The White Sox have been saying for two years that they were ready to spend, finishing as the runner-up in a few of the free-agent sweepstakes last winter, but this winter seemed like the best opportunity for the team to add some significant talent from outside the organization. Enough of their prospects have become productive major leaguers that you can see a championship core forming, with more prospects either just arriving (Dylan Cease) or about to do so (Luis Robert), but it wasn't likely to be enough even in a division that's probably the least competitive one through five of any in baseball. Adding the best catcher on the market in Yasmani Grandal was probably the best move they could make short of landing one of the aces available in free agency -- and that's not to say they couldn't do that too.
The White Sox were extremely lucky to get about two wins out of James McCann, who was a truly replacement-level player for his career prior to 2019. He had a .408 BABIP in the first half, and then returned to his regularly scheduled programming in the second half with a .226/.281/.413 line. He has never hit in the majors outside of the first half, and good for Rick Hahn & Co. for recognizing this and moving on.
Grandal is an exceptional hitter for a catcher; he finished second in the NL in walks last year with 109, the highest total for a major league catcher since 1993 and the fifth-highest total ever. He's got plus power, averaging 30 homers per 162 games over the past four years, and has been very durable at a position that does not exactly encourage durability. He's a much better hitter left-handed, but his approach is good enough that he always gets on base at a good clip right-handed and isn't vulnerable to lefties late in games.
His defense is more of a mixed bag, although modern metrics have certainly boosted his value. Grandal consistently shows up atop leaderboards for catcher framing; he was second in FanGraphs' framing metric in total runs saved at plus-17, fifth in framing runs per 9 innings. He's just average in caught stealing rates, below average at blocking, and had a reputation from earlier stops that pitchers didn't like working with him. The framing value is real, and measurable, and he had career-low passed ball and wild pitch rates in 2019, so the net value of his defense is almost certainly positive, even if he gives something back in the ambiguous area of working with pitchers -- especially since that's probably the thing McCann does best.
Because McCann was almost certainly going to be a replacement-level player again in 2020, this move makes the White Sox two to three wins better for this season, and solves an organizational problem for several years, since they don't have a decent catching prospect in the system (former first-rounder Zack Collins is a well-below-average defensive catcher). They still need to add at least one starting pitcher, and they really could stand to address their offensive deficiencies in right field and at second base for the short term, but this is a huge first step toward contention for the Sox this year.
• Atlanta actually made the first big free-agent signing of the winter when it gave Will Smith a three-year, $40 million deal, also forfeiting its second-highest draft pick (right now, around pick 57) in the process. Smith was the best left-handed reliever on the market this winter, and I said he was the reliever I would be most comfortable signing to a three-year deal, so while the AAV here is high given how volatile reliever performance is, Smith is about as good a bet as any to deliver that sort of value.
He is death to left-handed things, striking out half of the 144 left-handed batters he has faced in the past season while walking just two, and is still very effective against right-handed batters. With Chris Martin returning on a two-year, $14 million deal -- an annual salary that made me shiver, since he'll turn 34 in June -- Atlanta has assembled a promising if expensive bullpen that should help the Braves stay competitive as they sort out their various young rotation options.