A couple of reports out of Puerto Rico insist Posada wants to play for their WBC team and is aiming to do so. It seems unlikely the Yankees would permit him to play coming off surgery and with CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett joining the pitching staff.He also has a translated version of the AP reports from Puerto Rico on his blog post....
Wouldn't it make more sense to have Posada healthy in camp so he can help the Yankees during the regular season? Ivan Rodriguez is ready and willing to catch for Puerto Rico. You can probably rule Mariano Rivera out of pitching for Panama as well - the Yankees have never been all too keen on WBC participation.
"Wouldn't it make more sense to have Posada healthy in camp so he can help the Yankees during the regular season? "
Yes it would. The idea of Jorge Posada playing in the WBC after his injury-plagued season last year is absurd. I know, he just wants to DH, but that doesn't matter to me, he needs to be in spring training with his new teammates, and most importantly, his new pitchers.
Either way, I believe the Yankees can stop him from playing due to the fact that he was on the DL when the season ended, and that's exactly what they should do.
4 Comments:
I agree with you Greg. He should be focus on the Yankees.
While there's no way he should be even considering this, I kind of have to respect that players may take the WBC as more important than we do. And while I'd hate for him to play in it, I'm not really all that opposed to having him DH. I mean, really, if it's just 3 ABs a game, that's nothing. He'd be doing that in intrasquad, BP, and ST games anyway.
Stripes,
I agree, it's nice that players find the event to be important, but Puerto Rico doesn't pay Jorge's overpriced salary.
Also, it's not the DHing that bothers me, it's being away from the Yankees. He's got to be in camp so he can learn the new pitchers on the staff and build up him are strength to be able to throw runners out.
I'm with you on that one... Puerto Rico plays in the first round on March 7 - 11. They are in a pool along with Dominican Republic, Netherlands, and Panama. The winner and the runner up in the Pool move on to the next round. Well, Dominican Rep will win the pool, definitely, but I don't know how good Netherlands and Panama are, so I guess Puerto Rico could finish runner up. In that event, the 2nd round would take place on the 14th through the 18th. I would doubt that Puerto Rico gets to the finals, so here's my worst case scenario:
Posada is gone from the 7th through the 11th, 5 days. He's then back for a couple days, and onto Miami for the 2nd round, 14th-18th, another 5 days.
So probably he'd be gone for a total of 10 days. While I'm not keen on it, he'd be back for much of the end of Spring Training, and he'd also be there during the beginning up through March 6th or so.
With all the travelling (from Tampa to Puerto Rico where the 1st round is held), back to Tampa, then to Miami, then back to Tampa before heading North, I'd much rather him not go. Coming off of injury, he need to do exactly what you said - stick around, be around the team, work with the new pitchers, work with the young pitchers.
In the end though, I don't think it would be much more than an inconvenience, as I think he'd have more than enough time to work with the pitchers and get his arm in shape, which he can do whether he's in Tampa or on the road.
Let's hope he sticks with the team, though.
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