The World Series ended nearly a month ago and Buster Posey was awarded the NL's Most Valuable Player honor over a week ago, so every Giants fan should have a proper appreciation for Posey's brilliant season by now, right?
Maybe I'm alone but the Giants fan writing this post is still trying to process everything Posey accomplished, not only his brilliant regular season and playoff heroics but also everything that preceded 2012.
In August, I wrote about Melky Cabrera's suspension and where the game on the day of that suspension ranked on the list of worst games in the Giants' 21st century history. That game joined four others that I'll always painfully remember, and quite possibly the worst game of the five was on May 25, the game where Buster Posey suffered a season-ending knee injury.
I didn't see the play live (thankfully) but once I saw the replays, I knew it was a serious injury. For a day Giants fans had the images of Posey's leg bending in a way legs aren't supposed to bend, Posey grabbing the dirt in pain, and Posey being helped off the field. If the earliest possible return was October, Giants fans would've rejoiced.
Then we heard he was done for the year, and while we still had hope for the season, a part of every Giants fan knew the playoffs were unlikely with Posey out of the lineup*. Headlines like this made us wonder if his 2010 season was actually going to be his best.
*His 1.8 WAR (FanGraphs' version) was the third-best by a Giants position player for the entire 2011 season. And people were blaming Carlos Beltran for the Giants August-September collapse?? (By the way, Beltran's 1.3 WAR in his two months with the Giants was the fifth-best among all Giants position players for the season.)
I'm not trying to be hyperbolic when I say this: before the 2012 season, I didn't care how well Posey produced as long as his knee stayed healthy. Just thinking about him squatting for nine innings and 80+ games (if we were lucky) made me feel like I was reliving Game 6 of the 2002 World Series*.
*I'd still probably put this game ahead of the Posey injury game on the aforementioned "Worst Game of the 2000s" list, but the fear surrounding his injury was more long-term than losing Game 6. The Giants still had a chance to win the World Series the day after that Game 6 or in the years following 2002, but when Posey went down the entire future was in question. Would his injury prevent him from having a great career and how much would that effect the entire Giants franchise and their ability to win down the road? We were all considering the worst-case scenarios.
Posey's March/April was great (.353 BA, .413 OBP, .603 SLG) but Giants fans knew it had only been a month and we were just focused on the fact that he made it through a month unscathed.
He didn't hit very well in May but, again, no DL time. June was a decent month hitting-wise but a great month avoiding injuries-wise.
By the All-Star break, his numbers looked pretty nice and we were pumped that he was the starting NL catcher in the Mid-summer Classic. Even if he didn't totally deserve to start, most people believed he at least deserved to be an All Star. Giants fans never said to themselves, "We're glad he's an All Star and all, but his knee could really use this time off to rest." The Giants were playing well and a healthy Buster Posey was a big reason.
Then he completely went off. In September, Posey's OPS was 1.023, which was lower than either of his July or August figures. It wasn't a coincidence that the Giants pulled away from the Dodgers to win the division while Posey was tearing up the league.
While there was a huge debate as to who the AL MVP should be (don't get me started), most people expected Posey to take the NL award when the season ended. People liked his amazing comeback story and the fact that he was on a playoff team, but his numbers -- whether you prefer traditional or sabermetric -- stacked up well compared to every other NL MVP candidate. Other than baserunning, he didn't do a thing poorly in 2012.
Posey's 8.0 WAR trailed only Mike Trout's 10.0 by position players and it was also the highest by a Giants hitter since Bonds' 11.9 (11.9!) in 2004. In fact, no Giants' position player had a WAR higher than 6.9 since in between that Bonds season and Posey's season this year.
Also, Posey is a homegrown player. As Grant Brisbee pointed out, the Giants haven't had very much success drafting and developing position players, which makes Posey even more special.
So to recap: Posey had a horrific, might-never-be-the-same-again injury in May 2011, recovered and was healthy enough to be the 2012 opening day catcher, played well enough in March through July to (deservedly) become an All Star, and played out of his mind in the second half to win the NL MVP award and help the Giants make the playoffs.
Did I miss anything?
Oh right, he also did this. Which eventually allowed him to do this.
Some people say it's a coincidence that Buster Posey has won a ring in both of his only two full seasons in the big leagues (which happen to be the only two seasons in which the Giants have won the World Series in San Francisco). I don't have a rebuttal, I just wanted to type that sentence. Buster Flipping Posey!
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