Buster Posey Fantasy Baseball: How Good is the Giants’ Backstop?

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dutchbaby

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After a gruesome injury ended his 2011 season a little less than two months in, Buster Posey showed what an elite player he is in 2012, returning to not only lead the Giants to another World Series, but he also lead the majors in hitting, was the first Giant to drive in 100 runs in a season since Barry Bonds, and he won the National League MVP Award.

Doing all of that from any position is impressive for a fantasy resume. Doing that as a catcher is phenomenal and because of that, you’re not going to find many people who wouldn’t rank Posey as their top fantasy catcher heading in to 2013. The question, which we’re going to go over here, is, where does that rank him overall?

Downside

The downside to Posey is 2011, even if it’s not that exaggerated. Catchers are susceptible to injuries, whether it’s a collision at the plate, or foul balls off of the body, foul balls off of the head (a series of which ended the career of Mike Matheny), it’s a position where DL stints are frequent. This is why you will not see a Major League team without at least two catchers on the roster.

Even if a catcher doesn’t go to the DL at all during a year, the wear and tear of the position frequently slows your bat down, which impacts every possible hitting category in fantasy baseball.

A good way to show the risk of using a high draft pick on a catcher in fantasy baseball is to look at 2012’s stats for catchers (via ESPN). Only nine catchers had enough appearances to qualify for the league’s batting title. So, with those nine exceptions, if the catcher wasn’t hurt, then he was basically in a platoon situation. It’s hard to generate a lot of fantasy value if you can’t get consistent at-bats.

Upside

Posey will get the at-bats. After his injury in 2011, the team told him to not block the plate anymore and he didn’t during his MVP season. Bruce Bochy and the Giants saw first hand how bad their offense was in 2011 without Posey in the lineup. He’ll get plenty of days off from catching, but he’ll spend plenty of those at first base. Even if Brandon Belt steps it up and shows that he’s not a bat they don’t want to be without for even a day, he’s shown to be a good enough outfielder to take the place of the Gregor Blanco/Andres Torres platoon in left field.

So that leaves the lingering concern of how strong he’ll be throughout the year. After looking at what happened to him in the second half of 2012, that’s just not a concern for me.

Before the All-Star Game, Posey was good, going 10/43/.289 in the Triple Crown stats (while we’re on that note, those are the stats we’re going to be using for the remainder, as they’re the most relevant for catchers). In the second half, Posey won the MVP, putting up a 14/60/.385 stat-line. How many hitters can go .364 in the season’s final month and have it hurt their second half batting average? That happened to Posey.

Breaking down is just not a concern for me as it relates to Posey. If we were having this conversation in five years, I might be singing a different tune. But he’s only going to be 26 this year. As a comparison, I want to show you how some of the best offensive catchers have done in their age 26 season.

I’d like to point out a few things about that list.

• The .280 average from Bench probably looks okay, but not anything more. But as great of a hitter as he was, his career average was .267. So, that .280 was a good batting average from him.
• The 74 RBI may not look especially impressive, but the 1973 Yankees were not a great team. They had a .322 team OBP, which ranked 8th in the then 12-team American League. So, their weren’t many RBI opportunities for the captain. Munson would have three 100 RBI seasons in his career during the “Bronx Zoo” era, but never hit more than 20 homers.
• As good as Piazza’s numbers look, they could be better. The strike that cancelled the end of the 1994 season and World Series extended into 1995, and teams played only 144 games. With 16 more, those numbers could have been padded a little bit.
• Every one of those numbers are career highs for Mauer, who won the AL MVP in 2009. Not only was 28 his career high but to date, he’s never even hit half as many home runs in a single season.

Now you might be thinking that these are elite catchers. Bench is in the Hall of Fame, Munson likely would have been were it not for his career and life being cut short in 1979, Piazza belongs in the Hall of Fame (The idiots who do the voting don’t agree. The HOF voters being inept is nothing new, this is a fantasy site so I’ll keep the focus there but if you want my opinion on them, hit me up on Twitter, Facebook, via email, or however you want and I’ll be sure to give you my view. Rant over.), and Mauer isn’t quite at that level yet, but is on his way. So, am I jumping the gun a little bit to use their stats to compare with Posey?

I don’t think so. There’s nothing I’ve seen from Posey that makes me think he’s a flash in the pan. The way he came back from his injury was just incredible. With his inside-out swing, it’s very tough to imagine any prolonged slumps coming from his bat. While we’re on that note, that swing is made for the big gaps of AT&T Park. He probably won’t be the power hitter that someone like Piazza was, but the .336 average in 2012 was not a fluke. I’m not saying he’ll do it again, but it’s hard to imagine a sub-.300 season from him at this point.

Final Verdict

Heading into 2013, Posey’s a first round draft pick for me. I can’t put him in the class of Ryan Braun, Miguel Cabrera, and Mike Trout. He also doesn’t quite match the overall value of a Robinson Cano, Andrew McCutchen or Matt Kemp, although Kemp has dealt with injuries and inconsistency throughout his career. But that’s six guys and going beyond that, I can make an argument for Posey over anyone, even if I’d ultimately go with the other random player.

I’ll grant you that you can probably find a less biased opinion of Posey if you were to go to his family reunion, but my bias comes from having watched him play so dang much since 2010. I’m not just looking at great numbers and assuming he’ll repeat them. I’m looking at the guy’s swing, realizing that he doesn’t often swing at bad pitches, and having no problem saying that he’s a late first rounder.

I listed the six guys above. Maybe there’s another guy or two to consider. But I’ll say that if you see him after the seventh pick of the draft, give him some long thought. If you see him after the ninth pick, take him.