TAMPA – Thirty-three pitchers are attending Yankees camp, ranging from the most expensive in history (CC Sabathia) to among the most anonymous (Eric Hacker anybody?).
Yet, for now – and probably for many weeks – the most important throws at The George will be delivered by a catcher, or in the case of Jorge Posada, someone the Yankees badly hope will be their full-time catcher again.
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So that is why the sound of Posada throwing yesterday was even more joyous to Joe Girardi than the sight of Posada throwing. “I could hear the noise of a baseball in the air, and it has to have something on it to do that,” the Yankees manager said. Posada missed most of last season and had surgery to repair damage to his right rotator cuff.
Girardi stood just to the right of Posada as he threw on the main field, first from first 90 feet, then 105, then 120 and finally 150 (from home to the grass beyond second base). Bench coach Tony Pena received 15 throws from each distance and reported on Posada’s tosses, “good and pain free. Any time he throws pain free it’s a beautiful thing.”
The throws were not full force, nor done in an explosive movement from a crouch to a peg. These were more step and throw with a slight arc in the flight. By the end, with Girardi having departed to watch some of the pitchers throw, Posada and Pena were the only uniformed personnel on the large field. So it was quiet enough to hear the effusive Pena encourage with a “nice, very nice” on a particular throw he liked.
Pena took the last of the 60 pegs and clapped his free right hand into his mitt, and the odd spectator or two watching the workout clapped and called Posada’s name, as well. Posada said he is well ahead of schedule and throwing at about 90 percent capacity.
“I have no worries because I have no pain,” Posada said. “I am just getting ready for Opening Day. It is important for me to back there with no restrictions to catch, throw and be available every day. It is important for me, it is important for the team.”
What is Posada’s value to the team? Well, Yankees GM Brian Cashman said: “People can say all they want about Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy, we didn’t make the playoffs last year because Chien-Ming Wang and Jorge Posada got hurt. Period. We had spent more than a decade with one of the great edges in the game offensively behind the plate with Posada against just about anybody and we lost that.”
You can make a good argument that Posada is the most productive switch-hitting catcher in history (sorry, Ted Simmons) and that his power and patience from both sides of the plate put him at least into Hall of Fame discussions. Can he get back to that effectiveness as a catcher?
Cashman, jaded by years of so many injury rehabs that dead-ended after early spring optimism, was uber-cautious in saying: “Jorge Posada is a big question mark. It is going well now. But I can’t sugarcoat this. He had major surgery.” Girardi said he is hoping Posada can catch 100 games.
But Posada said he will meet the target date to catch exhibition games, which is March 8-10, and his goal is to catch 130-plus games, as he did every year from 2000-2007. He said the blessing of going mad last year without the game was that his legs are now fresher then they should be for a 37-year-old catcher. The flip side is that the only catchers 37 or older to play multiple years as heavy- duty, full- time receivers were Bob Boone and Carlton Fisk; and Posada is in just Year 2 of a four- year, $52 mil lion contract.
“I will not be compla cent,” Posada said. “I am treating this as if I lost my job and have to win it back.”
That trek to regular catching, for now, is filled with the sight – and sound – of thrown base balls filling a mostly empty stadium. Posada is building toward April 6 one long toss at a time.