Raj, it isn’t quite equitable to compare Molina’s defensive stats to Posey’s based solely on this year. Posey’s first couple weeks were pretty shaky since he hadn’t caught a regular season game in almost a year. Since the end of April he’s been MUCH better defensively.
As far as his caught stealing rate goes, that says much more about Giants pitchers than it does about him. None of their starters are good at holding runners on and Lincecum and Zito (who allow the most base runners) are downright horrendous at it.
Also, don’t forget that Posey calls a better game than Molina does. Has Molina ever called a perfect game? I don’t think so. The Giants pitch well on the road and at home and I can’t remember the last time I saw a pitcher shake him off.
Now, regarding Cabrera, I don’t think he is necessarily due for much of a regression just because his BABIP is well above the mean. The fact is, some hitters are better than others and some are better than the average hitter, so their BABIP will naturally remain higher than average. .391 is well above average, but Melky Cabrera is a well above average hitter. He had 201 hits last year and batted something like .330 in the second half. He has an insane line-drive rate that he’s sustained since last year. He has excellent speed, he’s tough to strike out but he only walks at about an average rate because he puts the ball into play so much. He’s a switch-hitter. He’s a gap-to-gap hitter who plays in a ballpark with a huge gap in rightcenter.
Basically, he’s EXACTLY the type of hitter, in exactly the type of park, who IS likely to sustain a high BABIP. He gets more hits on balls in play than most players because he hits a lot of line drives and hard grounders; he makes solid contact on a regular basis and when a hitter does this he’s going to get more hits. The grounders are hit just a little harder and find that much more holes. The balls into the outfield are hit harder and on a line more often, giving outfielders less chance to get to it. With good speed on top of that, he can put pressure on a defense on balls that aren’t hit that hard, leading to even more hits. I don’t think it’s a fluke at all that Cabrera is playing this well. He was a highly-touted prospect with the Yankees and apparently he just took a little longer than others to figure how to succeed at the major league level. But I don’t see any reason why he can’t continue to hit well above .300 or even above .350. Shit, who says his season is unsustainable? Some pencil-pushing fagot who thinks that two BABIPs of equal value from two different hitters actually have equal value?
