SAN FRANCISCO — Buster Posey won’t make any guarantees, but as he sat in front of his locker over the weekend, he lit up while talking about digging into the batter’s box and knowing his legs are back under him.
“I think what I’m excited about is just hopefully being able to do some things that I know I can get my body to do now,” he said. “Hopefully it’ll do what I want it to do.”
Posey, who turns 32 next spring, looked up from his chair.
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“I’ll use a little of my old-man, gray-hair strength,” he said, smiling.
The Giants are hoping to see a lot of it. This team needs plenty of help, but a healthy and powerful Posey would certainly go a long way towards getting the lineup on the right track.
Posey played through hip discomfort the entire season and coaches and trainers quietly marveled at his pain tolerance. On many nights, they would look over at Posey after five or six innings and wish they could take him out of the game, but he would snap his shinguards on and go back out there through 27 outs before retreating to the trainer’s room for treatment. His swing was often an all-upper-body attempt to put the ball in play back up the middle, and it’s a testament to Posey’s ability as a hitter that he batted .284 despite having very little physical ability to use his lower half to drive the ball.
Posey had just five homers before all involved came to the decision that an unlikely playoff push was over. He underwent surgery Aug. 27 to address a right hip impingement and repair a torn labrum. On Saturday, Posey revealed that the procedure was slightly more complicated than the Giants first announced.
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When Posey was in surgery, Dr. Marc Philippon also performed a minor microfracture procedure to repair damaged cartilage. Long-term, the Giants hope it helps keep Posey healthy. Short-term, it only added two weeks to the time Posey must be on crutches. Posey was initially surprised by the added procedure, but said he was told it’s relatively common. The Diamondbacks’ Nick Ahmed also had a microfracture when he had his hip repaired by Dr. Philippon, and Brandon Belt had the same thing done to his knee two weeks ago.
“It was very minimal from what I heard,” Posey said. “Obviously once your cartilage is too beat up that’s when you get to the point of replacement stuff. It was definitely something I see as a positive, to be able to get in there and correct this before it got any worse.”
Posey will be off his feet for a couple more weeks and then will need six weeks to strengthen the area around the hip. After that, some limitations will be removed and he can resume more normal weight lifting and baseball work. He doesn’t anticipate throwing or hitting before the end of 2018, but said he normally wouldn’t do that anyway.
Giants doctors are encouraged, and when a new leader is brought into the baseball operations department, he won’t have any decisions to make with Posey. Brian Sabean and Bruce Bochy both said Sunday that they anticipate Posey will resume his everyday role behind the plate.
“There’s been no discussion about him playing any other position,” Sabean said. “He’s our franchise player and he wants to catch.”