How do you know when a team has toggled away from rebuild mode? The answer to that isn't always as easy to pinpoint as you might think. But one probable indicator is that when a team signs a 31-year-old catcher to a four-year, $73 million contract, that team thinks it's ready to crack the contention window.
That is what the Chicago White Sox signified on Thursday when they announced their signing of Yasmani Grandal: It is now winning time on the South Side. But make no mistake, while the acquisition of one of baseball's elite backstops might act as a kind of signal switch, the ChiSox locomotive has plenty of track to traverse before it pulls into the station. More moves are coming.
"I'm not sure how we'll be perceived with other free agents," White Sox general manager Rick Hahn said during a conference call. "Our intention, similar to what we did with Yas, was to state our case directly and show that our words are true as to what actions we plan to take. At the end of the day, it comes down to converting on deals."
The timing of Hahn's splash might look odd at a glance. Chicago lost 89 games last season, which was actually a big improvement from a 100-loss season in 2018. Going from that to a team playing in the upper level of free agency is in some respects an act of faith. For Hahn, team president Kenny Williams and owner Jerry Reinsdorf, that faith is based on several years of carefully planned rebuilding. And it's based on the knowledge that Chicago is playing in what is right now a highly winnable division.
The White Sox are bidding to become the 2020 version of the Minnesota Twins, a club that went from 78 wins to 101 -- and a division crown -- in 2019. They did that in Chicago's division, the American League Central, which had for three years been the domain of the Cleveland Indians. The Twins are well-run but also are facing all kinds of player-performance regression, and they need to replace three-fifths of their starting rotation. The Indians are still a factor, but they are coming off a down season and the looming possibility of losing franchise face Francisco Lindor. The Kansas City Royals and Detroit Tigers still are deep into rebuilding programs. Among all of baseball's midtier teams, none is better positioned to move into contention than the White Sox.
"If you just look at the team, and the core, there's a lot of young talent," Grandal said. "The way I looked at it, this team could be a dark horse in the next year or so."
Grandal is an ideal fit on a roster that was screaming for an everyday catcher to work with a promising, but still-developing, starting rotation. And while Grandal's age (he turned 31 earlier this month) runs counter to the trend of shying away from 30-something position players on multiyear deals, he impacts the game in so many ways that Chicago is well-positioned to get fair value out of its $73 million investment.
Most of Grandal's measured defensive value is tied to his ability to frame pitches, metrics by which he has remained strong from year to year and from team to team. He isn't great at controlling the running game -- only Jonathan Lucroy and Omar Narvaez have allowed more steals over the past three years, and they both threw out a higher percentage of attempts against them than Grandal. Also, Grandal doesn't have a reputation as a great pitch blocker, and he has had some high-profile slumps in that area. Overall, though, Grandal has allowed 39.7 passed balls plus wild pitches per 1,000 innings caught since 2017. That ranks 19th out of 78 backstops who have caught at least 500 innings during that span. So that's not an observable weakness.
Overall, Grandal's defensive work generated enough positive vibes that he finished sixth among catchers in the voting for this season's Fielding Bible Awards. That's largely because of framing -- and the outsized impact it has on overall value in the 2019-20 marketplace for catchers. According to FanGaphs' version of the stat, he ranks third behind Austin Hedges and Tyler Flowers in framing over the past three seasons. Flowers, now with Atlanta, honed his framing chops while in the White Sox organization, so the heightened awareness of that skill is not new to the organization. So the impact of Grandal will hopefully not just be pinpointed in his OPS or his defensive runs saved, but also in the ERAs of Reynaldo Lopez, Michael Kopech, Dylan Cease and Lucas Giolito.
"Just seeing what direction that the program is going and talking to them a little bit about what their future plans are, and what their goals are, that kind of got to me a little bit," Grandal said. "I started thinking about it and seeing what they had as far their pitching staff. For me, it excited me a lot. There are a lot of good young arms that can be great."
Grandal ranked sixth among National League catchers in SDI, a mashup of defensive metrics compiled annually by SABR (Society for American Baseball Research). Ranking fifth on the AL side was James McCann, who ostensibly becomes Grandal's backup one season after earning his first career All-Star berth. This is not a bad thing.
"The way we envision things as we sit here today is that having multiple quality players at premium positions is a good thing," Hahn said. "I spoke to James this morning so that he would hear directly from me what the plan is, and Yasmani provides us with some flexibility. While he's certainly a tremendous asset behind the plate, and therefore I expect him to spend a lot of his time there, he does provide us with some flexibility to have that bat in the lineup at DH and at first base. James in certain matchups can DH as well."
