SAN FRANCISCO — When Buster Posey embraced Dominic Leone with a bear hug on Sunday at Oracle Park, the longest-tenured Giants player turned around to see a stadium full of fans celebrating the team’s first National League West title since 2012.
“After the game, looking up in the stands and seeing everybody together, that’s what I noticed,” Posey said. “It made me really, really happy.”
The scene was hardly unique for Posey, who was behind the plate when the Giants clinched their two most recent division titles. He’s won three World Series, caught three no-hitters and a perfect game and delivered six career walk-off hits, but Posey isn’t the type to take a celebration like Sunday’s for granted.
Not after what the world has been through since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.
“It made me happy to see people sharing moments together like this and that’s what’s so great about sports,” Posey said. “It allows people, families, communities to come together and what the whole world has been through these last few years having to really just isolate, it was a great feeling to see everybody enjoying the moment together.”
Posey was the lone Giants player to sit out the truncated 2020 season as he and his wife Kristen adopted identical newborn twin girls last July. In an effort to keep his family healthy and safe, he chose to take a year off from baseball before returning to the organization during spring training.
During an offseason that initially appeared underwhelming, president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi and general manager Scott Harris insisted the biggest “acquisition” the Giants would make in 2021 was having their franchise cornerstone return to his role as the team’s primary catcher.
Zaidi, Harris and manager Gabe Kapler also spoke about ending the Giants’ four-year playoff drought, but given the Dodgers’ loaded roster and the Padres’ high-profile transactions, it seemed those tasked with leading the franchise were overly optimistic.
How could Posey, who posted a career-low .257 average and .688 OPS in 2019, make such a significant difference after sitting out an entire season?
“Extremely talented, outlier athletes, I don’t get surprised by and Buster falls into that category,” Kapler said. “World Series trophies, MVP, Rookie of the Year, leadership characteristics, intensity, all of the intangibles, so no surprise, particularly given how much work he put into making this happen.”
The better question might be why did anyone doubt him?
“Is it surprising that Buster is hitting .300 after a year off? I guess a little bit, but also, he’s done it,” teammate Brandon Crawford said. “He’s above a career .300 hitter, so no it’s not surprising at the same time.”
After spending a season at home with his family, Posey returned to the diamond in 2021 and posted an .889 OPS, the highest mark of any catcher with at least 400 plate appearances including MLB’s home run leader, Royals backstop Salvador Perez (.859).
Posey was at his best offensively during the first half of the season, but a regimented rest schedule he crafted alongside Kapler, the Giants’ medical staff and the team’s strength and conditioning staff allowed for the 34-year-old to be an effective two-way player down the stretch.
Posey caught two of three games in most series the Giants played this year, but during the final two weeks of the season, he started 10 of the team’s last 13 games and five of the final six. During that two-week stretch, Posey went 14-for-45 (.311) with a .922 OPS as he delivered a go-ahead two-out, two-run single in the Giants’ regular season finale while also tacking on an additional RBI later in the 11-4 blowout win.
“Seeing the way Buster reacted after he got the two-run single, which was really the biggest moment of the season in a season with many moments, we knew it was important to get on the board early, that was just awesome to see,” Zaidi said. “A player like that who was that low-key demeanor because he’s seen a lot and been so successful, you see that and you know that these guys have been waiting for a while to get back to a moment like this.”
There’s no shortage of reasons a team that was projected to win between 72 and 75 games exceeded expectations and finished with a franchise-record 107 victories, but Posey’s renaissance is at or near the top of the list. A player who anchored the Giants’ World Series championship teams looked just like he did during the prime of his career, and there’s no way to overstate the importance that taking a year off had for enabling Posey to be at his best when the club needed him the most.
“Part of that year was spent A) recovering but also B) starting to work toward 2021,” Kapler said. “He came to camp, continued that diligence and all of the preparation that has made him who he is throughout his career. Those are the type of athletes and people that you bet on and I think there’s a lot of people around here that would have pushed a lot of chips in on Buster’s resurgence.”
