Kudos on a good piece of research here by Allard. Yes, as a Red Sox fan, I never could figure out why Posada is not held in better regard by Yankee fans. You go to NYYFANs and he is portratyed as a version of the avian flu. It's about time someone pointed out his worth.

As a batter that plays the position of catcher, maybe, but nowhere in that story was there any discussion of Posada's defense or game-calling skills, both which are infinitely more important than how well he handles the bat. If OBP was the sole determinant of a catcher's value, Scott Hatteberg would still be working behind the plate.

Mr. Pinto's own defensive metrics place Posada squarely in the middle in regards to making outs on balls in play (BP has him as a plus defensive catcher, averaging a couple of runs a season above average for his career). And Clemens himself loved pitching to Jorge as his backstop...he positively gushed about having Jorge behind the plate as he went for his 300th win. I think it's fair to say that Posada is no liability behind the plate...all of which makes his bat that much more valuable.

Yankee fans don't dislike Posada because of what he's done for them. It's the fact that he's going to be making 12 million after this season if he catches a little over 60 games behind homeplate. Add that to his age and it's more of a case of thanks for what you've done but maybe it's time to find another option, and save the 12 million. There is and was a certain amount of sense to signing a guy like Molina to half and half the duties with Posada this year other than the fact that Torre would never let it happen and it would be a horrible message to send to the clubhouse.

Also on a purely observational level if there's a rally brewing and Posada is up it's a GIDP. He seems to have as much anti-clutch as Jeter has clutch.

Like I says, he is the Hincapie of the Yanks.

I hope he stays solid for a few more years so we can start playing the HOF qualification debate, maybe a little rest, a little first base and his decline will not be too bad.

Is there a stress metric for pitchers and catchers? It seems that Posada has appeared in far more relevant high stress games than the other big catcher stars (Piazza, Pudge etc.).

I'm an A's fan and I note that Jason Kendall is close to Posada in these rankings. An awful lot of A's fans think that Kendall is OK, but that he's way overpaid at $10M per year. And Posada makes more? No thank you.

That either of these guys could be somewhere in the neighborhood of 14th best all time is ludicrous. I know there haven't been that many Dickeys, Campanellas, Berras and Benches. But still. These guys are serviceable major league catchers. That's all. No HOF in sight.