If you missed the last 24 hours in baseball news, Baseball Twitter, and, specifically, Major League Baseball Player Twitter, this helpful video will more or less get you caught up on what you missed:
The only inaccuracy is that Tim Meadows' version of Rob Manfred takes a little too much action.
One wonders whether Manfred would have been more proactive about addressing the undercurrent of technology-dependent sign-stealing had baseball not struck lucrative deals with gambling enterprises, because that makes exposing the legitimacy of the competition more costly, even if it's with the goal of smoking it out. One also wonders whether this is a byproduct of the mound visit restrictions, which make it harder for a pitcher and catcher to call an audible at the slightest sense that the game is afoot.
Sign-stealing. Gambling. Pace of play. Feel it. It's circular. It's like a carousel. You pay the quarter, you get on the horse, it goes up and down, and around. It's circular. Circle, with the music, the flow. All bad things.
The White Sox are to this point uninvolved, even tangentially. They did sign Dallas Keuchel (on the winning side of the disputed 2017 World Series) and Yasmani Grandal (on the losing side), and though a former Astros pitcher was the first guy to confirm a rumor, Keuchel wasn't the guy. If you can wait a week, both are scheduled to attend SoxFest.
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Hey, speaking of Yasmani Grandal tangents -- it's circular, feel it -- we're already seeing one benefit to his signing before he even wears the top half of a uniform.
Grandal's receiving, which was a major component in his receiving a $73 million contract from the White Sox, is bringing the flaws of the other catchers into sharper focus.
Like most things in life, it's a phenomenon that can be most accurately described by Lifter Puller's "Space Humpin' $19.99."
Think about what I've gotCompare it to what you've gotWhaddya think my girl wants?My girl wants?Whaddya think my girl wants?
James Fegan already covered James McCann's attempts to understanding framing, the shortcoming that has most dogged him throughout his career. Now here's Scott Merkin on Zack Collins, whose issues with catching are more wide-ranging. While McCann is working with somebody who has coached Grandal, Collins is going straight to the source.
Grandal and Collins are both products of the University of Miami. They've worked out together in the offseason for most of the last decade. Now their interests are both opposed and aligned. Grandal's four-year contract makes it more difficult for Collins to crack the roster, but as teammates, they're also invested in each other's success.
Entering their first season in the same organization, they'll be tied at the hip:
Collins made some subtle adjustments in his catching stance, tweaking the way he’s receiving the ball and changing a few things with flexibility by working with Grandal. Collins will stay in Arizona and continue working with Grandal until Jan. 23, when the duo will leave for SoxFest in Chicago. That work has paid off for the 24-year-old Collins in more than the physical moves.
“He’ll tell you straight up that he thinks I’m really, really, really close to being a really, really, really good defensive catcher,” Collins said. “It’s huge for me when a guy like that says something like that to me."
Dropping "really" six times over a 10-word stretch speaks to his earnestness, if nothing else.
The nice thing about receiving is that it doesn't take long to start detecting shifts in effectiveness. The nicer thing about this year is that the White Sox aren't reliant on either of these catchers improving. In past years, the White Sox relied on work ethic translating to results with guys like Omar Narvaez, which didn't pan out. This time around, if neither McCann nor Collins unlock a more effective method behind the plate, the Sox already have a guy for that.
