A player who is bitter about how their time with their respective team ended is a familiar sight, but Jorge Posada has a more definite feeling about his relationship with the New York Yankees.
“I mean, I could, but I don’t think they want me to tell you the truth,” Posada said in an interview with the New York Post’s “The Show” when asked if he would be open to a role in the Yankees organization.
“I don’t feel welcome when I go there, you know? Even in spring training I don’t feel welcome, I’m just, I don’t know, I don’t feel welcome. I don’t feel like they want me there, so I don’t go.”
Posada’s final season with the Yankees was 2011, when he moved from behind the plate to be the team’s primary designated hitter behind their addition of two-time All-Star and 2007 Gold Glover Russell Martin. Francisco Cervelli was also ahead of Posada, who moved into first base in the latter years of his career, on the 2011 catching depth chart.
“My last season of my career was really tough when it came to handling everything on my end and also the Yankees to Jorge Posada,” Posada said. “So it’s hard to go back and feel it again.”
Jorge Posada was an integral part of the Yankees’ championship teams in the late 1990s. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)
Posada, a five-time Silver Slugger and five-time All-Star, spent his entire 17-year MLB career with the Yankees from 1995-2011 and was on their active roster for four World Series triumphs (1998-2000 and 2009).
Posada finished third in American League MVP voting in 2003, a year that saw him total 30 home runs, 101 RBI and 5.9 wins above replacement while posting a .281/.405/.518 slash line.
In all, he recorded 1,664 hits, hit 275 home runs, posted a career .273/.374/.474 career and started 1,450 regular season games behind the plate for the Yankees.
As for the present, the Yankees are coming off a 93-68 season where they swept the Boston Red Sox in the MLB Wild Card Series, but were then swept by the eventual AL champion Tampa Bay Rays in the AL division series.
In the regular season, New York’s offense was sixth in MLB in strikeouts (1,480), with its collective defense tied for seventh in errors (96).
“(Mental mistakes are) magnified during the playoffs,” Posada of the Yankees. “So during the season, if it happens and you don’t address it, then it becomes a problem. It needs to happen more during the season and make these guys more accountable. You didn’t run to first base? Take him out of the game. Make him know that means something.
“This isn’t a game. It’s really a job, and some guys aren’t doing their jobs.”
The owner of the Yankees Hal Steinbrenner discovered in a news conference last week that manager Aaron Boone will return for a 10th season in 2027 and general manager Brian Cashman, who has been in the role since 1998 and with the organization since 1986, has been extended.