As spring training officially kicks off, there are a few questions burning on the brain of just about every Yankees fan.  How will our new big money players fare in the big city?  How worried should we be about Mo and his recovery from shoulder surgery?  Which sweater will A-Rod wear to his press conference tomorrow? 

But there’s another, quieter, though arguably more important, question to consider:  What’s to become of Jorge Posada?

I was listening to ESPN Radio today, and Colin Cowherd made the argument that of all of the factors contributing to the Yankees’ collapse last season, Posada’s absence was the most damaging.  Of course, he also made the argument that the economic situation isn’t nearly as bad as the state of affairs in the world of offensive catching.  So maybe we shouldn’t listen to everything Colin Cowherd has to say.

 But, still, the man has a point.

Here’s the thing about Jorge Posada.  He’s not A-Rod.  (Small miracles.) He’s not Jeter.  He doesn’t make Page Six off the field, and he doesn’t necessarily produce fireworks on the field.  But he produces.  He gets on base.  He gets the job done. We just don’t-for whatever reason-like to talk about him about quite as much as other people. 

Prior to last year, Posada has been nothing if not dependable. He caught 130+ games for eight consecutive years, delivering a minimum of 19 home runs per season-70 RBI’s in all but one of them.  And here’s the kicker-2007 was one of Posada’s best offensive seasons yet.  With a .338 batting average, 20 home runs, 90 RBIs and .426 OBP, he became the first Yankee catcher since Munson to make the list of top ten 10 AL batting leaders. As Cowherd pointed out, it’s no coincidence that the first time the Yanks failed to make the playoffs in over a decade happened to correspond with Posada’s protracted stint on the DL.

Jorge is determined to come back and be badder than ever, pshawing at the suggestion that he might only play a mere 110 games this season.  But I’d settle for that as long as he’s playing them healthy. The good news is that Girardi seems confident that Jorge’s recovery from shoulder surgery is going well.  He said he could tell by the “noise of the baseball in the air” during Posada’s throwing session. 

And that might totally instill confidence in me if I knew what it meant.