For seventeen seasons, Jorge Posada was the heartbeat of the New York Yankees - the fiery catcher of the Core Four who played every inning like it owed him something. This week, he said something no Yankees fan ever wanted to hear: he does not feel welcome around his own team. "I don't feel like they want me there, so I don't go." How it came to this says as much about the modern Yankees as it does about the man who said it.
DID YOU KNOW? The Yankees drafted Jorge Posada in the 24th round in 1990, and he never played for another organization. Seventeen big-league seasons, all in pinstripes, and his No. 20 was retired in Monument Park in 2015.
What Posada Said
The comments came on "The Show," the New York Post's baseball podcast with Joel Sherman and Jon Heyman, in an episode that premiered Tuesday, October 27. Asked whether the Yankees need someone with his kind of fire - someone who will stand up and call sloppy play unacceptable - Posada was startlingly honest.
"I mean, I could, but I don't think they want me there, to tell you the truth," he said. "I don't feel welcome when I go there, you know? Even in spring training, I don't feel like - I'm just like, I don't know, like, I don't feel welcome. I don't feel like they want me there, so I don't go."
Pressed for a specific incident, Posada offered none. Instead he pointed back to the end of his playing days. "My last season of my career was a really tough one when it comes to handling everything in my part and also the Yankees toward Jorge Posada," he said. "So, it's tough to go back and feel that again."
Watch the full episode of The Show with Jorge Posada (New York Post).
The Ending That Never Healed
That last season was 2011, and its wounds were public at the time. The Yankees moved Posada off catcher - the position that defined him - and made him a designated hitter. He started 90 games at DH, 14 at first base, and appeared behind the plate exactly once. Russell Martin took over as the starting catcher.
Posada's frustration boiled over more than once that year, including a famous night in May when he asked out of the lineup after being dropped to ninth in the order. Through it all, he maintained that the decision came from the front office, not from manager Joe Girardi. "That I never got a chance to fight for my job was the toughest part," he said at the time. "I don't have an issue or a problem with Joe."
On the podcast this week, Posada clarified that he talked to Girardi about those decisions back then - but never to general manager Brian Cashman or owner Hal Steinbrenner. Cashman declined to comment for the Post's story.
A Legacy Worth Welcoming
Consider what the organization would be welcoming back. Posada won four World Series rings as the Yankees' catcher - the three-peat of 1998, 1999 and 2000, and the 2009 title that remains the franchise's last. He made five All-Star teams, hit 275 home runs, collected 1,664 hits, and spent his entire professional life in one uniform, something almost nobody does anymore. He has stayed in the game since retiring, working in the Marlins' front office under Derek Jeter and serving as bench coach for Team Italy at this year's World Baseball Classic.
And here is the part that makes the whole thing ache: he still comes back. Posada has attended Old-Timers' Day again and again, including this past August, and he showed up for the 1998 team's 25th anniversary celebration in 2023. The man who helped define an era keeps returning to a stadium where he says he does not feel wanted. That is not bitterness. That is love with nowhere to go.
"I'm gonna express the way I feel," Posada said, "and if something's wrong, I'm gonna tell you. That's the way I played the game."
The Yankees are fresh off another October exit and still chasing their first title since 2009 - the one Posada helped win. A franchise that sells its history to every fan who walks through the gates might start by making one of its greatest living players feel at home in it again.
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Sources: New York Post, "The Show" podcast Ep. 224 and coverage (October 27, 2026) · CBS Sports (October 28, 2026) · ESPN (October 27, 2026)
Photo: Keith Allison via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0