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You have to start McCann for now


YourWhatHurts
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There was a lot of badness yesterday.

I expect Madrigal to learn from this and I expect Ricky to bench him to make him learn.  I also expect Jose to learn from his mistake goofing off which cost the Sox an extra base.  I don't expect OTOH Grandal to learn from any of it.

Also the Cordero call actually worked.  He got his ground ball and Yas didn't catch it.  I don't have a problem with Detwiler starting the inning either.  The Sox players threw that game away and there was really nothing Ricky could have done to stop it. 

That all said, it was a nice showing by Cease.  He's still developing and there's no way I would trade him.  Let the process play out with him.  Same with Kopech IMO.

Edited by YourWhatHurts
Edit: wrong thread, meant for the game thread.
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11 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

Completely missed yesterday’s game, what happened with Madrigal & Grandal?

Madrigal ran through a stop sign and got thrown out at home with one out. Then later in the game, he tried to advance from second to third on a grounder to SS and was thrown out easily.  Both happened after he doubled.

Grandal was a mess with the glove. Dropped a pop up (slightly tough play, but it popped out of his glove), couldn't stop any tough wild pitches, and on the final play of the game with bases loaded nobody out, a guy hit a dribbler to Cordero who underhanded it home and Grandal just dropped the ball...game over.  It's crazy to me how bad he is with his glove sometimes for somebody who is so good at framing.

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Great recap.  I saw most of the game, not all of it, but I also remember him outright missing a pitch that he should have caught.  I read posters talking about how lazy and unathletic he looks behind the plate sometimes and I agree. 

When I'm watching the game I'm usually doing other things and it is on in the background.  I'm not watching it with a most critical eye and looking to nitpick things.  But Grandal is so bad back there that he makes glaring mistakes and just has these outright shitty games that you really cannot miss even if you aren't paying the closest attention.

When the Sox signed him I immediately thought of something I had thought of many times before.  There are 2 things on my list of baseball events that I have seen which I will never see again in my lifetime no matter how much baseball I do or do not watch, and no matter how long I live.  One was back to back #300 career home runs by Paulie and Dye.  The other was seeing about half of a packed stadium in the World Series chant the name of a shitty backup catcher with no bat at all - definitely no McCann - because the starting catcher was such a butcher behind the plate that he was costing his team a championship. 

I was willing to give the guy a chance but my god.  That play the other day where the ball went through is legs reminded me of old nintendo games like RBI Baseball where the video game characters would make stupid errors that looked so bad they were not even believable, like the ball would hit the fielder and bounce away with the fielder in some stupid crouch, etc.  But that I think games like those were probably inspired by defenders the caliber of Grandal.  I've seen enough at this point.  I expect our other players to get better and not repeat the same mistakes.  Grandal is just what he is at this point.  And whoever made the comment in the game thread about at least it won't hurt his fWAR is spot on.  Whatever fangraphs says, give me McCann instead.

I think if we wanted a guy who would produce enough offense to perhaps outweigh his many defensive shortcomings we should have just kept Omar Narvaez.

Edited by YourWhatHurts
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Obviously the answer is a time machine to avoid signing Grandal and instead signing a 2-3 year McCann extension. But alas that ship has sailed. Trading Grandal would only be an option if the White Sox ate a portion of the contract, which they don’t normally do but especially won’t do given COVID revenue losses. So the answer is let McCann walk, hope Grandal doesn’t get benched in the playoffs again.

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Grandal seems to lose focus and go through the motions sometimes. Sadly, its happened a few times with the game on the line. Madrigal has been terrible running the bases all year, even knocked himself out of game action doing it. He is Eloy running bases. It's almost as if he never got on base his entire life. There is a big difference between being aggressive on the paths and being crazy. 

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2 minutes ago, SonofaRoache said:

Grandal seems to lose focus and go through the motions sometimes. Sadly, its happened a few times with the game on the line. Madrigal has been terrible running the bases all year, even knocked himself out of game action doing it. He is Eloy running bases. It's almost as if he never got on base his entire life. There is a big difference between being aggressive on the paths and being crazy. 

