While the rest of the world was watching the Super Bowl, the Pirates found some veteran catching depth, signing two-time All-Star Yasmani Grandal via free agency, sources confirmed to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Sunday night.
It’s a one-year deal (pending physical) for Grandal, and it’s an incentive-laden deal that starts at $2.5 million.
Grandal, a 35-year-old native of La Habana, Cuba, played 118 games for the Chicago White Sox in 2023 and hit .234 with a .647 OPS. The recent results haven’t been pretty, but Grandal does have a pretty solid history of offensive production.
In 12 MLB seasons spent with the Padres, Dodgers, Brewers and White Sox, Grandal has hit .237 with .773 OPS and 111 OPS+ — where 100 is considered league average.
Grandal was an All-Star for the Dodgers in 2015 and the Brewers four years later, when hit .246 with an .848 OPS and a career-high 28 homers. That was one of five seasons for Grandal where he hit at least 22 home runs, while he also collected a career-high 77 RBIs that season in Milwaukee.
The deal comes a couple days after it was learned that the Pirates had expressed interest in Gary Sanchez, who wound up signing a one-year, $7 million deal with the Milwaukee Brewers.
During a seven-year period between 2015-2021, Grandal slashed .239/.357/.461 and had a 122 wRC+ that trailed only Will Smith and Mitch Garver among catchers. On the other side of the ball, Grandal was worth 56 defensive runs saved at that time, which ranked fourth in MLB.
There has been a recent decline to Grandal’s game, however. During the past two seasons, he has slashed just .219/.305/.306 with an OPS+ of 71.
The defensive skills have also seemingly diminished, with Grandal producing a fielding run value (per Baseball Savant) of -1, which was bettered 56 backstops across baseball.
Grandal’s blocking (61st percentile) and framing (72nd) did grade out well, but that’s it. Grandal posted poor pop times and, as a result, didn’t throw particularly well.
The Pirates will be dangling playing as an incentive and hoping for a bounce-back in a depth role alongside Henry Davis and Jason Delay.
Pittsburgh has Davis will primarily catch this season. General manager Ben Cherington also said back in January that the Pirates expect Delay to play a larger role on the club.
One possible scenario involves Delay — who does have minor league options remaining — starting the year with Triple-A Indianapolis, should Grandal work out and Davis earn a roster spot.
Either way, Grandal has work to do to show the recent downturn is behind him. If the 2023 struggles weren’t enough, he was much worse in 2022, hitting just .202 and producing a .570 OPS.
Defensively, Grandal has been worth -16 defensive runs saved (per FanGraphs) over the past two seasons. That’s compared to 42 over his first 10 seasons.
But with Delay and Davis lacking experience, the same for Ali Sanchez, Grandal — who has a 14.1% career walk rate, carrying another characteristic the Pirates value — offers some measure of certainty behind the plate.
He has caught 1,235 career games while hitting .237 and producing a plenty respectable .773 OPS. From 2015-21, Grandal was worth 30.2 wins above replacement, per FanGraphs, which outpaced Buster Posey (27.3), J.T. Realmuto (23.4) and everyone else.
The biggest question is how much of that player are the Pirates are actually getting?
Jason Mackey: jmackey@post-gazette.com and Twitter @JMackeyPG.
First Published: February 12, 2024, 1:27 a.m.