White Sox make offseason changes at catcher

Martin Maldonado

When the offseason began, it looked as though the White Sox were poised to play younger players at catcher in 2024.

Both 25-year-old Korey Lee and 27-year-old Carlos Perez had spots on the 40-man roster. Both have some major league experience, and the conventional thinking was at least one of them would be with the team when the season starts in March.

Now, perhaps not.

The Sox are adding 37-year-old catcher Martin Maldonado on a one-year deal, according to reports. The contract is worth $4 million, and reportedly contains a vesting option for the 2025 season.

Earlier in December, the Sox acquired 32-year-old veteran catcher Max Stassi from the Atlanta Braves in exchange for cash and a player to be named later.

Maldonado comes to the Sox from Houston. He was the starting catcher for the Astros from 2019 to 2023, and he was part of two American League pennant winners (2019, 2022) and one World Series champion.

He has a reputation as a terrific defensive catcher, although his framing statistics fell off a cliff in 2023. He's still a good blocker and thrower, but he's a notoriously weak hitter.

Here are his offensive numbers from the past three seasons:

• 2021: .172/.272/.300, 12 home runs, 36 RBIs
• 2022: .186/.248/.352, 15 home runs, 45 RBIs
• 2023: .191/.258/.348, 15 home runs, 36 RBIs

In short, expect Maldonado to bat ninth, hit the occasional home run and otherwise be terrible with a bat in his hands. The Sox will be counting on him to provide veteran leadership and game-planning to help what figures to be a young pitching staff.

Stassi did not play during the 2023 season because of a hip injury and a family health emergency -- his son was born three months premature in April. 

When he was last seen on a major league field in 2022, Stassi struggled with the Los Angeles Angels. He batted .180/.267/.303 with nine home runs and 30 RBIs in 102 games.

But, in 2020 and 2021, Stassi was serviceable for the Angels. If you combine his numbers over those two seasons, they pencil out to a .250/.333/.452 batting line with 20 homers over 118 games. His defensive metrics all were strong, so that's a useful profile if he can regain that form.

Perez was recently designated for assignment, so we can eliminate him from the 2024 catching mix. Maldonado will certainly be on the team, if healthy, so that leaves Lee and Stassi competing for a roster spot.

Lee got 24 games in with the Sox last year, after coming over from the Astros in the Kendall Graveman trade, but he didn't do much with the opportunity. His defense was OK, but it certainly wasn't enough to overcome a .077/.143/.138 slash line in 70 plate appearances.

Also notable on the organizational depth chart is 24-year-old Adam Hackenburg, who has a good defensive reputation and ascended to Triple-A Charlotte by the end of 2023.

Hackenburg also had his best season at the plate. He batted .271/.366/.388 with eight home runs and 30 RBIs in 101 games split between Charlotte and Double-A Birmingham.

The intrigue here comes with whether Maldonado and/or Stassi can improve the Sox's game preparation. The 2023 season began with manager Pedro Grifol and field coordinator Mike Tosar boasting about how the team would be "elite" in that area.

After 101 losses, the season ended with Grifol lamenting how the Sox were actually subpar in that area. Interestingly, he didn't make those remarks until after the previous catching duo (Yasmani Grandal and Seby Zavala) had been shown the exit. 

If Grandal and Zavala were poor in that area, Grifol should have stepped in and addressed it during the season. Perhaps he tried and failed. From the outside, how are we to know? 

But, it is 100% fair to not trust Grifol to deliver on his promise of "elite preparation" after what we saw last year. So, perhaps it falls to Maldonado to clean up the mess. That won't be easy for a player in his first (and maybe his only) year with the organization, but that's the task at hand.