On Baseball: Promising Catcher Appears Ready for Pinstripes

“There’s not many anywhere in baseball,” Mark Newman, the Yankees’ senior vice president for baseball operations, said that day. “When you have a chance to get one, you have to go get it.”

At the time, Jorge Posada was only 34, with a year left on his contract and a four-year extension to follow. But it pays to be prepared, and to be lucky. The Yankees had the foresight to identify Montero’s talent early, and the fortune to keep him after offering him to the Seattle Mariners in July for Cliff Lee.

The rest of the tale is well known: the Mariners held out for more prospects, the Yankees balked and Seattle shipped Lee to the Texas Rangers instead. Montero and Lee have been on the Yankees’ agenda again this week.

On Monday, General Manager Brian Cashman told Posada that Montero would have a chance to win the starting catching job in spring training. On Wednesday, Cashman was in Arkansas to meet with Lee, the first major step in Lee’s recruitment. Cashman and other executives have also met with Derek Jeter to discuss a new contract.

This is part of an inevitable transition for the Yankees, who have won so often with Posada and the free agents Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte and Jeter, but now face the realities of time. All four may be back next season, but Posada’s role, at least, will be different.

Or will it? The reality is that Posada has already ceded the primary catcher’s role. In the first three years of his four-year, $52.4 million deal, he has started only 194 of 486 games at catcher — or 39.9 percent. He is proud and gritty and remains a tough out. But age brings down everyone, especially a player who has caught roughly another full season in October. Posada, who turns 40 in August, had surgery on his left knee Wednesday.

Montero turns 21 on Nov. 28. The Yankees have other promising catchers — notably Francisco Cervelli, Austin Romine and Gary Sanchez — but the jewel is Montero. He was ranked as the majors’ No. 4 prospect by Baseball America, and that was before his impressive 2010 season at Class AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

In 123 games, the right-handed Montero hit .289 with 21 homers, 75 runs batted in and a .353 on-base percentage. But the telling line is what he did in the 44 games after the All-Star break, when he batted .351 and hit 14 homers.

That coincided almost exactly with the trade talks for Lee, which took place the weekend before the break. Montero had a .229 average through the end of May, and he had already started to come around by July. But knowing he was expendable seemed to bring out his best.

“Initially it bothered him,” the Scranton hitting coach, Butch Wynegar, said Wednesday from his home in Orlando, Fla. “He didn’t come out and say it exactly, but I could tell it in his demeanor. He wants to be a Yankee, and I think that did motivate him a little bit, knowing that nobody’s untouchable around here. It kind of shook him up a little bit, like, ‘I’ll show them.’ ”

Wynegar raved about Montero’s opposite-field power — which should be an asset at Yankee Stadium — and said he had never seen a prospect use the whole field so well. That is saying something, since Wynegar coached in the Texas Rangers’ farm system when Mark Teixeira was developing.

“Monty was a joy to be around, and he’s still raw and growing,” said Wynegar, a former Yankees catcher who caught Dave Righetti’s 1983 no-hitter. “That’s why I call him a beast. That’s why I think he can be a monster.”

The Yankees are hopeful that the physical growing has ended. Montero is listed at 6 feet 4 inches, 225 pounds, big for a position that favors a more compact body type. The challenge for Montero, Wynegar said, is to shift quickly and to keep his body moving nimbly. He must also watch his diet.

Montero can be a star, Wynegar said, “if he keeps himself motivated like he did last year, staying in shape, working hard, keeping his body toned — because he is a big boy, and he is prone to putting some weight on.

“I think he did a fantastic job of keeping his body fat down last season.”

Montero comes along at a time when rookie catchers are in. The San Francisco Giants promoted Buster Posey in May, stashing him at first base until installing him behind the plate for good in July. Posey, who often batted cleanup, guided an overpowering pitching staff to a championship.

Before Montero can do that, he will have to show the Yankees he deserves to start. Wynegar expects him to seize the opportunity.

“I think he’ll come to spring training with fire in his eyes,” Wynegar said. “He’ll be ready to go. He doesn’t want to come back to Scranton. He thinks he’s ready for the big leagues right now, and I have to agree with him.”

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