NEW YORK — On May 14, 2011, Jorge Posada saw his name in the ninth spot of the lineup for a Saturday night game against the Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium. He asked out of the lineup before first pitch.
He apologized to manager Joe Girardi the next day. The New York Yankees moved on. Posada played out the season as a designated hitter and retired that winter after 17 seasons in pinstripes.
The Yankees later retired his No. 20 and gave him a plaque in Monument Park in 2015. He returned for Old-Timers’ Day, for the 1998 team’s 25th anniversary in 2023 and for the pregame ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks this season.
On the surface, the relationship looked repaired. Posada was part of the Core Four with Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte, the group that defined the Yankees dynasty years.
Those players still carry weight in the Bronx. Their presence at Yankees practice sessions has long been treated as a bridge between eras, a way to hand down the standards of the late 1990s to the next wave of prospects and young regulars.
That picture cracked this week, three weeks after the Yankees were swept out of the AL Division Series by the Tampa Bay Rays.
The five-time champion catcher says the wounds from his final season never closed. And the fallout has now landed on the current clubhouse, with one prominent voice pointing straight at Judge.
Posada says he stays away from spring training
Posada made the comments on a podcast hosted by veteran baseball writers Joel Sherman and Jon Heyman that premiered Tuesday.
Sherman asked whether the Yankees need someone besides manager Aaron Boone who cares about the brand and brings Posada’s fire. Posada said he could help but did not believe the Yankees wanted him around.
“I don’t feel welcome when I go there, you know?” Posada said.
He said the feeling extends to the team’s spring training complex in Tampa, Florida, where former stars often work as guest instructors.
“I don’t feel like they want me there, so I don’t go,” Posada said.
He did not point to a single incident. Instead, he circled back to 2011, when he clashed publicly with the front office over playing time and his move to designated hitter.
“I don’t know what happened. I’d rather just move forward,” Posada said.
Posada said he spoke with Girardi during that season but not with general manager Brian Cashman or owner Hal Steinbrenner. Cashman declined to comment on Posada’s remarks.
Posada also said he has no regrets about speaking out.
“I’m gonna express the way I feel and … if something’s wrong, I’m gonna tell you,” Posada said.
Schein turns the spotlight on Judge
The reaction moved fast. SiriusXM host Adam Schein said the problem sits with the players rather than with Boone, whom he called a baseball lifer who would never turn away legends offering help.
Schein tied Posada’s remarks to Derek Jeter’s admission on Schein’s radio show in July that he had no relationship with shortstop Anthony Volpe. He questioned where the veteran leadership was.
“I think this officially is a clubhouse issue. I think this officially is a player issue. I think that Aaron Judge needs to take control of his own clubhouse,” Schein said.
Schein also pointed to the current catcher, a position Posada manned for four championship teams in five years from 1996 to 2000.
“You’re telling me Austin Wells couldn’t use talking to Jorge Posada?” Schein said.
Former Yankees reliever Joba Chamberlain, Posada’s teammate from 2007 to 2011 and a member of the 2009 title team, weighed in on X on Tuesday afternoon.
“Says a lot coming from him, just saying,” Chamberlain wrote.
Replying to a fan who said the Yankees look down on former players, Chamberlain was even shorter.
“Who knows anymore,” Chamberlain wrote.
The 2011 numbers behind a 15-year grievance
The final season explains why the hurt runs deep. Posada made just one start behind the plate in 2011, his first year without the catching job since becoming a regular in the late 1990s.
He started 90 games at designated hitter and 14 at first base, finishing with a .714 OPS. Russell Martin took over at catcher, and the Yankees lost the ALDS to the Detroit Tigers.
Posada finished his career with 275 home runs, second among Yankees primarily used as catchers behind only Yogi Berra. He was a five-time All-Star and five-time Silver Slugger.
The demotion stung a player built around the position. It also came after Cashman had acknowledged the friction publicly that year.
“Sometimes there are rough patches, but you try to get through them,” Cashman said in 2011.
Posada aired the bitterness again in his 2015 memoir. Fifteen years after that May night against Boston, he is saying it again.
The wound is yet to heal
Posada has stayed in the game away from the Bronx. He worked in the Miami Marlins’ front office under Jeter and served as bench coach for Team Italy at the 2026 World Baseball Classic.
He watched the Yankees‘ postseason from afar and said the Yankees keep coming up short. He praised the pitching staff and called Judge’s absence a major blow to the lineup.
For a franchise still chasing its first World Series title since 2009, the question of who is welcome in the clubhouse now sits beside the roster questions of a long winter.
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