San Francisco Giants: Buster Posey Keeps Being Buster Posey

Despite a miserable year for the San Francisco Giants, Buster Posey just keeps plugging along as the league’s best catcher.

This year will not be one to remember for Giants fans, but that hasn’t stopped Posey from putting up great numbers.

He is currently 11th in the entire league with a .313 batting average. That’s the sixth best average in the National League. It would be the third best average of his career.

Posey also has the 12th best on-base-percentage in the major leagues at .394. That ranks ninth in the National League, and it would be the second highest average of his career.

I’m not a huge WAR (wins above replacement) guy, but even his 3.9 ranks 21st in the National League. However, that would be his worst total since his 2011 season when he only played in 45 games and had a 1.3 WAR.

His 3.6 OWAR (offensive wins above replacement) is over a point higher than the next best Giant on the team. You might be surprised to know that Joe Panik has the second highest OWAR at 2.5.

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Posey’s counting stats are obviously way down this year. That has a lot to do with the team’s performance and not his own. However, even though the numbers show Posey has been clutch (.311 average with runners in scoring position) this season, it seems like he’s failed to come through in a lot of big spots this year.

Still, he’s scored 57 runs, driven in 64 and hit 12 home runs. Both would be career lows in seasons in which he’s played more than 100 games.

Assuming he plays five of the San Francisco Giants last six games, that would give him 141 games played this year. That would be his fewest games played since 2011, but just nine off his highest total of 150 games played in 2015.

Buster Posey will play the 2018 season at age 31, so he’s getting close to the back end of his career. Especially with catcher’s knees, you can’t expect Posey to be this great forever.

Next: San Francisco Giants: Gorkys Hernandez in 2018? We’ll see

I hope all San Francisco Giants have enjoyed watching the best catcher in the game play great in a bad year.