I don't know if I would call what Madrigal does being crazy.  I would call it stupid.  For a guy whose "baseball IQ" was so highly touted, he seems to play like a dufus.  

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I am probably going to say this 100 more times this off season, but we are not going to resign McCann. Grandal is our catcher for the next three years.  The sooner people grasp that, the more relaxed they will be.  Take these points to heart:

-McCann isn't going to resign here to be a back up.

-The Sox aren't going to block Vaughn by filling up the DH/1B position by giving McCann half of a season's worth of ABs playing the position of DH/1B to try to keep him in the line up when he wasn't theoretically catching with this imaginary extension.

-Forget about trading Grandal and resigning McCann.  Besides this being a pretty complex dance that would involve trying to quickly put together a deal, meanwhile somehow convincing McCann that he should risk sitting around waiting while the Sox try to get a deal done, it also ignores that the Sox signed Grandal to a top of the market deal in 2019 very early in the free agency process.  It would also have to include complex negotiations around how much money the Sox would retain on this deal, as the market will not look the same in 2020 as it did in 2019, especially if the market gets wind that the Sox are trying to pull this off.  Grandal is still owed $18.25 million per year for, the next three years, for a total of $54.75 million.  How much money would the Sox have to keep?  How much would they have to pay Grandal, and how would that effect their needs to spend in RF and SP

-Where is catching spending at this point versus what they will look to spend on a starting pitcher (or maybe even 2 potenitally)?  Would you be happy if the Sox kept McCann, traded Grandal, and went cheap in SP?  Because even if we spend in the 2020 off season, it will not look like what we did in 2020, just because of the results of COVID so far on revenues, and the fact that 2021 could also be a big revenue dud.  The Sox are not going to do a crazy amount of spending and resources with catching, and going cheap on pitching, not after this year.

-Do you see the Sox retaining Nomar Mazara for another year and seeing if his problems this year were health related, and not performance related?  Do you see anyone in the Sox organization who is a starting RF on a playoff team in 2021?  If you answered no to those questions, like 99% of Soxtalk will, then that means the Sox need to utilize resources in RF.  Those resources will come with a MUCH bigger potential gain that screwing around with some McCann/Grandal dance to keep McCann and move Grandal.  Again, do you really see the Sox leaving RF as a hole, while spending more money behind the plate when they already have Grandal?

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32 minutes ago, turnin' two said:

I don't know if I would call what Madrigal does being crazy.  I would call it stupid.  For a guy whose "baseball IQ" was so highly touted, he seems to play like a dufus.  

Madrigal is looking like a guy who is trying WAY to hard to make an impression.  He looks like he is trying to win a job he already has, and is trying to do too much.  He needs to relax and let the game come to him instead of trying to force it to impress people/coaches/staff.

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7 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

Madrigal is looking like a guy who is trying WAY to hard to make an impression.  He looks like he is trying to win a job he already has, and is trying to do too much.  He needs to relax and let the game come to him instead of trying to force it to impress people/coaches/staff.

Couldn't have said it any better. He's being way too aggressive on the bases while trying to show off that baseball IQ.  I think he will settle down and be a great base runner in the coming years, and even then, he will get thrown out from time to time. I'm not worried about him in the long run.

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Option C- Keep Grandal, resign McCann, and trade Vaughn (+ probably a little more) for a top of rotation arm. 
 

May not be what’s best for the team in 5 years, but I think it gives us a real shot at being a real WS contender for a 3 year window. 
 

of course always easier said than done to trade for a very good SP...

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30 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

I am probably going to say this 100 more times this off season, but we are not going to resign McCann. Grandal is our catcher for the next three years.  The sooner people grasp that, the more relaxed they will be.  Take these points to heart:

-McCann isn't going to resign here to be a back up.

-The Sox aren't going to block Vaughn by filling up the DH/1B position by giving McCann half of a season's worth of ABs playing the position of DH/1B to try to keep him in the line up when he wasn't theoretically catching with this imaginary extension.

