Posey Posey Posey

We're considering renaming the blog to Our Bay Area Cousins, covering only the Scott Cousins-Buster Posey imbroglio.

Posey released a statement yesterday, which basically screams "I don't want to deal with any of this right now."

I appreciate the continued support of Giants fans and others as I begin the process of working my way back. But in no way do I condone threats of any kind against Scott Cousins or his family.

As I said last week, I'm not out to vilify Scott. I appreciate that he made the effort to reach out to me on the night of the play, but I was in no physical condition to talk to anyone. I have not been back with the team since that night, so I haven't even been aware of any other messages he's left for me. We all need to move on, so it isn't necessary to have a conversation with him at this point.

My only focus right now is looking forward, getting healthy and returning to catching for the Giants.

Meanwhile, legendary catcher Johnny Bench decided to give his two cents, and he says Posey, not Cousins, is to blame for Posey's injury:

When I heard about the injury, I was anxious to see how this happened. Buster put himself in such a bad position.

Bench is not really helping here (indeed, he's basically blaming the victim, which makes no one feel any better about the incident). He went on to explain that he teaches young catchers "to stay away from the plate when you don't have the ball," in order to induce a slide out of the runner. "And if you have the runner on the ground, there's less chance of any severe collision," he concluded. He also likened Posey's positioning to "a disabled car in the middle of a four-lane highway. You’re just going to get smacked." Sound advice, if delivered in a tone-deaf manner.

As for Posey, he could have been more magnanimous, but I understand he's frustrated and wants to move on. Surely someone in the Giants' media relations department will arrange a meeting between Posey and Cousins at some point so the two can shake hands and call it a day. But hopefully for now Posey's statement will put an end to the controversy.

On the other hand, at least this dustup inspired another great t-shirt from Strip Club With Stanton:

Keep up the good work, SCWS!

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Giants and Cousins release statements on Posey fallout

Cousins:

I hope and believe that Mr. Sabean's comments were made in the heat of the moment and are based more on his fondness for Buster Posey than on any animosity towards me. This situation is still an open wound for many, including myself. As I have stated previously, nobody outside of Buster feels worse about his injury than I do. I have reached out to Buster to let him know how badly I feel about his being injured during our collision at home plate.

I do believe, however, that the play was clean and totally within the rules of the game. Explaining over and over that I would never intentionally hurt another player for any reason won't change the minds of those who doubt my sincerity or intent. I have a responsibility to myself, my teammates, and my organization to play the game hard. This is what has gotten me to the big leagues, and hopefully this is what will keep me here.

San Francisco:

This is a very emotional time for the Giants organization and our fans. We lost for the season one of our best players to a serious injury and we are doing everything we can to support Buster Posey through this very difficult time. We appreciate Scott Cousins' outreach to Buster Posey and to the Giants organization.

Brian Sabean's comments yesterday were said out of frustration and out of true concern for Buster and were not meant to vilify Scott Cousins. Brian has been in contact with Florida Marlins General Manager Larry Beinfest to clarify his comments and to assure him that there is no ill-will toward the player. He has also reached out to Scott Cousins directly...

We intend to move beyond conversations about last week's incident and focus our attention on Buster's full recovery and on defending our World Series title.

Echoing Janie, that didn't sound like much of an apology (In Rumsfeldian terms, it is the quintessential non-apology apology). I take the Giants on their implication that Sabean apologized to Cousins and Beinfest directly. Hopefully this issue will be fully resolved by the time the Marlins and Giants next play each other in August (though I have my doubts).

I still think baseball needs to address the rule which allows runners to plow into catchers (and catchers to block a runner's path to the plate), so I hope this round of statements will allow both teams to put the specific incident behind them and advocate for a rule change. Not that MLB will necessarily make a logical and needed change...

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LoMo Speaks

On Brian Sabean's dickbaggery:

First of all, it's wildly unprofessional for him to make any comment on the situation.  When has he played in the big leagues?  When has he played in the minor leagues?  Correct me if I'm wrong but he's never been in a situation like that.  It's terrible.  Why would you wish anything like that on anybody? … He's taking this very hard without the comments that [Sabean]'s made.  He's getting death threats from people.  This is his hometown, San Francisco.  He's worried about his family and his friends that are there.  And now he's going to make comments like that?  It's ignorant, it's inappropriate and he has no idea what the hell he's talking about.

Sadly, this story is far from over. Not that anything that happens from now on will un-injure Buster Posey.

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Sabean wants to be clear: He hates Scott Cousins' guts

Brian Sabean on Scott Cousins:

Why not be hard-nosed? If I never hear from Cousins again or he never plays another game in the big leagues, I think we'll all be happy. ... (Cousins) chose to be a hero in my mind, and if that's his flash of fame, that's as good as it's going to get, pal. We'll have a long memory. You can't be that out-and-out overly aggressive. I'll put it as politically as I can state it: There's no love lost and there shouldn't be.

Two things:

1. I hope you guys love talking about the unwritten rules of baseball, because I bet it comes up next time the Giants play the Marlins.
2. "There's no love lost" never made sense as a phrase to me. There shouldn't have been any love to begin with, right?

Actually, third thing: Posey will not magically heal if the Giants were to initiate a passive-aggressive/regular aggressive fight to the death with Cousins. Sabean understands that he's losing sympathy right? Or does being a dick make you a great leader? I can't keep track.

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BBA Willie Mays Award

[Note: Ted and I are members of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance, and along with Michael Jong of Marlin Maniac we comprise the Florida/Miami chapter of the BBA. As BBA members, we have been asked to vote for the BBA's end-of-year awards through our blog. This is our ballot for the NL Willie Mays Award, given to the best rookie.]

This year's NL rookies were a veritable bumper crop, with much hype heading into the season. All three of our vote-getters were heralded heading into Spring Training, and all three have so far lived up to expectations. Here's our ballot:

1. Jason Heyward, OF, Atlanta
2. Buster Posey, C, San Francisco
3. Mike Stanton, OF, Florida

If you were to go purely on WAR (which isn't an unreasonable move), Heyward wins in a landslide, with 5.0 WAR compared to Posey's 3.9 and Stanton's 2.7 (and Marlins fans clamoring for Gaby Sanchez, please note that his WAR came in at 2.4 despite playing in 51 more games than Stanton, who also out-OPSed Sanchez .833 to .789). Posey did equaled Heyward's 18 home runs in 180 fewer plate appearances, but Heyward had a way better OBP (mostly because he walked at over twice the rate of Posey). And believe me, Ted and I did not like having to choose between a Brave and a Seminole.

You can read Michael's ballot at Marlin Maniac.

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