McCann's .789 OPS in 2019 was 116 points above his career mark and came one season after he finished at .581 in his final season with the Tigers. Last season, he drew plaudits for his work on the field with Chicago's young pitchers, and he became a go-to guy in the clubhouse. His fine defensive work helped him reach a career-high 476 plate appearances, as his counterparts -- veteran Welington Castillo and rookie Zack Collins -- struggled behind the plate.
Collins, who has worked out with Grandal in the past, can especially benefit from observing his new teammate. In fact, after Collins reached out to Grandal when the news broke, the veteran simply responded, "Get ready to work."
Grandal will take the lion's share of the time when the opponent has a righty on the mound, while McCann will almost certainly slot in against lefties, whether it's behind the plate or at designated hitter. McCann has a .777 OPS against lefties over the past three years and has slugged .448 against them during that span. While an overall regression seems a certainty, White Sox manager Rick Renteria can mitigate that by reducing McCann's exposure to tough righties. Meanwhile, Collins still can find a role as a third catcher/DH by taking advantage of the addition of a 26th player to the everyday roster, a rule switch that takes effect next season.
There is another key area in which Grandal upgrades the White Sox position-player complement. Last season, Chicago's hitters finished dead last in the majors with just 378 walks. Grandal drew 109 of them by himself, ranking second in the NL. He finished with a .380 on-base percentage.
That's key because Chicago is putting together an impressive core of hitters. That group included Eloy Jimenez, Yoan Moncada, Tim Anderson and Jose Abreu at the big league level last season, with Collins getting his feet wet. And it should include elite prospects Luis Robert and Nick Madrigal early on in the 2020 campaign. Anderson, Abreu and Robert are all highly aggressive hitters. However, Madrigal, Collins and Grandal all lean toward patience, while Jimenez is somewhere in the middle.
"Altering our offensive profile and improving our ability to get on base and thereby score runs, it's a priority for us," Hahn said. "I'm guessing that's nothing new and something you'd hear from 29 other clubs. But this helps that a lot. Obviously, [Grandal] was second in the league in walks; the .380 on-base will look very nice in our lineup. That profile is a big positive when it comes to scoring runs. And hopefully, as a veteran player, he's able to help model and reinforce that message from our coaches."
The positional balance still needs to be augmented. Chicago finished dead last in OPS from right fielders with a laughably bad number (.565). And they were just as bad at DH, where just five teams had a worse OPS than Chicago's .641 -- and that includes all the National League clubs.
Fortunately, those areas are more easily upgraded than the catcher position, where true everyday players are in short supply. According to FanGraphs' projections, Grandal's forecasted WAR (4.3) was more than twice that of any other free-agent catcher, with Travis d'Arnaud and Jason Castro tied for second at 1.8. It's that kind of positional scarcity that made Chicago's aggressive play for Grandal that much more logical -- and it sends a message to the remaining free agents.
"If in fact other free agents see this move today as reinforcement to some of the things they've heard from us over the past several weeks, or even going back to last year, that's great," Hahn said. "Hopefully, there will be further moves over the course of the next several months that will continue that positive narrative."
Hahn's aggression in the top level of free agency will have to continue for the next few weeks, and Hahn knows it. However, that's not the only way in which Chicago needs to evolve. The White Sox weren't ready to contend in 2019, but any hopes for a leap even into mediocrity last season were undermined by the soft underbelly of their evolving 40-man roster. That showed up most glaringly in right field and at DH, but also in how inconsistent the bullpen was beyond a solid high-leverage group. The ability of Hahn and his staff to find productive upgrades for the bottom half of the roster will be a crucial ingredient to Chicago's 2020 push.
Hahn might be able to assuage his club's need for improved DH production simply by building a deeper roster. Having three big league-quality catchers plays into this. Grandal, McCann (against lefties) and Collins (a walk specialist) can all be a designated hitter, while McCann and Grandal also can take the occasional turn at first base. However, Hahn must find palatable options for right field, and the targets aren't obvious.
Chicago has been mentioned as a possible pursuer of Anthony Rendon. The money is there for that to happen, and while the White Sox don't have an obvious need for an infielder, Rendon is the kind of player you make room for. Anderson or Moncada could move to the outfield, possibly, or maybe Madrigal will begin his big league career in a utility role, though Chicago might have soon-to-be-expensive Gold Glover Yolmer Sanchez around to fill that kind of gig, if his arbitration-fueled salary isn't cost-prohibitive.
Barring Rendon, the White Sox want to augment their burgeoning young rotation with a veteran anchor or two. In that vein, an all-in pursuit of uber-aces Gerrit Cole and Stephen Strasburg makes a lot of sense -- in a vacuum. That would be an awfully high-stakes play for Chicago, and while it works on paper, keep in mind that Grandal's $73 million deal is the largest in ChiSox history. Jumping from that to signing someone for $200 million or $300 million would be impressive, to say the least.
