Yasmani Grandal recently underwent knee surgery, as the catcher himself relayed on Instagram, and passed along by The Athletic’s James Fegan. Fegan also says the club expects him to be ready to go for spring training.
Grandal spent almost two months on the IL this year due to a torn tendon in his knee, although it didn’t seem to hamper him at the plate at all. In 93 games, he hit .240/.420/.520, for a wRC+ of 159, easily the highest of his career. His defensive numbers trended downward in 2021, though that’s not terribly surprising given how important healthy knees are for a catcher. The switch-hitter is guaranteed $36.5MM over the next two years, making his recovery from this procedure incredibly important for the White Sox as they look to build on back-to-back postseason appearances.
More injury notes…
- Max Muncy brought out the lineup card for tonight’s NLCS game four matchup against Atlanta and didn’t appear to be wearing a brace on his injured left elbow, according to Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic. This would seem to indicate at least some superficial progress, given that Muncy was using the brace even while sleeping as recently as three days ago. The narrative around Muncy’s return figures to continue for as long as the Dodgers’ season is still alive. He hit 36 home runs this year, a personal best, on his way to slashing .249/.368/.527. His wRC+ of 140 on the campaign placed him in the top 15 among qualified hitters in all of baseball. He has missed the entirety of the playoffs so far after being injured in a collision with Jace Peterson on the final day of the regular season.
- Similar to Muncy, the status of Lance McCullers Jr. figures to be an ongoing question as long as the Astros are still playing. The latest update comes from MLB Network’s Jon Heyman, who says McCullers is “seen as not likely” to pitch in the World Series, should the Astros qualify. Since this bout of elbow tightness put the righty on the shelf, the Astros’ rotation has been shaky in his absence. Through the first four games of the ALCS, no Houston starter lasted longer than 2 2/3 innings. However, game five saw Framber Valdez turn that ship around by throwing eight innings of one-run ball. McCullers threw 162 1/3 excellent innings this year, with an ERA of 3.16, 27% strikeout rate and 56.4% ground ball rate. He then threw 10 2/3 innings in the ALDS with an ERA of 0.84 before landing on the shelf.
This may sound like a MetsFan22-esque cop out but I assure you it won’t be.
This will be the offseason of what-ifs for the dodgers.
A few come to mind:
What if Bellinger had hit that homer on opening day?
What if Bauer wasn’t Bauer?
What if the checkswing to Ruf had gone the other way back earlier in the season?
I understand this is part of baseball, just a thought…
You know what the difference between hitting .250 and .300 is? It’s 25 hits…
You guys forgot the most important thing. This is an injury report. No one said: Thoughts and prayers for a speedy recovery. There. I just did it. Now you all know I am a good person because I will regurgitate those exact same words every single time an injury comes up. I still won’t take the time to discuss my thoughts though. I really don’t care that much. I will just make sure I type those same 7 words over and over again so you think I care more than the average person.
Thoughts and prayers for a speedy recovery.
Yep. I knew @Fever Pitch Guy was going to say it word for word. How many times can everyone predict this guy is a fraud and have him prove it to you right afterwards before people start realizing it. I take that back. Some of the smarter posters have already realized it.
@Missed War Do you ever shut your trap or have anything too contribute to this community? Not a single longstanding member here has an issue with @FPG.
Prayers and thoughts for a speedy recovery
Sir/ma’am, are you familiar with the mute option?
Kind of a poetic season for the Giants. Won the NL West by 1 game with a big factor being that Darin Ruf check swing. Giants season ended on a check swing call that definitley wasn’t a swing. It feels like a video SB Nation should do one of their “Deep Rewind” or “Rewinder” videos on. So much led up to that moment and so much led up to the Giants losing the last game of the NLDS.
That would be a great rewind
In another universe, that game played out with the check swing being called “ball.” Which game am I taking about? I’m not sure. There are so many umpire misses.
You mean an offseason like BOS’s:- like, what if Eovaldi’s 9th inn (1-2) curveball to Jason Castro was actually called correctly?
Or what if MLB chose the Postseason Umpires by rewarding that season’s Top 7 Umps who actually had the highest grades?
What if MLB didn’t use a seniority system to choose the Umps for the playoffs? What if they paid attention to what a 2018 Boston University study revealed: The older veteran Umpires with the most experience make more mistakes!! What if the Ump calling balls and strikes on Eovaldi was not 58 yrs old Laz Diaz? Would a younger Ump have called that pitch a strike?
