Jorge Posada said that his days as a Yankees player are over and that he must decide between joining another team or retiring after 17 Major League seasons.

"I don't think there's not even a percentage of chance that I can come back," the 40-year-old Posada told reporters Wednesday night before his foundation's annual dinner.

Posada said that his agents have heard from about a half-dozen teams that had expressed interest, but he probably will wait until between January and the beginning of Spring Training to make a decision whether to continue playing.

"I feel I'm undecided. I don't know if I want to play. I don't know if I want to stay home," he said, with his wife Laura at his side. "I'm having fun with the kids and with the family, but I don't know what I want to do.

"I don't want to make the mistake of telling you that I'm not going to play or telling you that I'm going to play when I don't know what I want to do."

Posada endured a turbulent 2011 season, beginning with a November 2010 discussion in which general manager Brian Cashman informed Posada that he would no longer be considered a catcher by the club.

While he welcomed replacement backstop Russell Martin to the club, the switch-hitting Posada struggled to adjust to a new role as a full-time designated hitter.

Tensions boiled over on May 14 at Yankee Stadium, when Posada asked out of the lineup against the Red Sox after manager Joe Girardi batted him ninth -- his first time at that spot in the order since 1999.

"Everything happened for a reason," Posada told reporters at New York's Surrey Hotel, where he was hosting an event to fund research for craniosynostosis, a condition from which his son Jorge IV suffers. "I'm not bitter at the Yankees. I'm not bitter at Brian Cashman. It just happened. I wish at that moment I would have changed a couple things, but it happened and you learn from it."

Posada finished the season batting .235 with 14 home runs and 44 RBIs in 115 games, making 82 starts at DH and 11 at first base. He was among the club's best performers in the five-game American League Division Series loss to the Tigers, batting .429 (6-for-14) with four runs scored.

Before the season ended, Posada did get into one last game as a catcher, strapping on the gear as an emergency replacement on Sept. 10 in Anaheim.

It was his 1,574th game catching for the franchise; only Bill Dickey (1,708) and Yogi Berra (1,695) have caught more games in pinstripes.

The current situation reminded Posada of the decision Bernie Williams faced after the 2006 season, when the Yankees offered the outfielder only an invitation to Spring Training.

Williams decided to sit out, hoping for a guaranteed contract, and never appeared in another Major League game. Posada said he spoke to Williams, who told him to make sure he didn't do or say anything he'd regret.

After spending his entire big league career with the Yankees, Posada said that he wasn't sure if he would want to start again with a new organization and new teammates.

"I will always be a Yankee," he said. "The New York Yankees for me is my second family. It will be tough to put on another uniform for real and learn another set of rules and all that stuff."

A career .273 hitter, Posada ranks seventh on the Yankees' all-time list with 379 doubles and 936 walks, eighth with 275 homers and 11th with 1,065 RBIs. His 246 home runs as a catcher are second on the club's all-time list, behind only Berra (306).