It was recently suggested that in the current chaotic state of the San Francisco Giants, Bruce Bochy formally name long-time catcher and clubhouse leader Buster Posey team captain in Bochy’s final year as manager.
It would be nice, borrowing from the elegy written by poet laureate Walt Whitman after the death of president Abraham Lincoln:.
“O Captain, my captain! rise up and hear the bells.”
But Bochy and Posey say it’s not going to happen. Posey has enough on his hands coming back from last season’s reconstructive right hip surgery. And Bochy, who has been asked about this subject before, doesn’t want a team captain.
“Buster and I have even talked about it,” Bochy told Boomskie on Baseball the other day in the Giants dugout at Scottsdale Stadium. “No, it’s not something we’re going to do.”
Said Posey: “I think [Bochy] was saying it in jest. I don’t think it was a serious conversation. I think he was just joking around. It wasn’t a serious question from him to begin with.”
The idea was posed by my old friend John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle in a column that ran this past Saturday.
Considering the circumstances, it isn’t a bad idea. Bobby Evans is out as general manager and Brian Sabean has been pushed aside, both replaced by Farhan Zaidi. Larry Baer is on leave after a tawdry public altercation with his wife in downtown San Francisco.
Bochy, sizing up the situation even before the Baer incident, announced near the start of spring training that his final year on his Giants contract paying $6 million a year would be his last.
There hasn’t been this much chaos in the Giants organization since the franchise was almost sold and moved to the Tampa Bay area after the 1992 season.
Add Buster’s comeback to the mix.
“Shea just asked about it, too, and wrote an article about it,” Bochy said. “Buster, I don’t think has any interest in it. Can you imagine him wearing that big C?”
Posey, heading into his 10th season, is coming off the second major surgery of his career.
The first was from impact.
He suffered a broken left ankle and torn ligaments in a home plate collision while catching in 2011.
The second was from wear and tear.
Though he’s the accepted team leader by both action and temperament, Posey wasn’t sure he really needed the captain designation at this point.
“I don’t know. I’m just concentrating on winning games,” Posey said. “Ultimately that’s the goal: trying to win games. I try to lead by example in the clubhouse anyway. I sure do.”
Posey underwent the hip surgery this past Aug. 27. The prognosis for rehab and recovery was six to eight months. Miraculously, he’s way ahead of schedule playing in back-to-back games last weekend for the first time all spring, even lumbering around the bases to leg out a triple on Saturday.
It was his first Cactus League triple of his career. He’s only had one during the regular season since 2016, the last coming this past May 20 as his hip was deteriorating.
“It’s been awhile,” Posey said. “Especially during spring training.”
The hustle on the play – Posey slid in to third feet first on his left side – seemed to indicate that he’s all the way back from the injury and surgery.
“It was definitely a good test, the running and the sliding,” Posey said. “As spring has gone along, both of those have gotten better. Running and sliding earlier in the spring bugged me the most, but that felt better so that’s good progress.”
The surgery was extensive and might have ended the career of a mere mortal soul.
Doctors repaired the labrum and a cam lesion (or impingement) on the ball socket, plus a muscle connected to the pelvis.
“And some bone restructuring,” Posey said. “Some microfracture surgery on the cartilage, but it was very minimal.”
This all may very well someday lead to hip replacement surgery.
“I think that’s the next step, but hopefully we can ward that off for a while,” he added.
But it’s not a worry?
“Nah. We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”
It’s no wonder that Buster doesn’t need to add the duties of captain to all this right now.
The fact is, this isn’t the National Hockey League where each team designates a captain and alternates. It’s not common place in Major League Baseball. No team has one right now.
In recent history, the New York Yankees had shortstop Derek Jeter, following in a generational tradition that included Lou Gehrig and Thurman Munson. And the Boston Red Sox had catcher Jason Varitek, who wore the “C” over his heart when they won the World Series in 2004 and ‘07.
Jeter, who retired in 2014 and is eligible for the National Baseball Hall of Fame in the Class of 2020, may be the last captain.
Instead, Posey, turning 32 on March 27, is trying to recapture some of the power of his youth. His home run and RBI production has dropped precipitously – from 22 homers in 2014 to five last season, from 95 RBIs in ’15 to 41 a year ago.
“That would be great,” he said. “I’m not the kind of person in the past who could go up there and think homer. But definitely I want to feel like I can drive the ball a little better.”
Because of those deteriorating numbers, though, Posey’s only an elite player worth the final guaranteed three years of his contract at $22.2 million per if he’s behind the plate, where he adds his acute defensive skills and his ability to guide pitchers.
To protect Posey a little, Bochy started him 85 times as a catcher this past season and 13 at first base, a practice that will continue.
Posey’s not sure what he still can be.
“Obviously as players we all have those thoughts,” Posey said. “I think that can be counterproductive at times. We need to evaluate where we can go instead of what we once have done. Hopefully there’s a lot of value left, and some gas left in the tank.”
But he knows exactly what he can't be: No captain, my captain.
