From Clark to Posey

MARLINS 4 - GIANTS 3

I'm running out of words to describe Buster Posey.

The most impressive Giants rookie in the last 23 years is playing that good.  His rookie campaign has exceeded the level of most rookies in Giants history and is in the same air as Will Clark, Willie McCovey, and Orlando Cepeda.

Will Clark is my favorite Giant of all-time.  My earliest baseball memories are of Clark and the Giants in the playoffs vs. the Cardinals in 1987.  In 1989, I sat out in the upper deck in right field and saw a towering homerun almost make it out to my seat!  I watched Will lead the Giants to the world series in 1989 and watched in sadness when he went to the Rangers after the 1993 season.

Buster Posey is making Clark's impressive Rookie season look mediocre by comparison. 

In Will's rookie year of 1986 he hit .287, with 11 HRs, 41 RBIs an on base % of .343, and an OPS of .787.  He accomplished all this in 408 ABs.  In 1986 these were great numbers for a rookie.  Good enough to earn him 5th place in the Rookie of The Year voting.  Todd Worrell of the St. Louis Cardinals was first.  (1986 was a good year for Giants rookies both present and future.  The top 10 vote getters for rookie of the year included: Robby Thompson in 2nd, Kevin Mitchell in 3rd,  Will Clark in 5th, and Barry Bonds in 6th)

Fast forward to 2010.  In 182 ABs Posey is hitting .368, has 8 HRs, 33 RBIs, with a .404 OBP, and an OPS of  .975!  It's going to be a stretch for Buster to get another 220+ ABs since he's a catcher but if he gets close to 400 ABs this season he just may obliterate Clark's rookie numbers.  One thing that Posey is doing that Clark, hell any Giants rookie other than Willie McCovey, is hit in 19 straight games

Both players had excellent college careers too.  Clark won the Golden Spikes Award, which is given to the best college player in the country, in 1985 while playing for Mississippi State.  Posey won the award in 2006 while playing for Florida state.

Clark finished his career with a respectable 284 HRs,a .303 average, an OBP of .384, and an OPS of .880 in 15 seasons.  In 2006 Clark only received 4.4% of the Hall of Fame vote thus failing to receive the required 5% of the votes to stay on future ballots.  He likely would have increased his HOF chances had he played a little longer but retired early to help care for his son Trey who is autistic.

There is no way that you can ever replace your childhood hero as an adult.  Even if Buster goes on to make Clark's career numbers look tiny by comparison, wins a world series, and gets voted into the hall of fame.  Hopefully, he can be my son's favorite player of all-time!

Last night Buster got the drama of extending his hitting streak to 19 games early with a hit in the second inning.  That and a pinch hit two run replay upheld homer in the 7th were pretty much the only Giants highlights of the night.  Although they did make it interesting in the 9th when had runners on second and third and only one out.  But all they were able to muster was 1 run on an RBI groundout from Andres Torres. 

Aubrey Huff's hitting streak came to an end at 12 games.

Posey looks to extend his streak to 20 games tonight and it's going to be tough with Josh Johnson on the mound for the fish.  The Giants will counter with Matt Cain.  Expect to see little offense on both sides tonight.

Link of the day:

Thrill22.com.  Your home for all things Will Clark.