-Forget about trading Grandal and resigning McCann.  Besides this being a pretty complex dance that would involve trying to quickly put together a deal, meanwhile somehow convincing McCann that he should risk sitting around waiting while the Sox try to get a deal done, it also ignores that the Sox signed Grandal to a top of the market deal in 2019 very early in the free agency process.  It would also have to include complex negotiations around how much money the Sox would retain on this deal, as the market will not look the same in 2020 as it did in 2019, especially if the market gets wind that the Sox are trying to pull this off.  Grandal is still owed $18.25 million per year for, the next three years, for a total of $54.75 million.  How much money would the Sox have to keep?  How much would they have to pay Grandal, and how would that effect their needs to spend in RF and SP

-Where is catching spending at this point versus what they will look to spend on a starting pitcher (or maybe even 2 potenitally)?  Would you be happy if the Sox kept McCann, traded Grandal, and went cheap in SP?  Because even if we spend in the 2020 off season, it will not look like what we did in 2020, just because of the results of COVID so far on revenues, and the fact that 2021 could also be a big revenue dud.  The Sox are not going to do a crazy amount of spending and resources with catching, and going cheap on pitching, not after this year.

-Do you see the Sox retaining Nomar Mazara for another year and seeing if his problems this year were health related, and not performance related?  Do you see anyone in the Sox organization who is a starting RF on a playoff team in 2021?  If you answered no to those questions, like 99% of Soxtalk will, then that means the Sox need to utilize resources in RF.  Those resources will come with a MUCH bigger potential gain that screwing around with some McCann/Grandal dance to keep McCann and move Grandal.  Again, do you really see the Sox leaving RF as a hole, while spending more money behind the plate when they already have Grandal?

Great post. The other huge factor is that Grandal is the perfect fit for our free-swinging righty-heavy offense.  We really needed a lefty who can work counts and get on base, and that is exactly what Grandal does for us.  I'm as frustrated as the next guy when I see him make plays like last night, but we just have to accept that because of all of the other good things he does for the lineup/team.

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3 minutes ago, SoxBlanco said:

Great post. The other huge factor is that Grandal is the perfect fit for our free-swinging righty-heavy offense.  We really needed a lefty who can work counts and get on base, and that is exactly what Grandal does for us.  I'm as frustrated as the next guy when I see him make plays like last night, but we just have to accept that because of all of the other good things he does for the lineup/team.

Why do we need a substandard defensive catcher to do this?  We have the ability to add a bat at multiple other positions.  We could add a 3B and move Yoan to the OF, add a LF and move Eloy to DH with Vaughn in a corner, add a RF and keep things as they are...

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9 minutes ago, TheFutureIsNear said:

Option C- Keep Grandal, resign McCann, and trade Vaughn (+ probably a little more) for a top of rotation arm. 
 

May not be what’s best for the team in 5 years, but I think it gives us a real shot at being a real WS contender for a 3 year window. 
 

of course always easier said than done to trade for a very good SP...

I wouldn't do that.  But that said... if the Sox offered Vaughn, what other team could and would offer a better centerpiece?  We'd be the favorite for whoever we wanted, if we wanted a guy that another team was committed to trading.

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2 minutes ago, YourWhatHurts said:

I wouldn't do that.  But that said... if the Sox offered Vaughn, what other team could and would offer a better centerpiece?  We'd be the favorite for whoever we wanted, if we wanted a guy that another team was committed to trading.

What team has a hole at 1B big enough that they would be willing to give up that kind of a deal?

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3 minutes ago, EloyJenkins said:

McCann is going to sign somewhere and be exposed for being a slightly above average catcher with a 130+ game workload. And Grandal will outperform him the next three years and people here will pretend like it was smart to let him walk 

Those guys don't exactly grow on trees.  I'd imagine if any team signed James and he turned into "just" a 110 wRC+ catcher with solid defense (~3 WAR) they'd be tickled pink.  Grandal needs to DH more, but once again we've found ourselves with too many DH types and none of them really any good.

Edited by chitownsportsfan
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