The White Sox announced that catcher Max Stassi underwent a season-ending left hip surfacing procedure last week. He is already on the 60-day injured list and will stay there for the remainder of the year.
It’s always a tough blow when a player has to miss an entire season like this, but it’s especially unfortunate for Stassi as this will be the second straight lost campaign for him. With the Angels last year, he began the season on the injured list with a left hip strain. He was eventually able to heal up but remained away from the team due to an undisclosed personal matter. In October, his wife Gabrielle revealed in an Instagram post that their son had been born three months premature and was in NICU due to various medical complications.
While Stassi was not with the Halos, they proceeded with Logan O’Hoppe and Matt Thaiss as their catching duo. Stassi was planning to play in 2024 but was traded to Atlanta alongside David Fletcher in December in a move mostly about moving contracts around. Atlanta ate all of Stassi’s salary in flipping him to the White Sox a few days later.
It seemed the Sox planned to have Stassi and Martín Maldonado behind the plate this year, as they optioned Korey Lee during the spring. But Stassi then needed to start the season on the IL, which brought Lee back up to make the Opening Day squad. Stassi was transferred to the 60-day IL in mid-April and will now be stuck there for the rest of the campaign.
For the Sox, Lee has performed well enough this year, hitting .245/.280/.378 with some decent defensive work as well. Maldonado is hitting a dismal .071/.124/.111 but is mostly on the club for his veteran presence and work with the pitching staff. If the club decides to move on from him at some point, they have Carlos Pérez as a non-roster depth option while prospect Edgar Quero is demolishing Double-A pitching.
Stassi has long been a solid defensive catcher but seemed to take a step forward at the plate a few years ago. He had a batting line of .204/.285/.326 through the end of the 2019 season but then slashed .250/.333/.452 over 2020 and 2021. Going into 2022, the Angels signed him to a three-year, $17.5M extension, though the deal hasn’t worked out. His bat collapsed in the first year, as he hit .180/.267/.303 in 102 games in 2022. Since he missed all of last year and is now set to miss 2024 as well, that rough season will go down as the totality of his work on the contract. There is a $7.5M club option for the 2025 campaign that comes with a $500K buyout, but the Sox will certainly turn that down based on how the past three years have gone.
More must-reads: