Unfortunately, in the 48th game, [Buster Posey] broke his leg while blocking the plate, prematurely ending his year. But what’s often ignored in the disappointment of a lost season is that up to that point, Posey’s power had mostly deserted him.
Sure, he was hitting .284, but with only four home runs, he was on pace to hit only about 13 for the season. Even those four home runs obscure how little power he’d displayed: he only had five doubles and was slugging .389, for an ISO of .105. True, he’d also stolen three bases — he started out as a shortstop in college, after all — but that’s not the offensive profile of an elite fantasy catcher. Even assuming he would have gotten hot later in the season, we’re talking about, at best, matching Miguel Montero’s production, the fourth-best catcher by our Roto Rater measure.
And that’s where I went wrong in our Winter Mock Draft. In our projection for Posey, we’re guessing he comes back from injury essentially the same hitter he was in ‘10 and will be a top-five fantasy catcher. If he had simply repeated his ‘10 line in ‘11, one could take into account his age and justify picking him as the first or second catcher off the board. However, he got hurt in ‘11, and he wasn’t hitting particularly well when his season ended.
My full article is behind the paywall at SportingNews.com’s Fantasy Source.
12:51 pm - 8 Feb 2012
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Filed under: #fantasy baseball #Buster Posey #San Francisco Giants
