{"id":89091,"date":"2024-11-06T21:45:16","date_gmt":"2024-11-07T02:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=89091"},"modified":"2024-11-06T21:45:16","modified_gmt":"2024-11-07T02:45:16","slug":"catcher-yasmani-grandal-free-agent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/11\/06\/catcher-yasmani-grandal-free-agent\/","title":{"rendered":"Veteran Catcher Looks to Prove Himself Once Again with New Team"},"content":{"rendered":"

Catcher Yasmani Grandal<\/a>, 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 \u201cworth\u201d -4 Fielding Runs Above Average with zero Defensive Runs Saved.<\/p>\n

Veteran Catcher Yasmani Grandal Looks to Prove Himself Once Again with New Team<\/h2>\n

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\u2019t be overlooked that Grandal emerged as the personal catcher for rookie sensation Paul Skenes<\/a>. 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n