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Yasmani Grandal finally got his multi-year deal, and it won’t be with the Milwaukee Brewers.
The Chicago White Sox are announcing they’ve signed Grandal to a 4-year, $73 million contract that will pay the All-Star catcher $18.25 million per year.
OFFICIAL: The #WhiteSox have agreed to terms on a four-year, $73-million contract with free agent All-Star catcher Yasmani Grandal (@YazmanianDVL08). Under terms of the agreement, Grandal will receive $18.25 million per year from 2020-2023. pic.twitter.com/dczzZo8UTE
— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) November 21, 2019
That’s the same total the Brewers ended up paying Grandal this year between his $16 million salary and the $2.25 million buyout Grandal collected when he turned down his half of the mutual option.
Based on that, it certainly seems like a deal the Brewers could have matched if they were so inclined. As a matter of pure speculation, a guaranteed fourth year may have been the difference maker.
Grandal earned the contract after being one of the best catchers in baseball in 2019, hitting a full-season career-best .246/.380/.468 with a career high 28 home runs, and posting the second-best fWAR among catchers (5.2), behind only Philadelphia’s J.T. Realmuto.
Grandal also produced a postseason memory for the Brewers that likely would have gone down in team history had the end result of the game been different, hitting a two-run home run off of Max Scherzer in the first inning of the NL Wildcard game, temporarily sucking the excitement out of Nationals Park.
If there’s a positive for the Brewers, it’s that this news comes early enough in the offseason for David Stearns & Co. to move on to Plan B, if they haven’t already. The team previously picked up the option it had on backup catcher Manny Pina earlier in the offseason.
Statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference