I'm secretly rooting against Jorge Posada

Jorge Posada is having a mind-blowing kind of season. He entered 2007 as a 35-year-old who had caught 1,222 games in his major league career, and it was looking like his best years were behind him. Those best years were impressive -- from 2000-2003, he won four Silver Slugger awards and finished third in the 2003 AL MVP balloting. He could practically be marked down for having an OPS of around .850 each season, which is tremendous production from a catcher. However, the start of his decline seemed inevitable in what would be his 17th season in professional baseball (including the minors). That's 17 hot summers of squatting behind a plate wearing heavy catcher's equipment and getting pounded by foul tips and pitches in the dirt. Baseball Prospectus's PECOTA card forecasted that Posada would hit .259/.365/.443 in 2007 and would continue to decline until his predicted retirement after the 2010 season. In addition to his expected drop in all batting metrics, the BP model also showed a 24% "attrition rate", meaning the chance of a player being injured or benched for a significant portion of the season.

Taking those factors into consideration, I agreed with Brian Cashman's decision to wait until the end of 2007 to negotiate a contract with Posada, rather than offer him an extension during the offseason.

Um, oops.

So far in 2007, Posada is hitting .343/.417/.553, all of which would be career-highs. The .343 BA is especially outrageous considering his prior best was a .287 mark in 2000. This is all great, and he's been incredibly valuable to the team this year, but he has consistently asserted that he is looking forward to free agency and will ceratinly test the market. Basically, what this says is that the Yankees will have to throw something like $75 million over five years at a 36-year-old catcher come this winter. He might even get more considering how irreplacable he is and how much he is adored by Yankee fans (Hip hip, Jorge! Hip-hip, Jorge!!! Hip-hip, OH GOD YOU TOOK ALL OF OUR MONEY).

So, getting back to the title of this entry, yes, I do root against Jorge Posada, but only when the Yankees are either way behind or way ahead. Don't take it personally, Jorgie. I don't really want you to fail, I just want you to rapidly regress to the mean in your contract year, goddammit.