thought Buster OIney. I thought the line "Wow. Only 34." was a joke. Joke's on me I guess. I've never seen a Posy pic without a helmet. He's a young looking dude (or I'm getting old, or both).
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You're not alone in this.

 

[pokey_reese]

View: https://twitter.com/jay_jaffe/status/1456235909544820742


Jay Jaffe on Twitter: "by fWAR, Buster Posey was the most valuable position player in the game from 2012-17 this side of Mike Trout, and nobody else was particularly close during that span. In fact, by fWAR, only Trout surpasses him over the past *decade* even with Posey's decline and 2020 opt-out."

I'm not saying that he will, but he should be a first ballot hall-of-famer.

Worth noting A HUGE amount of that value in fWAR comes from the defensive positional adjustment from being a catcher, and it's probably out of whack. For instance, from 2010-2019, also in the top-20 players by WAR are Jonathan Lucroy, Russel Martin, and Yadi Molina, all of whom get massive bonuses there. For reference, Adrian Beltré has a 'Def' value of 59 over that period, whereas all of the catchers have a value over 200. Defensive metrics are already hard, and for catchers it's basically unfinished further, which is why Fangraphs themselves specifically note in their glossary about WAR:

"For this reason, catcher WAR is probably the least precise of all of the positions."

Not sure whether Jaffe doesn't know that, or is ignoring it because it's convenient, but it's not a particularly valid argument.

 

[mauf]

The closest historical comp to Posey is probably Thurman Munson. Almost identical peak and career WAR totals, both won an MVP, both were key contributors to multiple championship teams, both had relatively short careers (although for different reasons). Munson, of course, is not in the HOF, although there's a good case that he should be, and it wouldn't be shocking if a Veteran's Committee puts him in someday.

Munson had a career 116 OPS+, compared to 129 for Posey. I don’t have an opinion on Munson’s defense, but Posey was the better hitter by far.

 

[coremiller]

Munson had a career 116 OPS+, compared to 129 for Posey. I don’t have an opinion on Munson’s defense, but Posey was the better hitter by far.

Even without considering defense, Posey gives back some of the advantage because he played more games at other positions: about 90% of Munson's appearances came at C, while for Posey it's about 80%, so Munson gets a larger positional adjustment. Munson was also a better runner: BREF has Posey at -20 runs on base running and double plays, while Munson is +3.

BREF also thinks the replacement level was lower during Munson's time, i.e. the gap between average and replacement level was bigger. So it gives Munson some more value there.

 

[Hoya81]

My guess is that Posey, Mauer and Molina will be enshrined before their 3rd year on the ballot. In general, I think fans and the BBWAA will need to recalibrate their expectations for recent era players (those who debuted roughly from 2005 on), most of whom who will lack the traditional counting stats.