See also the Outfielders and Starting Pitchers.
C – Jorge Posada .277/.374/.492 (.305 EQA)
At an age when the bottom drops out on most catchers, Jorge Posada had one of the three or four best seasons of his career. He ranked fourth among all major league catchers in VORP, behind a trio of youngsters (Mauer, McCann and Martinez). Best of all, Posada had what was undoubtedly his best defensive season. Whereas Joe Girardi at long last taught Posada how to block the plate in 2005, Tony Pena taught him how to set his feet to throw resulting in the best caught stealing percentage of his career this past season. At age 35, Jorge Posada is still improving his defense and hitting better than most catchers do in their prime.
A
1B – Jason Giambi .253/.413/.558 (.334)
Although Giambi’s generally been regarded as a DH for years, 2006 was the first season in his career in which he played more games as a DH than he did in the field. Troublingly, despite the prolonged exposure to the non-position, his alarmingly consistent positional splits persisted. Giambi the DH hit a solid .224/.373/.531 (.301 GPA), but Giambi the first baseman hit a resounding .289/.459/.592 (.355 GPA). Unfortunately, Giambi’s defense continued to decline this past season to the point at which the idea of Giambi playing the field more than once or twice a week is untenable.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that Giambi, despite the DH-related decrease in batting average, remains one of the most productive hitters in baseball (he had the fifth best EQA in the AL in 2006 and was tied with Chipper Jones for the eleventh best mark in the majors). It seemed unthinkable in the offseason following Giambi’s scandal, injury, and illness-riddled 2004 season, but Ga-bombi’s 2005 and 2006 seasons, in which he’s hit a combined .262/.426/.547 with 69 homers and 200 RBIs, rank with his best. By both EQA and OPS+, Giambi’s best seasons, in order, are his final season with the A’s in 2001, when he wrongly lost the MVP to Ichiro Suzuki by a mere eight points, the previous year, when he properly won the award, his underappreciated first season with the Yankees in 2002, 2005 and 2006. In chart form that looks like this:
| Year | Team | EQA | OPS+ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | A’s | .381 | 202 |
| 2000 | A’s | .372 | 188 |
| 2002 | Yankees | .352 | 174 |
| 2005 | Yankees | .348 | 156 |
| 2006 | Yankees | .334 | 154 |
Yes, three of Jason Giambi’s five best seasons have come in pinstripes.
