Five very-good reasons why Buster Posey should win the MVP Award

Published by on September 20, 2012 | 8 Responses

1. The advanced metrics love him: Posey ranks 5th in all of baseball in fWAR (7.1), wRC+ (159), and wOBA (.403). It’s easy to turn this into a numbers humpfest – which let me tell you, I love a good numbers humpfest – but what Posey has done this year – is doing – is simply amazing/great/stupendous/other adjectives.

2. He’s hitting better than every qualified first baseman in baseball: Yup, that’s right. If you sorted through all the qualified first basemen in baseball – sorry, Joey Votto – you’d come up with 23 separate players. Posey is hitting better than every single one of them. Think about that for a second. A catcher, a position that’s traditionally fruitless on offense, is hitting better than the most offensive-oriented position in baseball. Prince Fielder, Albert Pujols, Mark Teixeira, Adrian Gonzalez … all hitting worse than Posey. This might be my favorite pro-Posey argument.

3. His second half is amazing: Just when you would think that catchers would be wearing down from the day-to-day wear and tear of the position, Buster Posey is peaking; since the All-Star break, Posey has batted .390/.467/.647. 600 points of slugging from your catcher is just absurd.

4. ‘dat heatmap: Look at this heatmap of Posey’s second half.

Or, in eBay user comment terms: A+++++ WOULD L@@K AT AGAIN@@!!1.

5. He’s Buster Posey: I mean, c’mon fer chrissakes, he’s Buster Posey! He leads the league in being Buster Posey. He does Buster Posey things every day. Just right now, while you were reading this, Buster Posey just saved five dolphins. Why? Because he’s Buster Posey, that’s why. I often think that ‘this guy is so important to the team’ trope that’s dusted off and brought out by sportswriters on a daily basis is silly, but allow me this one thing, because Buster Posey is the heart-and-soul of this team. He ascended during the World Series championship year; he suffered a tragic and disgusting injury last year; and he’s back this year and playing out of his gourd. This guy is so important to the Giants. He’s Buster Posey.

Article written by

8 comments
  Livefyre
Newest | Oldest
ariess
ariess

I just want to paraphrase a discussion I had last Tuesday with a friend of mine who is a sports writer and has a vote.  I asked him if he thought Posey would be the MVP.  He says at the moment his vote would go to Braun.  Where would the Brewers be without Braun and if they make the playoffs it will be a shoe in for Braun.   Then I had two arguments. The first was where would the giants be without Posey.  Look where they were last year without him, and look where they were in 2010 and now in 2012 with him.  He thought those were good points but that Molina on St. Louis was just as valuable.  Almost as valuable a hitter, and a higher impact defensive catcher.   Then I countered with but  Posey has to play half his games at AT&T.   I hope I at least made him think.  I guess the votes go down at the end of the regular season.  I also threw in the concept that don't you think that some of your colleagues wont vote for him because of the steroid issues from last year.  On that he was not sure, but he said it did not affect his thinking.  I am hoping that a late Posey surge plus some of my arguments could change one sports writers mind.  I just think that Posey is the total glue that keeps the giants on top of their game.  Just like Mays sparked the team in his first two almost full years of 1951, Came up May 25, and then a full year in 1954.  Giants rocked.  Now under the Posey they will do the same.

Frozendarkness
Frozendarkness

Or, in eBay user comment terms: A+++++ WOULD L@@K AT AGAIN@@!!1.This line just killed me

KennyCupp
KennyCupp

Anyone remember the 2010 playoffs vs. Atlanta, when their fans started chanting "Heywards Better!!!!!!  Heywards Better!!!!"  They were so right.  This Posey guy is junk.

This comment has been deleted

This comment has been deleted

This comment has been deleted

RogerM
RogerM

Did you read the Nick Piecoro's piece in Fangraphs the other day, The Agony of Rational Rooting? One of his points there (and in a subsequent interview with Keith law) was that you want to see team's with good process rewarded, and the best example of that was the Rays: many in baseball and the sabr community want to see the Rays do well as a reward for their good process and all the many many small things they do really well.  And yet for all those little things they do exceptionally well, they swung and missed on two huge decisions this decade that have really cost them: exposing Josh Hamilton to the Rule 5 draft, and passing on Buster Posey because they were scared of his contract demands.  Getting those two decisions wrong could well undermine all of decisions they've gotten right over the last decision and prevent them from getting the ultimate reward for their decisions.The Giants are like the inverse of the Rays.  Their process often seems like one of those Family Circus cartoons following little Billy's path home from church.  They make outrageously bad small decisions almost profligately.  But the things they do well they do real well, and one of those things is graciously accepting the Posey and the Lincecum handed them when other organizations felt it absolutley necessary to draft Billy Rowell and Tim Beckham. Moral; you can do a lot of things wrong when you get the Posey decision right.

FANsince1976
FANsince1976

RogerM The Rays, and three other teams, simply blew it with Posey. But Hamilton is a very different. He went through major turmoil with his drug problems. He missed four complete years of baseball (age 22-25 seasons). These are normally the crucial development years for a ballplayer. Going into 2006 there was no evidence that Hamilton would ever be a productive ballplayer let alone a superstar. The Cubs took Hamilton in the Rule 5 draft and immediately traded him to the Reds for $100,000. That seems like an odd deal if the Cubs really thought Hamilton could become a major leaguer. 

RogerM
RogerM

FANsince1976 I didn't mean to suggest that the Hamilton decision didn't make plenty of sense on the face of it.  From a process POV it's pretty easy to construct an argument that they were right to do what they did. But from a results POV, that decision blew up in their faces badly (you can also note that both the Cubs and the Reds swung and missed on it, particularly the Reds who actually saw what kind of hitter he was and then turned him into Edison Volquez).  For six years he's been the kind of bat that has been missing from their lineup.  And the guys they did put on the 40 man that November to protect from the Rule 5 draft? Elijah Dukes, Elliot Johnson, Mitch Talbot. Sometimes reasonable decisions go boom.

RogerM
RogerM

FANsince1976 Oh also, for that Rule 5 draft they left a spot an open spot on their 40 man to allow them to draft Ryan Goleski for the A's and then send him along to Oakland for money (exactly as the Cubs did for the Reds with Hamilton).

KennyCupp
KennyCupp

Man, thats a great comment.  Well done.