Posted By Jeff Fletcher on September 28, 2010 10:31 am

OK folks, I know that many of you have been hating on me for my repeated insistence that someone other than Buster Posey (first Jaime Garcia, and then Jason Heyward) deserved Rookie of the Year, but I have finally come around.

If I had a vote — which I don’t, by the way — I’d vote Buster Posey as Rookie of the Year, followed by Heyward and then Garcia.

What changed? Well, first of all, Heyward has cooled off after a great first half of September. As I look now, Posey has an .882 OPS and Heyward has an .853 OPS. In September, Posey is at .900 and Heyward is at .815. (That’s a pretty sharp decline, since Heyward was over 1.000 about 10 days ago.)

As you know, my big issue was that if their overall numbers — OPS being the most telling single metric — were similar, that I’d give the nod to the guy who was in the majors the whole season. Well, now that Posey has a 30-point edge on Heyward, I can’t quite go with the all-things-equal idea any more.

I had always accepted the fact that Posey’s playing time was more significant than Heyward, on a day-to-day basis, because he’s a catcher. Posey has either been in the batter’s box or behind the plate for 2,926 plate appearances this year. Heyward has been in the box 600 times. Catching and putting down fingers isn’t the same as throwing a pitch (a lot of guys who can catch can’t do much else), but it is sure a heck of a lot more important and more difficult than standing in right field.

Finally, Posey has hit fourth for the Giants. He’s in a key spot in the order for a lineup that desperately needs him. That’s a lot of pressure for a young kid. Heyward is a No. 2 hitter. They’ve got Brian McCann, Omar Infante and Martin Prado in the lineup behind him — three All-Stars.

Now, I still don’t have a vote, so my opinion is pretty much meaningless. But maybe it will convince you people that I never had a bias against Buster Posey. I just needed to see some more things, and now I’ve seen them.