He’s a former NL Rookie of the Year, the 2012 NL MVP and six-time All-Star with a strong reputation for maintaining defensive excellence behind the plate alongside a potent bat.Ī career. Former AL Cy Young winners David Price and Felix Hernandez have also exited, while veterans like Nick Markakis, Ryan Zimmerman, Ian Desmond and Joe Ross have also chosen to skip the shortened season.Īs the centerpiece of the Giants’ three World Series wins in five seasons from 2010 through 2014, Posey is likely the most prominent player to opt-out of playing through the pandemic. Posey joins a slowly growing list of players opting out of the coronavirus-plagued season. I think I want to see how things progress here over the next couple of weeks.” He’s missed the last few days of Giants camp and on Wednesday, called catching an “inherent risk” for contracting coronavirus due to the close contact at home plate with opposing batters and umpires necessitated by the role. “I think there’s still some reservation on my end. “I’ve thought about it and talked about it with my wife, quite a bit,” Posey said on Saturday. The team will have a role for him in the near future - one of those retainer gigs that so many other departing Giants have taken on their way out the door.Posey’s announcement wasn’t totally surprising, as he’s expressed his reservations about playing through the public health crisis multiple times over the past week. Posey said the family will move back to his native Georgia eventually. “All of us who have been around the game for a long time - unfortunately you do see players who get to the end of their career, and the game does get hard. “I think that’s important to me,” Posey said. No, Posey will go out the same way he came in: great. He passed up a $20-million option that the Giants were due to exercise this weekend. “I truly felt like I became a Giant.”Īnd in the years to come, when we look back on Posey’s great career, I believe we’ll be thankful that he saw it fit to exit in this manner - that he didn’t play through the pain, putting his love of the game aside for the cash that comes with it. “There’s nothing else that anyone could have done to make me feel more comfortable,” he said. Three years later, that vision led to 107 wins and a wholly unexpected division title.īut it was that initial acceptance that resonated with Zaidi. After all, the Giants were Posey’s team and Zaidi was an outsider. Posey feeling out the new boss a bit, Zaidi sharing his vision for the team. Not just with a text message saying “congrats,” but with a request to meet.Ī few days later, the two spent hours in a backroom of Oracle Park. “It was a real adjustment period for me,” he said. Zaidi confessed that he was “rattled” those early days on the job. His analytical background, his Dodgers roots, and, sadly, the fact that Zaidi was baseball’s first Muslim team president, did not make his welcome to the Bay Area warm. He was a numbers guy taking over a team that was run in an old-school way. Remember, Zaidi came to the Giants from the Dodgers. Related Articlesįacing former club, Alex Cobb leads SF Giants’ shutout win over Orioles He shared the story of their first meeting. Zaidi, who only had a short professional relationship with Posey, seemed the most moved by the catcher’s retirement. Not only was he a great player (and yet, still, underrated), he led off the diamond as well. There’s no question Posey was the best of the best. More important was his desire to spend more time with his wife, his four children, and his extended family. Ultimately for the Giants’ catcher, the pain that came with being behind the plate for more than a decade was a big part of the decision. Yes, the man we saw behind and at the plate for years was anything but an artificial character. He was committed to thanking everyone he could. There was a bit of early emotion, but otherwise, Posey was deliberate in announcing a decision he made months ago but finalized only days ago. He was emotional but steady in his final goodbye. That’s part of the reason I feel at peace with my decision,” Posey said Thursday. And even as he posted an All-Star campaign - the seventh of his career - and led the Giants to a franchise-record 107 wins, he never wavered in his decision.
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