Well…actually, the Top 10 performing Umps over the 11 seasons from 2008-2018 averaged only 2.7 years of Umpiring experience. What do you know? Younger Umps are getting more calls right! Is it better vision? Probably. The Umps who scored in the bottom 10 averaged 20.6 yrs of experience.
This to, that was an AMAZING 1-2 curve by Eovaldi (LOVE that man btw). The thing is idrk if the MLB keeps records of the call% for umps like we do…
If Diaz had called a perfect game they Red Sox still would have lost, as they would not have hit a 2-run homer in the first. So stop complaining about one call in the 9th inning.
@ayrbhoy
But wait! I thought it was the catchers framing skill that made those a strike!? You can’t blame the ump!
I wonder if Jace Peterson is going to get a fastball to the back/ribs the next time the Dodgers face Milwaukee. It was a preventable collision as Jace knew how far inside the line he was running to make the play difficult.
Probably will, but also there was no reason in the world Muncy should be reaching for that ball in that situation, the game was well in hand for the Dodgers.
If you have a glove on your hand and playing a competitive game, there’s no way your brain is overriding an ingrained reflex and telling your body to not catch a ball.
If Will Smith makes the throw correctly, the injury doesn’t happen. Muncy’s reach was a reaction play.
Incorrect guys, guys in baseball make split second decisions like that every game. It was an unfortunate play but laying all blame on Peterson is inaccurate. Some guys get separated shoulders from crashing into walls and some guys let the ball bounce. Not as hard for Muncy to let that ball go by as you make it seem.
Muncy wasn’t playing smart and Peterson was not playing dirty. Getting tired of hearing the whining. “ … and pitchers shouldn’t pitch inside because it might hurt someone( or someone’s feelings….) Grow up.
Those two examples you gave, running inside the baseline vs pitching inside, are unrelated. You are by all accounts an a**. Especially by telling strangers to “grow up.” Most likely something you need to do.
Seems like the Red Sox might’ve gotten caught cheating tonight… Mysterious light in center field during their at bats. Umpires caught it and never saw it again. Red Sox had 1 run tonight.
Welcome to the fake season (playoffs). Rampant cheating in the MLB is the (not so new) norm. Get used to the entitled clubs (Yankees/Red Sox/Dodgers/Giants) making the playoffs from now on.
White Sox 1919 and late 1990’s also cheated. Simmer down.
They didn’t cheat in 1919. They threw 3 games of the World Series. But thanks for playing!
I agree with Dumpster. The owner refused to pay them. The 1919 Black Sox were literally expected to all play in the World Series for free and if they didn’t it was considered breaking the rules. MLB players made almost no money back then anyway. They had to feed their families somehow. If that fiasco were to happen again the players would actually still get paid by MLB as a whole and the White Sox owner would literally be hauled off to jail. I don’t agree with them throwing it but the owner forced them into that situation by refusing to pay them. Just like Robert Dinero says in Raging Bull: “They had no choice!” What else were they going to do? Watch their families starve while they made money for the owner who refused to pay them a single cent even though they got to the World Series? That owner should have been banned from baseball before any of that ever happened. It’s not the players fault he wasn’t.
Wasn’t the mob in on it too? Or am I just thinking of Eight Men Out? I need to watch that again, as I haven’t since I was little.
Same story
Professional gamblers offered the Sox an opportunity to cash in by throwing the Series.
Shoeless Joe did not participate and ought to be in Baseball’s HOF!!
Shoeless Joe ABSOLUTELY needs to be in the HoF, I agree. It was Cicotte and others that partook in the scandal.
Throwing games worse than sign stealing.
8 Men Out was about the Black Sox w/ Shoeless Joe being the 9th player. The gangster was Meyer Lanski, friend of Lucky Luciano. He was portrayed in Godfather 2 as Hyram Rothstein, who bragged about it.
When did the White Sox ‘cheat’ in the late 90’s?! They must have been pretty lousy at it considering they did not sniff the playoffs until ’99. Please expand on that answer
When did I say the ’90s?
as a White Sox fan your comment @ChiSoxCity is embarrassing. It’s people and comments like these that make our fan base look like idiots. Lets focus on the what actually happened; we got our butt’s kicked in the playoffs and need to do better and get better. Period, end of story
He was referring to the 1919 World Series. We helped our butts get kicked that year, because players were expected to essentially play for free, as The Mets “Missed WAR” referenced above.
I’m talking about his first comment in this thread; saying “cheating” “cheating” “cheating”
Oh, sorry about that. That’s an “oof” on my part.
