McCann Extension

[Moan4Yoan]

2 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

Notable free agents for 2020-21
Catcher: J.T. Realmuto, Mike Zunino, Yadier Molina
 

First base: C.J. Cron, Yuli Gurriel, Ryan Zimmerman
Second base: Starlin Castro, Jason Kipnis, Cesar Hernandez, Marwin Gonzalez, DJ LeMahieu, Daniel Murphy (mutual option)
Third base: Justin Turner, Zack Cozart, Jake Lamb
Shortstop: Andrelton Simmons, Jonathan Villar, Marcus Semien, Jurickson Profar
Outfield: Mookie Betts, George Springer, Yoenis Cespedes, David Peralta, Michael Brantley, Joc Pederson, Jackie Bradley Jr., Jay Bruce, Giancarlo Stanton (opt-out)
DH: Edwin Encarnacion
Starting pitchers: Trevor Bauer, Robbie Ray, James Paxton, Masahiro Tanaka, Jake Arrieta, Marcus Stroman, Jose Quintana
Relievers: Blake Treinen, Jeremy Jeffress, Alex Colome, Brandon Morrow, Andrew Miller (club option)

 

Once again, like Grandal this offseason...only ONE option on the market.

There's no reason why they can't go ahead and sign him to a three year deal for $20-25 million and then continue to work on improving the position with Collins or via the trade market.

 

The year after, that 2021, more garbage (because Perez's defensive skills have likely eroded with all the time sitting out with TJS)

Catcher: Salvador Perez, Wilson Ramos, Yan Gomes

 

I’d rather give Grandal $60 million and bring back McCann at his one year arbitration cost, as opposed to guaranteeing McCann $25 million.

[caulfield12]

16 minutes ago, Moan4Yoan said:

I’d rather give Grandal $60 million and bring back McCann at his one year arbitration cost, as opposed to guaranteeing McCann $25 million.

Sure, but every team in baseball in "win now" mode is probably thinking the same thing about Grandal...especially with his second half slide, it makes him theoretically affordable to any team on a single year basis, like the Brewers are doing with him and Moustakas.

You'd have to blow away the rest of baseball by 10-15% and offer longer years than anyone, exposing you to the downside risk at the back end of the contract when he's nearing his mid 30's in the very middle of your supposed contention window.

No easy answers at the catching position, certainly.

(It all just depends on what they ACTUALLY think about Collins' long-term potential.)

 

[greg775]

17 hours ago, caulfield12 said:

Sure, but every team in baseball in "win now" mode is probably thinking the same thing about Grandal...especially with his second half slide, it makes him theoretically affordable to any team on a single year basis, like the Brewers are doing with him and Moustakas.

You'd have to blow away the rest of baseball by 10-15% and offer longer years than anyone, exposing you to the downside risk at the back end of the contract when he's nearing his mid 30's in the very middle of your supposed contention window.

No easy answers at the catching position, certainly.

(It all just depends on what they ACTUALLY think about Collins' long-term potential.)

 

It's not difficult. Collins and McCann are the Sox 2 deep at catcher the next 10 years or so. Keep both. Though McCann might want to be guaranteed starting job after this fine season. Collins is ready. If McCann won't agree to split time we may have to let him sign elsewhere.

[zisk]

17 hours ago, caulfield12 said:

Sure, but every team in baseball in "win now" mode is probably thinking the same thing about Grandal...especially with his second half slide, it makes him theoretically affordable to any team on a single year basis, like the Brewers are doing with him and Moustakas.

You'd have to blow away the rest of baseball by 10-15% and offer longer years than anyone, exposing you to the downside risk at the back end of the contract when he's nearing his mid 30's in the very middle of your supposed contention window.

No easy answers at the catching position, certainly.

(It all just depends on what they ACTUALLY think about Collins' long-term potential.)

 

Speaking of Collins. What happened to him the last 6-7 weeks? If he had a normal drop off from AAA to the majors, he'd end up near an .800-.850 ops.

I kinda figured he'd end up being a poor mans Mickey tettleton, but who knows.

[Timmy U]

2 hours ago, greg775 said:

It's not difficult. Collins and McCann are the Sox 2 deep at catcher the next 10 years or so. 

McCann is 29.  Let’s say 4 years and I agree.

[poppysox]

2 hours ago, greg775 said:

It's not difficult. Collins and McCann are the Sox 2 deep at catcher the next 10 years or so. Keep both. Though McCann might want to be guaranteed starting job after this fine season. Collins is ready. If McCann won't agree to split time we may have to let him sign elsewhere.

