San Francisco Giants: What Buster Posey has Left to Accomplish for Hall of Fame

With the Hall of Fame vote upon us, we look at what current San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey has left to prove for his Hall of Fame candidacy.

Unless Barry Bonds ever gets in, Buster Posey could be the next Hall of Famer for the San Francisco Giants.

Through his first nine seasons Posey has a career average of .308 and on-base-percentage of .376. He’s also hit 128 home runs, scored 505 runs and has 594 RBI.

Award-wise he has won an MVP, Rookie of the Year, a Gold Glove, four Silver Sluggers, and made five All-Star appearances.

Posey has also finished in the top 10 of MVP voting two other times.

By all intents and purposes, he’s been one of the best catchers in the game for eight years, with him missing one of those seasons because of injury.

We all know Posey is a Hall of Fame-type player, but the one thing he’s lacking is the counting stats that comes with years in the big leagues.

I also think his path to the Hall of Fame is as a catcher. If he ever made a full-time move to first base I think that would hurt his chances of getting in.

When you look at Hall of Fame catchers like Johnny Bench, Carlton Fisk and Gary Carter, they all played at least 17 years.

Posey will play next season at age 31 and is signed with the Giants for four more years. That would put him at 13 years in the big leagues. He would likely need to play another three to four years, which would put him at 37 or 38.

To be fair, all three of the Hall of Fame catchers mentioned above finished their careers playing multiple positions, but were still primarily catchers. And that’s what I’m talking about with Posey, he can still play first base like he has for years, but his primary position has to be catcher throughout his career.

The other thing Posey needs to do is hit the counting numbers. Even though they’re not as important in this era of baseball, we need to see Posey hit 300-plus home runs, score over 1,000 runs and have over 1,200 RBI.

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All of those guys mentioned above met those marks.

Those numbers could be difficult for Posey to hit if you consider that he’s almost through his prime years and isn’t even halfway there on home runs and RBI.

Plus, his power numbers seem to be slowing down tremendously from 22 to 12 over the past four years.

The fact that Posey was the catcher for three World Series runs will also play into his candidacy. And I think that’s what a lot of voters will remember when he comes up on the ballot.

So even if he doesn’t hit some of those counting numbers, I think that helps him get in.

Next: The San Francisco Giants Aren’t Out on Shohei Ohtani

We know Posey is a Hall of Fame player, hopefully he stays healthy and effective enough over the next eight years to solidify himself as a Hall of Famer.