San Francisco Giants: Give Buster Posey a Break
The San Francisco Giants are just about out of it, so they need to let their All-Star catcher heal up and give a young guy a chance.
As the San Francisco Giants flailed away helplessly again on Tuesday night, John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle dropped some pretty big, but not all that surprising, news. Giants’ catcher Buster Posey will, at some point, need surgery on a hip that has bothered him virtually all season.
The surgery, which would be to clean out bone spurs and repair the labrum in his right hip, would of course end his season. Posey was back in the lineup on Wednesday, but wasn’t in his customary spot behind the plate when Madison Bumgarner took the mound on Thursday afternoon. It was only the seventh time in 99 Bumgarner starts over the past four years that Posey wasn’t his caddy.
Clearly, Posey is not right, and that begs the question: why wait?
Despite what the math says, the Giants are out of it this season. They haven’t been mathematically eliminated yet, but will enter play on Friday trailing three teams in the NL West. They are nine games out of the division and eight games out of the wildcard.They are about as dead and buried as a team can be while the math pulls a Lloyd Christmas “there’s a chance”.
There are no on-field benefits to having Posey continue to play. It’s been apparent for a while that his hip was worse than he would say, and it zapped his power. His swing had noticeably changed, with his legs pretty much taken out of the equation because of the injury. Posey said he has “known for months” that surgery would be the final destination, but with the Giants falling further and further out of the race, it seems fruitless to put it off any longer.
With Posey on the shelf, it would also allow the Giants to get a good look at a catching prospect over the final month of the season. Aramis Garcia is already on the 40-man roster, so the Giants won’t have to do any fancy maneuvering to get him up to San Francisco.
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Garcia shouldn’t be seen as the catcher of the future at this point. That’s now Joey Bart title, and Garcia will have to do something incredibly special to take it away from him. Garcia was just brought up to AAA Sacramento for the first time a couple weeks ago, and has dealt with numerous injuries of his own through his minor league journey. But still, the former second-round pick would certainly benefit from getting time in the big leagues.
The catcher started the year extremely poorly in AA Richmond, hitting .188/.231/.323 in the season’s first two months. He improved to .268/.330/.452 after June started, and hit eight of his 11 home runs. After an 0-13 start with the River Cats, he has gone 8-21 (.381) since. He isn’t an offensive marvel that’s going to suddenly make the Giants’ lineup tick, but he shouldn’t be expected to perform as such.
Most importantly, Garcia would get to spend time with big leaguers if he gets this call. He would get the chance to spend every day with and learn from Nick Hundley, a 13-year big league veteran. He can sit next to manager Bruce Bochy and bullpen catcher Eli Whiteside, two players who spent many years as professional catchers.
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Garcia would get first-hand experience catching long-time veterans like Bumgarner, Mark Melancon, Sam Dyson, Jeff Samardzija, and Tony Watson. He’d get to work with other rookies like Dereck Rodriguez and Reyes Moronta. He can learn how those guys build pre-game strategies with other catchers, and how they like to pitch in certain situations and to certain opponents.
The coaching staff would get to watch how he calls game, receives pitches, block balls in the dirt, and everything else that comes with the position. They can learn his tendencies, his strength, and his weakness, and help him improve on the latter.
The experience Garcia could gain during this final month would be exponentially beneficial to a young player who is still learning the game. Then there’s always the possibility that Garcia handles himself, and the pitching staff, so well that he earns huge points from the coaching staff. Hundley will again be a free agent after the season, leaving an opening for a second catcher if they don’t re-sign him again. It’s an extreme longshot that Garcia would earn that role outright, but he can prove that he can handle himself.
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Posey needs a break, and after everything he’s given the team over the past decade, he’s certainly earned one. The Giants need to use this portion of the season for something useful. Let Posey get his hip fixed and heal up, and let the younger guys gain some necessary experience.