A healthy Grandal for entire 2022 season likely guarantees the World Series Championship for the “good” Sox!!
no, no it does not. we need a true ace and upgrades at 2B and RF. Then we can talk world series. Grandal’s bat has always been good, but teams run wild on him (some of that is on the pitchers).
@chisoxfan, your wrong. All a ‘healthy Grandal’ guarantees you, is that the White Sox will likely be around leading the league in past balls and allowing wild pitches. Oh, and missed throws to the plate from the OFers. Grandal is a complete disaster on defense, as he proved once again in the playoffs.
He is not a complete disaster; he played with bad knees so his defense will improve immensely next season (presumably). But he cant throw runners out for anything. His pitch framing and game calling is still elite
People who cite pitch framing, IMO, are grasping for straws in making a defense for Grandal’s inadequacies. He was bad defensively in 2020 also. I’m not saying you can be a butcher at framing – and there are a few of them around. But for the most part, there really isn’t much difference in the framing abilities of the large majority of starting catchers in MLB.
I beg to differ; even seeing the other catchers on the White Sox alone there was a massive difference in framing. Framing is real, but i get where people don’t think it is — especially with how poor the umpiring was all around this season
Dogbone, go bury yourself in the manure pile , but only after you pay rent to your mom for living in the basement. Honestly, you are worthless
Team also needs to just do the fundamentals better. Baserunning, defense, moving runners over with less than 2 outs. They had bad lapses in each of these. TLR also left some relievers in way too long after they showed they just didn’t have it that day.
100% in agreement
Not even close, keep dreaming buddy!
Ok then, why have the white Sox been around the league leaders in past balls and wild pitches? The only thing that saved them a little in 2020, was that James McCann was behind the plate in their more important games.
Watch, the Sox will absolutely bring in a MLB caliber catcher to upgrade that position defensively this offseason.
I would not be opposed to that one bit… that along with an Ace type (Verlander?) and a 2B (with a solid glove that can hit a bit) and a RF; then we are talking
Guarantee, huh? Seems it was less than a year ago, people thought the Padres and Mets would be really good, the Twins would challenge for the AL Central title, and the Giants would be right around or just above a .500 team. So, tell me again how you know this would definitely be enough, Nostradamus.
Steve Stone, one of the beloved Yoda’s of White Sox baseball announcers, said so himself. On the Mully morning radio show a couple months ago. And we all know what a Chisox boot-licker that Stone is.
Like you licking your dogs b*lls
What a fantastic job that Dodgers FO has done since being purchased.
Despite his past record, do you really think a 40 yr old Verlander is going to pitch at an “Ace type” level in his first year back from TJ surgury? After the way they over used Rondon coming off injury in the first half, I would be leery of signing with CWS if I were him.
yes, I would take Verlander in a heart beat.. and i’m not sure how they “overused” Rodon; he rested almost the entire second half. Even Scott Boras gave the White Sox a shout out for how they handled Rodon
The Sox could then even employ a 6 man rotation for the year to keep everyone fresh (Giolito, Lynn, Cease, Kopech, Keuchel, Verlander, Crochet — some version of these or if/whom they sign like Verlander)
I don’t like the idea of a 6-man rotation. It’s one less spot for a reliever. It’s not like the extra rest would enable everyone to go 7 innings instead of 6. My guess is they stick with the five-man, with Rodon elsewhere and Kopech taking his spot, with occasional starts by ReyLo mixed in to keep guys, particularly Kopech, fresh.
IMO Verlander may be a bit of an expensive crap shoot, coming off his TJ procedure. There hasn’t been much reporting/updates of his recovery progress.
He may be a better fit as a middle reliever or closer…but that would be very challenging for him to accept, wanting to be the center of attention. Another challenge for him would be pitching w/o a bullfrog/rosin mixture.
The White Sox have much more to worry about than Grandal. Pretty much every player disappeared against tough teams during the season and in the playoffs… Im tired of people making the excuse of ‘well they ran into a good team’ Well, last I checked when you have a team, and org, claiming WS or bust then you need to beat… yknow.. good teams.. or at least compete against them, and do so.. yknow.. regardless of where they play.. I think the Sox have a heart/will issue and Im not sure changing a player here or there changes that.
I just think they need competition. This year they didn’t get any until they met the Astros. Its hard to just turn it on. I think depending on what Detroit does in the hot stove league, they might get it. The Astros didn’t really kick it into gear until Oakland started pushing them.