Catcher Yasmani Grandal, fresh off a season with the Pittsburgh Pirates, will once again be searching for a new home. In 2024, Grandal struggled both at the plate and behind it. He hit .228/.304/.400, 9 HR, and 27 RBI in 72 games. Defensively, he threw out just 8.3 percent of would-be base stealers and was “worth” -4 Fielding Runs Above Average with zero Defensive Runs Saved.
Veteran Catcher Yasmani Grandal Looks to Prove Himself Once Again with New Team
There were positives, however few. In August and September, while the Pirates were doing their best to fall out of the National League Wild Card race, Grandal refused to go down without a fight, hitting .311/.440/.554 with five homers during that stretch. He got high marks for his pitch-framing skills. FanGraphs credited Grandal with an 8.5 Framing WAR. Unfortunately, this was just one factor in his overall WAR of 1.4, indicating a mere replacement-level player (Baseball Reference was less kind, computing his WAR at 0.6). Finally, it can’t be overlooked that Grandal emerged as the personal catcher for rookie sensation Paul Skenes. For the reader that may have spent this past season on Mars, all Skenes did was pitch to an 11-3 record and a 1.96 ERA, blowing up the radar gun on a nightly basis while putting himself in the conversation for the NL Rookie of the Year Award.
Depth at Catcher
Skenes will have to live without his personal catcher in 2025. (The guess here is he’ll do just fine.) When the Pirates signed Grandal to a one-year deal in the spring, it was clear that they wouldn’t need the services of the veteran catcher beyond that period. Endy Rodríguez, ticketed to be the starting catcher, sat out 2024 with an injury. The Pirates hoped that Grandal would spend 2024 backing up and mentoring Henry Davis while leaving them with a serviceable catcher should Davis falter. To say Davis faltered would be the understatement of 2024. He hit just .144/.242/.212, resulting in Pirates watchers seeing more of Grandal behind the dish than perhaps planned. During Davis’s time with the big club, however, Grandal drew praise for working with the young catcher on game planning.
Moreover, Grandal wasn’t the Pirates’ first choice when they went hunting for a catcher in the offseason. When Joey Bart was acquired in an early April trade, it was revealed that the Pirates had inquired about his availability before signing Grandal. It was also reported that the first free agent catcher they turned to was Gary Sánchez, who eventually signed with the rival Milwaukee Brewers. The Pirates will enter the 2025 season with a catching tandem of Bart and Rodríguez. Davis could complicate matters should his bat wake up. Thus, while nothing is set in stone, it seems clear that Grandal won’t be back with Pittsburgh in 2025.
The Yazmanian Devil
If all it took for success was a cool nickname, Grandal would be the best catcher in baseball. Known as the “Yazmanian Devil,” the switch-hitting catcher will turn 36 on Friday. With his scraggly beard and collection of tattoos, he looks like somebody you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley. Grandal was the No. 1 draft pick of the Cincinnati Reds in the 2010 June Amateur Draft. Cincinnati traded him to the San Diego Padres, where he made his major league debut in 2012. He later played for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Brewers, Chicago White Sox, and Pirates. Never a hitter for a high batting average, he used to produce good power numbers at the plate. From 2016-21, he hit 132 home runs, hitting at least 22 in every season except the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.
For his career, Grandal has hit .236/.345/.424, 194 HR, and 592 RBI. He’s never consistently received high marks for his defense behind the dish. As recently as 2023, opponents stole 98 bases with Grandal behind the plate, leading the American League. He also plays first base, appearing in 97 games there over his career.
Where Does Grandal Fit?
There aren’t a lot of teams looking for catchers. At this point, only the Padres and Tampa Bay Rays are said to be prioritizing the catching position. Working in Grandal’s favor is the fact that among catchers, the free agent pickings are kind of slim. The best available catcher might be Elias Díaz, who the Colorado Rockies released in August. Thus, the guess here is that Grandal will avoid having to accept a minor league deal to latch onto his next team.
Grandal might best fit on a team with a young pitching staff and a young catcher, where his mentoring skills would be valuable. That could send the Cuban native to Florida, either with the Rays or Miami Marlins. A reunion with the White Sox might make sense, too, although while there he was alleged to have been part of the clubhouse dysfunction that wracked the team in 2023. Getting back to 2024, although the bat came alive in August, he also got off to a poor start, hitting .184/.221/.319 at the end of July. Accordingly, an incentive-packed deal like the one he signed with Pittsburgh is likely in his future.
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