Outside of a Rendon/Cole/Strasburg headline dominator, the White Sox will be in on the next tier of free-agent starters -- Zack Wheeler, Hyun-Jin Ryu and Madison Bumgarner, with Wheeler in particular standing out as a fit.
As for right field, a great on-base/plus-defense option for a short-duration deal would be Yankees free agent Brett Gardner. In addition to the skills fit, Gardner works as the kind of win-or-die veteran who can help point younger teammates in the right direction. Howie Kendrick could work on this roster in some capacity as well. The possibilities are so much more interesting when a team is actively trying to compete.
"They got a taste of it last year, kind of found themselves on the offensive side, [with] Moncada and Anderson, Abreu leading the way, Jimenez," Grandal said. "You've got young guys who can swing the bat and really play baseball. Hopefully, I can help them as much as I helped the guys in Milwaukee."
However it plays out, the narrative about the White Sox's offseason changed on Thursday. No longer are we musing about when or if Chicago can contend. The signing of Grandal tells us they believe it will happen, and we can evaluate the Sox through that prism going forward. All of this is contingent on Chicago's prospects continuing to improve as a group. The Phillies serve as a cautionary tale of what can happen when you start adding finishing pieces to a puzzle that doesn't yet fit together. If the White Sox contend in 2020, it will be a run fueled by internal improvement.
That doesn't make Thursday's news any less exciting for fans of the South Siders. Sure, there is work to do. But now they know more clearly than ever what the team is working toward -- and when they can expect the project to be complete. The White Sox are the right team at the right moment and, perhaps most important, in the right division to become baseball's most improved team in 2020.
"There is a level of excitement about not only next year but the next several years," Hahn said. "I think the Grandal addition should only reinforce that and make people feel more excited about what's coming together here. At the same time, we know we have more work to do. I can say it sends [a message], but frankly, it's going to ring hollow if we don't reinforce that with further acquisitions."
Those words ought to put a fire under the front offices in both Cleveland and Minnesota as the hot stove season begins to heat up.
Extra Innings
1. Among trends we've seen highlighted frequently over the past few years are the historic rate of strikeouts, along with record lows in innings from starting pitchers. Rarely do you see the intersection of those two trends expressed in the form of some pretty counterintuitive facts.
Starting pitchers are indeed pitching less than ever. But because they get so many more outs via the strikeout -- by several orders of magnitude -- the raw total of their K's has not been impacted. Quite the opposite. During the decade just completed, 2019's starters posted the fewest innings of any season, with more than 4,000 innings fewer (25,158) than the high point (29,300, in 2011). Yet they struck out more (23,970) than starters in any other campaign during the 2010s.
These paradoxical trends are reflected by another oddity: Last season, there were six games in which a starting pitcher struck out at least 14 batters in fewer than seven innings. Reynaldo Lopez, Jose Quintana, Gerrit Cole (twice), Yu Darvish and Dinelson Lamet all pulled off the feat.
How odd was that? Only once during the modern era had there been a season in which there had been more than one such game. In 2001, Randy Johnson did it twice, and Kerry Wood added a third. Other than that, it had happened just once in nine different campaigns: 1966, 1987, 1989, 2005, 2007, 2010, 2014, 2016 and 2018. And that's it -- before 1966, it had never happened.
2. I was talking with someone older recently about why I still advocate for traditional statistics even though I, myself, don't use them for evaluative purposes. He made a great point: The old baseball card stats don't just tie together different eras of baseball history -- they tie together every level of baseball, including youth leagues. When you talk about keeping the big league product relatable to everyone who plays it, I think that matters. Plus, you can easily calculate those old stats off a scorecard and, mostly, in your head or with a basic calculator. That matters too.
Anyway, my main point remains as I've always expressed it: As long as you're using old measures responsibly, there is no reason to retire them to the archives. In fact, doing so shows a measure of contempt for a large swath of baseball's fan base. As a writer about baseball in 2019, I want to reach fans of all sorts, not just the ones who can run a StatCast query.
3. Every once in a while, I run numbers asking questions like, "What would the OPS leaderboard look like if we just subtracted the strikeout category?" The resulting list is basically an inverse of the list of players who strike out most frequently, but it's still an illuminating way to look at the issue of which players have the most to gain from slicing into their K-rates.
Among regulars (at least 400 plate appearances) in 2019, there were four players who finished in the bottom half of the majors in OPS by percentile rank who would move into the upper third of major league regulars if there were zero strikeouts in the big leagues. Which, of course, is beyond imagining. Anyway, those four hitters are San Diego's Wil Myers, Miami's Jorge Alfaro, Detroit's Brandon Dixon and Seattle's Domingo Santana.
A little contact goes a long way, fellas.