Why the Giants Should Keep Posey Behind the Plate

Posey is now out for the rest of the season. It will be a good scenario for Posey and the Giants if he is fully recovered in time for spring training 2012. The Posey injury, because of both how it occurred, due to a collision at home plate, and because it happened to Posey, one of baseball’s best and most marketable young players, has drawn a lot of attention. Two major themes have emerged from this attention: whether or not baseball should change its rules to minimize the chances of collisions at home plate and young players of Posey’s caliber should be moved away from the catcher’s position to allow them to play longer.

 

Maybe the Phillies Won't Win the Pennant

The Phillies will probably still be a very good team in 2011 with a four man pitching rotation that could carry them very far into the post-season. However, there are still scenarios where things could go wrong for them. Key hitters could continue their declines; Werth could prove difficult to replace; or their pitchers might not all have great years like they did in 2010. More interestingly, the Phillies have become a team big market team with all the advantages, such as the ability to sign Cliff Lee, and disadvantages like being old and committed to big contracts that are almost impossible to move, like Ryan Howard’s. Big market teams sign the best players, but they also set very high expectations, favor veterans, and often overpay for talent. This will also be the Phillies’ story in 2011.

Lessons from San Francisco

Like most winning formulas, the Giants approach is not fully replicable. Any strategy that begins with developing five top notch pitchers and an all-star quality catcher all within a few years of each other will be tough to follow, but most good teams are able to develop a core of top talent. That is more or less what defines a good team. The Giants strength lay in recognizing this was their moment and developing a good strategy to augment their core talent.

Cliff Lee is Human After All: World Series Notes

The most overlooked story of the game is that while neither Lee nor Lincecum had their best stuff, Lincecum pitched a tough 5.2 innings and kept his team in the game, while Lee did not. Lincecum appeared to be unraveling in the first inning, but got it together and settled down enough. It turns out that the long haired pot smoker was able to bear down and tough it out better than the deer hunter from Arkansas.

How the Giants Can Win

The Phillies, even after a tough first game loss, are probably still the favorites in the NLCS, but the Giants should not be counted out. The Giants chances rest not on an anything can happen in a short series kind of optimism or solely upon their excellent starting pitching, but primarily on a match-up of skills that may make the Giants uniquely positioned to beat the Phillies.