Accolades Continue: Buster Posey Wins Spinks Award

According to news from sfgiants.com, Buster Posey was named the winner of the 50th annual J.G. Taylor Spink Award as the Topps/Minor League Player of the Year for 2009. The article noted all of Posey's accomplishments this season. Showing how the award selection might not be the most rigorous of processes, last year's winner was Matt Gamel, Brewer's infielder - he's good, but was he the top minor leaguer last season? I would rather doubt that.

Still this is just the latest in a long line of awards and recognition. Before we signed him (but after we drafted him), he won the Golden Spike award. He then was a Hawaii Winter Baseball Post-Season All-Star last season. This season, he was a California League mid-season All-Star, and he recently was named the top prospect in both the California League and the Pacific Coast League by Baseball America.

The article also noted that Posey "reached base in his first eight starts with Scottsdale in the Arizona Fall League this month." I could have sworn that the reports were that the Giants did not send him to the AFL. OK, it was in this post in Baseball America's Prospect Blog. There they list three pitchers—lefty Steve Edlefsen and righties Dan Turpen and Joe Martinez - and SS Brandon Crawford and OF Thomas Neal. No Posey.

However, a previous report (that I wrote on here) had Posey going to the AFL so I thought the Giants had changed their minds on him going since the BA account did not list him, particularly since they took Runzler off the roster and added Turpen. Clearly, the BA account failed to note that he was going as well.

Well, while he might have reached base in his first eight starts with Scottsdale, after 9 games, he is only hitting .194/.295/.250/.545 in 36 AB, 2 doubles but no homers, 5 walks, 11 strikeouts (it does not include his 1 for 3 with a walk today). Either Posey is really rusty or he's just being outmatched. .280 BABIP suggests that while he is having a little bad luck, he's not having a lot of it. Since he was hitting the ball with authority in AAA while he was there and the AFL is a hybrid AA/AAA equivalent league, I would think that he's just having some problems right now that he will eventually get out of at some point. He's also been shaky defensively as well, having committed 3 errors already.

The good news it that in his past 5 games (out of 10 so far) he is 4 for 17, with 5 walks and 4 strikeouts, and he had two doubles. That means he had both of his doubles and 5 of his 6 walks in his last 5 games, plus he is finally showing the type of discipline he normally exhibits. He is hitting .235/.409/.353/.762 in those 5 games (assuming no HBP or sacrifices of any kind), which shows that he was out of sorts initially and is starting to adjust after being out of it for basically 5 games or so.

Based on some Posey info that I wrote about a while ago, Posey sounds like he should be our starting catcher sometimes next season, if not to begin the season. A mid-season listing of prospects (that I missed) had Posey 5th on July 31st (he was 19th in the pre-season list; Bumgarner was 2nd after being 6th previously and Villalona was 50th falling a bit after being 48th previously). Hopefully the Giants do not decide to go after more of a catcher in the off-season, or even re-sign Bengie Molina. Posey's era should begin next season, sometime mid-season at worse, following Weiters script for his career, or better, he should be the starter from the get-go.

I suspect that the Giants will keep him in AAA to June so as to get one more season of control over him (as I have read some said they might), particularly since the Giants are just starting their upward climb back to respectability. We should be around our peak in terms of competitiveness around the time Posey is mid-way through our control of him, when Lincecum and Cain should be hitting their physical peaks, and Bumgarner should be established by then, if his velocity returns and they are all able to stay healthy.

That would hopefully mean that we would get a rental catcher, much like what the Orioles did last season when they signed Zaun to a one year plus option contract, then traded him away mid-season to Tampa Bay after Weiters came up.