Barber: What will Giants do with Buster Posey?

What will the Giants do with Buster Posey in 2019?

It’s a cold-blooded question to ask, considering Posey is barely out of anesthesia following hip surgery in Colorado to repair a torn labrum on Monday. But it’s an important one. The Giants’ brain trust will spend many hours analyzing it between now and March, and beyond, and their determination will have a bearing on the Giants’ fortunes over the next few years.

Start with this: Posey is considered one of the best catchers in Major League Baseball. He was a brilliant hitter right out of the gate in 2010, when he was the National League Rookie of the Year, and since then he has developed into a fine defensive catcher. He won a Gold Glove just two years ago, and the most recent SABR defensive index put him No. 1 in the NL, and behind only Kansas City’s Salvador Perez in all of baseball.

More than that, Posey has developed into a valuable handler of pitchers, those fickle one-armed creatures. Like Jonathan Lucroy on the other side of the bay, Posey’s ability to call pitches, play to the strengths of his throwers and frame their strike zones is practically invaluable.

But Posey can’t catch anymore. I mean, the Giants haven’t come out and said that, and they might have him behind the plate to start the 2019 season. But anyone can see that Posey the catcher is ruining Posey the hitter.

In each of the past four seasons, Posey’s power numbers have suffered a sharp decline after the All-Star break. And the slope is becoming steeper every year.

In 2015, Posey hit 14 home runs in 303 at-bats (1 every 21.6 ABs) before the break, and five home runs in 254 at-bats (1 every 50.8) after. In 2016, he hit 11 homers in 291 at-bats (1 every 26.5) in the first half and three in 248 (1 every 82.7) in the second half. In 2017, it was 10 in 275 (1 every 27.5) in the first half and two in 219 (1 every 109.5) in the second. In 2018, Posey hit five bombs in 299 at-bats (1 every 59.8) pre-break and zero in 99 at-bats (no calculation necessary) post-break, right up until his final game last Friday.

Add up the second-half numbers over those four seasons, and you get 10 home runs in 820 at-bats. That’s light-hitting-shortstop territory.

Of course, there is more to batting than putting the ball over the fence, and Posey has, in some ways, remained one of the best-hitting catchers in the game. But over time he is becoming a hitter of singles and doubles, and he slows down as the season wears on. In each of the past four years, Posey’s OPS (on-base percentage plus slugging percentage) has declined markedly after the All-Star break. This year, with the hip dragging him down, he was at .774 on July 15, and at .642 after July 20.

Perhaps you are developing a theory that Posey loses interest once he plays in the All-Star game, or that he secretly has a coat of fur like a golden retriever’s and gets overheated in the dog days of summer. Me? I’m going with the wear and tear of squatting and standing and squatting and standing, hundreds of times, every time he catches, and the effect that must have on Posey’s legs. And his hips. And probably his back.

The hip thing seemed to be hampering his throws from behind the plate, too. In each of the previous three seasons, Posey had thrown out 36-to-38 percent of opposing base stealers. In 2018, that mark dropped to 29 percent, the lowest of his career.

The hip surgery may well fix whatever was going on with Posey’s labrum. But there is no rational reason to believe it will put the bounce back in his swing in August and September.

The reflexive solution is to move Posey to first base. He has put in some time at that position every year; in 2018, he played first in 13 games and caught in 88. But there’s a problem with this idea, too. Posey’s numbers look good for a catcher. They’re weak for a major-league first baseman.

They are, in fact, weaker than those of another first baseman we might compare him to: Brandon Belt, the longtime Giants starter at that position. Belt’s overall offensive numbers are slightly better than Posey’s over the past three or four seasons. Posey tends to hit for a higher average. Belt tends to hit more home runs and draw more walks.

The question is, if you move Posey to first base on a full-time basis, will his hitting get better? How much better? Will the power return? To what extent? You have to figure that we won’t see the precipitous, post-All-Star drop-off to which we’ve become accustomed. But will Posey hit like an All-Star first baseman? Like St. Louis’ Matt Carpenter (currently .273/34/71) or Arizona’s Paul Goldschmidt (.292/30/76)? That’s a tremendous leap of faith.

Anyway, unplugging Belt and plugging in Posey at first base presents another problem, because their fielding is not comparable. Posey is a serviceable first baseman. Belt is a superb one. Those same SABR rankings present Belt as the top-fielding first baseman in either league. He’s a whiz with the glove.

Belt can play left field, too. But if you move Posey to first base and Belt to left (in place of, say, Gorkys Hernandez), you are downgrading defensively at both positions. See the conundrums here? You hear some chatter recently of making Posey into a third baseman. I’ll believe he has that agility when I see it.

Of course, Belt has his own issues. His Achilles’ heel is in his head. Belt is prone to concussions, a malady that helped limit him to 61 games in 2014 and 107 games in 2017. Just one more twist to factor into the Giants’ analysis.

The logical extreme of The Posey Quandary is to break the hearts of San Francisco fans and trade the Face of the Giants. But even that is complicated. Posey is scheduled to earn more than $64 million over the next three seasons, with a club option for a $3 million buyout in 2022. He is 31 years old, and will be coming off major hip surgery when he returns to action next year. And his scouting report is fraught with all of the things we have been discussing here.

In short, Posey might not command a major haul in a trade.

This decision won’t be made over a conference table. The Giants will monitor Posey closely next spring, and into next season. They will probably experiment with several divisions of labor. Maybe one of them will take hold, and Buster Posey will get his legs under him again in 2019.

Until then, the player most responsible for the Giants’ three recent World Series titles is a man without a position.

You can reach columnist Phil Barber at (707) 521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. Follow him on Twitter: @Skinny_Post.