Franchise Star Announces Early Retirement: 49ers Lose Cornerstone Player
SAN FRANCISCO – One of the most decorated players in Giants history and the anchor of three World Series teams is announcing his retirement.Catcher Buster Posey, 34, plans to officially retire from baseball on Thursday after spending parts of 12 seasons with the Giants, reports The Athletic.
Posey, a seven-time All-Star, four-time Silver Slugger Award winner, two-time National League Player of the Year and 2012 NL MVP, will discuss his decision in detail Thursday in San Francisco. .After the Giants’ Game 5 NLDS loss to the Dodgers last month, Posey made it clear he still wasn’t sure he wanted to play. He said he and his wife, Kristen, will discuss his future in baseball in the coming days, as Posey has often reiterated that his top priority before playing baseball is taking care of his family.
“Definitely spending time with my wife and talking to her and being a full-time father of four for the first time in a while,” Posey said. “Take it a little slow and see how things go.
“At the team’s end-of-season press conference in October, Giants director of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi and manager Gabe Kapler spoke confidently about their desire to see Posey remain an integral part of the club moving forward.
The Giants had a $22 million club option on Posey through 2022 that the team had to exercise at Sunday’s deadline, but Posey’s decision makes that option meaningless.”Obviously we want to have conversations with Buster and continue internal discussions, but having him on the team next year is very important,” Zaidi said.
The Giants are in a better position to explain Posey’s departure than they were in 2020, when the franchise cornerstone decided to shorten the season to protect the health and safety of newborn identical twins.At the time, Posey’s successor, 2018 overall draft pick Joey Bart, had yet to play a Triple-A game and was offered to the major leagues early.
Bart spent most of the 2021 season with Triple-A Sacramento, and several within the organization believe he has the skills to assume a prominent role as early as Opening Day 2022.Posey has dealt with some serious injuries throughout his career. . which often caused the catcher to reflect on his life after baseball.Posey’s first major injury came in May 2011, when he broke his fibula and tore ligaments in his ankle after a devastating collision with Marlins outfielder Scott Cousins.
That injury forced Posey to miss the rest of the season, but he returned to the Giants in 2012 and won the batting title, hitting .336 with a career-high 24 home runs and a .957 OPS.In August 2018, Posey underwent surgery to repair a torn labrum in his hip that hampered his strength and made catching difficult. Without a healthy winter to prepare for a 162-game season, Posey posted career lows in 2019 with a .257 average and .688 OPS, the first time in his career that he posted a league-low OPS. middle When Posey decided to sit out the 2020 season at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, there was widespread uncertainty about whether he could return to his peak form and be an effective two-way player.
Giants With a home run in Seattle against the Mariners on opening night, Posey began a remarkable comeback as he hit 18 home runs, establishing himself as one of the league’s best pitchers and serving as the Giants’ leader both on and off the field. a team that set a franchise record with 107 wins.
Posey finishes his career with a .302 batting average, 158 home runs and three World Series titles, anchoring the 2010, 2012 and 2014 championship teams for a franchise that has not won a Cup since moving west to San Francisco in 1958.After posting 3.5 bWAR in 2021, Posey will likely win his fifth career Silver Slugger and leave the game with an impressive Hall of Fame resume. Posey may be the only player to win all three World Series titles with San Francisco and eventually reach Cooperstown, but it will be five years before one of the greatest players in Giants history enters the Hall of Fame..
