Leaving Posada Out

Much has been made over Girardi's decision to leave Posada out of the Game 2 lineup. After all, Posada has been a long time post-season presence on the Yankees and who is Burnett to whine his way into having his own personal catcher? Can't the guy just pitch? Well, as we saw during Game 1, poor catcher's defense can be costly and a strong performance from Yankees starting pitchers is necessary for the team's success. Pitching in the playoffs for the first time is already hard enough; why make it harder for Burnett by giving him a batterymate he was so uncomfortable with during the regular season (4.96 ERA in his 16 starts with Posada)? His ERA is 3.28 in 11 starts with Molina.

But what of Posada's offensive contributions? According to the Lineup Analysis tool on Baseball Musings, the Yankees lineup that Girardi used in Game 1 would be expected to score 6.377 runs. Note: the Yankees only averaged 5.648 runs per game during the regular season, due to not using this lineup in most games because of injuries and doing stuff like starting Cody Ransom. How many runs would the lineup used for Game 2 be expected to score? 5.955. But Molina was only going to get 2 or 3 at bats at most before leaving for a pinch-hitter, so really this lineup should be expected to score about six runs...basically giving it the same run expectancy as the lineup containing Posada.

So if you are Girardi, which would you prefer: the extra half-run that Posada is likely to give you if he starts in the six-hole, or saving the 1.7 runs that you get by putting Molina behind the plate with Burnett pitching?