Pair of Former Chicago White Sox Catchers Could Be Options For New York Mets

We learned on Sunday that the New York Mets are going to be without young catcher Francisco Alvarez for at least the next eights after he broke the hamate bone in his left hand over the weekend.

It's a very tough loss for New York, as Alvarez is one of the top young catchers in baseball and a key part of the Mets lineup. He battled injury last season but still managed to hit 11 homers in 308 at-bats. He also had 47 RBI as the Mets got all the way to the NLCS.

He burst onto the scene in 2023, hitting 25 homers and driving in 63 in 123 games. He will eventually pair with Pete Alonso, Juan Soto and Mark Vientos to make a solid middle-of-the-order in Queens.

However, until then, perhaps the Mets could give a look to former Chicago White Sox catchers James McCann and Yasmani Grandal, both of who are free agents right now.

We've heard that the Atlanta Braves are looking into both options as potential fill-ins for the injured Sean Murphy, but they could make sense in Queens also.

Grandal, a 36-year-old native of Cuba, is a 13-year veteran of the San Diego Padres, Los Angeles Dodgers, Milwaukee Brewers, Chicago White Sox and Pittsburgh Pirates.

He made the All-Star Game with the Dodgers in 2015 and the Brewers in 2019 before signing a big free agent deal with the White Sox before the 2020 season.

Though Chicago made the playoffs in both 2020 and 2021, Grandal hit just .226 on the South Side. Furthermore, he hit just 44 home runs, though it should be noted that the 2020 season was only 60 games because of the COVID-19 pandemic. He hit 23 homers in 2021, but failed to hit more than eight in any of the other three seasons he was in Chicago.

He produced a negative WAR (per Baseball Reference) in each of his last two seasons with the Sox. He signed a deal with the Pittsburgh Pirates for 2024, hitting .228 over 72 games. Grandal hit nine home runs in total, ticking upward at the end of the year.

The 34-year-old McCann is an 11-year veteran of the Detroit Tigers, White Sox, Mets and Baltimore Orioles. He is a lifetime .241 hitter with 92 homers and 373 RBI. He spent two years in Chicago, making the All-Star Game in 2019 as he hit .273 with 18 homers and 60 RBI. Both totals represented career-highs.

He helped lead the White Sox to the playoffs in the COVID-shortened 2020 season, but they were beaten in the first round by the Oakland Athletics.

McCann has regressed ever since leaving Chicago, hitting .232, .195, .222 and .234 in the next four years. He's also played more than 69 games just once since exiting the South Side.