McCann won't be making outlandish demands IMO.  A 3 year contract at 6 million per would have him doing handsprings.

[kitekrazy]

49 minutes ago, poppysox said:

McCann won't be making outlandish demands IMO.  A 3 year contract at 6 million per would have him doing handsprings.

 You forget they have agents.

[poppysox]

6 minutes ago, kitekrazy said:

 You forget they have agents.

The vast number of major leaguers sign for reasonable offers.  Only a few agents have magical powers over their clients.

[SCCWS]

2 hours ago, poppysox said:

McCann won't be making outlandish demands IMO.  A 3 year contract at 6 million per would have him doing handsprings.

I think that might do it or worse case they have to go 4 years. I think 6 is a good number for him. 

[Superstar Lamar]

16 hours ago, poppysox said:

McCann won't be making outlandish demands IMO.  A 3 year contract at 6 million per would have him doing handsprings.

He would have to have a bigger set than I gambling on himself as a 31 year old free agent catcher with much more bad history than good in the league.

My guess is that he would jump at the security of a long term deal

[poppysox]

Grandal, McCann and Collins would work nicely for me.  Lots of lineup flexibility and experienced catching to handle a young staff.

[JUSTgottaBELIEVE]

On 5/23/2019 at 12:43 PM, chitownsportsfan said:

McCann and Narvaez have a 147 and 143 wRC+ respectively and have put up 2.6 combined fWAR.  1.4 for Omar and 1.2 for McCann.

That's absolutely incredible.

Looks like our old friend Narvaez has plateaued from an fWAR perspective (lower now than he was in May) while McCann is still going strong. I wonder what a 2 year deal for McCann would look like this winter, buy out next year’s arbitration and tack on an extra year of control after that.

[TheFutureIsNear]

I’d bet $ that if I looked up post histories of most of the people that are talking about extending McCann are the same people that were penciling in the likes of Delmonico, Palka, Yolmer, Covey, etc into future lineups. 

 

Absolutely 0 reason to touch McCann’s contract with a year of control left 

[chitownsportsfan]

19 minutes ago, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

Looks like our old friend Narvaez has plateaued from an fWAR perspective (lower now than he was in May) while McCann is still going strong. I wonder what a 2 year deal for McCann would look like this winter, buy out next year’s arbitration and tack on an extra year of control after that.

It's hard to fathom how he plays catcher and is still dinged -.8.3 runs from Fangraphs.  Actually no, it's not hard to fathom, we all watched him.  He catches the ball like he's sitting on a barge going down a river.

Ditching him for McCann (even though McCann was brought in as the backup to Castillo) was a good move and worked out great.  Kudos to Hahn most of his trades are pretty good.  Of course FA has been a nightmare we all are just waiting to see at this point if he can figure it out.

Edited August 23, 2019 by chitownsportsfan

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

1 minute ago, chitownsportsfan said:

It's hard to fathom how he plays catcher and is still dinged -.8.3 runs from Fangraphs.  Actually no, it's not hard to fathom, we all watched him.  He catches the ball like he's sitting on a barge going down a river.

His glove receives a ball as if it was a glove from the 1920s - as if the ball was hitting a rock. The guy is trash. 

[JUSTgottaBELIEVE]

5 minutes ago, TheFutureIsNear said:

I’d bet $ that if I looked up post histories of most of the people that are talking about extending McCann are the same people that were penciling in the likes of Delmonico, Palka, Yolmer, Covey, etc into future lineups. 

 

Absolutely 0 reason to touch McCann’s contract with a year of control left 

I bumped the thread I started back in April projecting the future Sox lineup in case you’re interested. Looks pretty ? still. Worth noting that April was also before Robert and Madrigal really took off, Yoan and Timmy were only showing early glimpses out what they would become, and Vaughn hadn’t been drafted yet.

[chitownsportsfan]

3 minutes ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

His glove receives a ball as if it was a glove from the 1920s - as if the ball was hitting a rock. The guy is trash. 

Yea it's incredible how he got through his entire career in pro ball and never learned how to catch the baseball.  Of course Abreu has the same issue but at least he's not a catcher.

[JUSTgottaBELIEVE]

7 minutes ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

His glove receives a ball as if it was a glove from the 1920s - as if the ball was hitting a rock. The guy is trash. 

Weren’t @fathom, @Balta1701 and @Moan4Yoan saying earlier this year that his defense vastly improved? Maybe I’ve got the wrong posters but there were at least a few saying that and many saying that trading Narvaez was a mistake. Truth is, he’s a DH.

[bmags]

4 minutes ago, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

Weren’t @fathom, @Balta1701 and @Moan4Yoan saying earlier this year that his defense vastly improved? Maybe I’ve got the wrong posters but there were at least a few saying that and many saying that trading Narvaez was a mistake. Truth is, he’s a DH.

his defense isn't that different than wellington castillo and is a 120 wRC+ player. The blind hatred of narvaez on this board reminds me of when people hid under their pillows and said "no actually tatis is bad! He strikes out as a 19 year old in AA!", "no semien will never be able to stick at SHORT"

As a left handed counterpart to james mccann he would have been a good addition who can also provide his bat (currently better than any DH/1B we have).

Narvaez does not need to make that much of an improvement to smooth out value. Certain posters think that means he will improve to become elite, and that's not what people are saying. It may take time but he just has to marginally upgrade his worst tendencies to be playable as a part time catcher.

 

[Balta1701]

9 minutes ago, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

Weren’t @fathom, @Balta1701 and @Moan4Yoan saying earlier this year that his defense vastly improved? Maybe I’ve got the wrong posters but there were at least a few saying that and many saying that trading Narvaez was a mistake. Truth is, he’s a DH.

Apparently baseball prospectus has in the last couple weeks put its catcher stats behind a paywall, but last time I looked, Narvaez was substantially improved from last year. Bad, but not awful. And last offseason people kept screaming at me "You must only use BP stats for catchers because they take into account Framing". Everyone forgot about that with McCann because his framing stats are also quite poor. 

[bmags]

2 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

Apparently baseball prospectus has in the last couple weeks put its catcher stats behind a paywall, but last time I looked, Narvaez was substantially improved from last year. Bad, but not awful. And last offseason people kept screaming at me "You must only use BP stats for catchers because they take into account Framing". Everyone forgot about that with McCann because his framing stats are also quite poor. 

I was wondering what happened, and kinda weird how they only display 5 catchers and two are Zack Collins and Seby Zevala.

[JUSTgottaBELIEVE]

40 minutes ago, bmags said:

his defense isn't that different than wellington castillo and is a 120 wRC+ player. The blind hatred of narvaez on this board reminds me of when people hid under their pillows and said "no actually tatis is bad! He strikes out as a 19 year old in AA!", "no semien will never be able to stick at SHORT"

As a left handed counterpart to james mccann he would have been a good addition who can also provide his bat (currently better than any DH/1B we have).

Narvaez does not need to make that much of an improvement to smooth out value. Certain posters think that means he will improve to become elite, and that's not what people are saying. It may take time but he just has to marginally upgrade his worst tendencies to be playable as a part time catcher.

 

Isn’t that the plan for Collins though?

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

56 minutes ago, bmags said:

his defense isn't that different than wellington castillo and is a 120 wRC+ player. The blind hatred of narvaez on this board reminds me of when people hid under their pillows and said "no actually tatis is bad! He strikes out as a 19 year old in AA!", "no semien will never be able to stick at SHORT"

As a left handed counterpart to james mccann he would have been a good addition who can also provide his bat (currently better than any DH/1B we have).

Narvaez does not need to make that much of an improvement to smooth out value. Certain posters think that means he will improve to become elite, and that's not what people are saying. It may take time but he just has to marginally upgrade his worst tendencies to be playable as a part time catcher.

 

Yeah, but 99% of catchers don't suddenly improve their defensive abilities at 28 years old. They are what they are at that point defensively. 

So much of catcher defense is positional and reactionary. Sometimes guys just don't have that ability to process a pitch and get your body in front of it or position yourself to maximize that, nor do they have the athleticism to increase their pop times. 

Getting rid of navarez was the best decision this team made this offseason because it opened up the door to a catcher much better suited to manage and handle a young staff. Castillo was what he was and he was here to stay through the year and the Sox were not carrying 3 catchers.

I also think navarez bat is fine if he was an adequate defensive catcher (even just below average) but his bat is not good enough to make up for him being Mike piazza behind home plate. He needs to be at least 30% better than his catching peers to balance out the fact that he's more than 30% worse than the average catcher defensively. That's why he'll be a 1.5-2 WAR player. His offensive production is cancelled out by his lack of defensive prowess, and his 173 iso is not strong enough to play 1st base or DH.

Edited August 23, 2019 by Look at Ray Ray Run

[bmags]

29 minutes ago, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

Isn’t that the plan for Collins though?

Bird in the hand

[Timmy U]

2 minutes ago, bmags said:

Bird in the hand

Yes, but that bird has flown away.  I was a Narvaez fan as well, but now I am looking forward to Collins.

Edited August 23, 2019 by Timmy U