The Posey Poser

The season looks over for San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey after a nasty home plate collision with Florida Marlins outfielder Scott Cousins in yesterday's game.

Eli Whiteside is the man now

There is no end to what I could say on this subject, but it would all boil down to not changing a thing. (I do think it's reasonable to have the "must slide feet first or the runner is out" rule in Little League)

This isn’t pro football, where I think the NFL needs to do things because the players keep getting bigger and faster, and it's not the quarterbacks getting hurt (too me) as much as it’s the pass catcher going across the middle getting hit. The average age of a former NFL player is about 20 years less than the national average, and much of that is concussion related.

We have been reading or hearing how Minnesota wants to get Joe Mauer out from behind the plate because of how catching wears guys out. The Giants had already started to use Posey at first base to save his legs, and keep his bat in the line up, as Cleveland has with Carlos Santana, who had an awful injury from a home plate collision last August. Detroit’s Victor Martinez DH’s most of the time these days.

Based on my somewhat faulty memory, and much better research, it’s apparent that injuries of this sort are outliers, not the norm, and it's really the base runner that's more in jeopardy.

Willie & Pat

The fact that Buster Posey is a young stud on a World Series champ makes this a bigger deal than we might ordinarily expect, in no small part because of what happened to Santana last August. If it had been Eli Whiteside (the "new" Giants catcher until further notice) that had gotten his leg broken, would we have anywhere close to the same reaction?

I can understand a call for change, but I am always wary of the slippery slope. I think there is a much greater vulnerability attached to the second baseman turning the double play than to a catcher blocking the plate, and if the rule is changed for catchers, what's to stop the take out slide to bust up the possible DP? The Twins lost their second baseman Tsuyoshi Nishioka early this season when the Yankees Nick Swisher took him out on a legal slide, breaking up a double play.

Since Ivan Rodriguez got hammered by Matt Lawton in April of 1999, I can find 5 other home plate collisions that ended up causing significant injuries to catchers: Ramon Hernandez (04); Johnny Estrada (05); Brian McCann (06); Yadier Molina (08); and Santana, last year. Maybe I will do some more research, or someone else can, but I think it’s a safe bet that we have less than one every other season over the longer haul.  I thin, because the last two collisions were so devastating, and happened to such young and highly touted catchers, many are over-reacting.

Fosse was done.

I recall Willie Mays taking out Pat Corrales back in 1965 with a spiked foot to the mouth, and Pete Rose (of course) clobbered Ray Fosse in the All Star game in Houston. Rose missed some time too, but of course with Fosse, it basically ended his career. There have been other collisions.

But how about all the base runners that get hurt, all the time? Should we ban sliding, and make each player jump on the base or plate when they arrive? Let’s ask Kendrys Morales?

I can recall Derek Jeter getting his shoulder smashed in a slide at third base some years back. How about Robin Ventura snapping his leg at home, Mike Lowell effectively ending his career off a slide into third, and Brian Roberts getting a concussion after a head first slide into first?

Owch!

I am not sure what could be done anyway, short of invoking a "must slide rule," and I sure as hell don't want to see that happen.

I bet if you ask him, neither does Josh Hamilton.