Cashman met with Posada in Manhattan this week to tell the veteran to, as usual, prepare to catch, but the team’s first option is to have youngsters Jesus Montero, Francisco Cervelli and Austin Romine compete in spring training for the two primary jobs.

It is quite a risk to team an expensive, mostly veteran staff with such inexperienced catchers. But it is indicative of how much the Yankees believe Posada’s defensive game has slipped in all areas.

– George King and Joel Sherman, N.Y. Post.

Is that really “quite a risk”? First off, shouldn’t a veteran staff be precisely the type that wouldn’t be hurt by pitching to young catchers, and the perfect way to provide an inexperienced backstop the reps he needs to accumulate all those lauded and nebulous staff-handling skills?

Second, it’s really hard to tell if those skills really require so much experience. Yankees pitchers yielded almost identical OPSes with Cervelli and Posada behind the plate in 2010 — .724 and .719, respectively.

And Cervelli was way more often charged with handling Javier Vazquez and A.J. Burnett — not only the two worst Yankee starters last season, but the two reputed as most volatile. Burnett yielded a .755 OPS when pitching to Cervelli and a 1.034 OPS when pitching to Posada. For Vazquez: .777 to Cervelli, .930 to Posada.

You could certainly make the case that those figures are only the byproducts of small-sample size fluctuation, since, like I said, neither Burnett nor Vazquez threw a whole lot of pitches to Posada.

But what you can’t really argue is that the veteran Posada was better for the shakier elements in the Yankees’ rotation than Cervelli was.

And while we’re at it, let’s look around the league. Mets pitchers yielded a .756 OPS while pitching to Rod Barajas and a .703 mark pitching to Josh Thole. Giants pitchers: .683 to Bengie Molina, .675 to Buster Posey. Reds pitchers: .788 to Ramon Hernandez, .649 to Ryan Hanigan. Tigers pitchers: .735 to Gerald Laird, .731 to Alex Avila.

Now it could certainly be that the latter, less experienced player in each of those instances earned his promotion to the big leagues by demonstrating a precocious ability to handle pitchers in the Minors, and there’s selection bias at play.

I have no doubt that the ability to handle a pitching staff and call games is at least marginally important, even if many games are now called from the bench. Pitchers coming off good games constantly praise their catchers’ plans for opposing hitters, and the catcher is generally expected to be the first line of defense against a mound meltdown.

But I guess what I struggle to understand is why you need some set amount of Major League experience before you’re deemed apt to do those things. Certainly, time served should help with knowledge of opposing hitters, but so does video scouting, pre-series meetings with coaches, and a bevy of other factors. It’s hard to see why a smart and driven young catcher — good enough to get to the Major Leagues and want to stay there — should present any “risk” to any staff, no less a veteran one.

Word is Montero’s defense leaves a lot to be desired. And Cervelli actually ranked below Posada, dead last on those catcher defense rankings I linked earlier. But Sherman and King aren’t really referring to the measurable aspects of their defense.