A Clandestine Operation with Yasmani Grandal

PNC PARK — On Wednesday, I approached Yasmani Grandal on something of a covert mission in the visiting clubhouse at PNC Park. I was attempting to extract a candid answer from the Dodgers catcher.

I did not formally introduce myself, though he could surmise I was a reporter from my visible media credential, and possibly from my build and attire.

I began by asking him if he knew where he finished in NL MVP voting last season.

“I heard someone voted for me,” Grandal said.

I asked Grandal what he thought of that vote.

For context, consider that, in the midst of last season, Grandal had said he thought it was “absurd” that some metrics suggested he warranted MVP consideration.

“I think he [the voter] was trying to prove a point, but it was also brought to my attention that I had some amount of runs, something, I don’t know, that was better than [Daniel] Murphy, who was one of the top candidates for the MVP,” Grandal told FanGraphs. “I was top in some [rankings]. I don’t even look at it. I guess they made it a huge deal that I wasn’t supposed to be [a candidate].”

Full disclosure: I am the guilty party that voted for Grandal. I placed him seventh on my NL MVP ballot last year — and I explained and defended that vote in one of my first pieces for FanGraphs. It was the only vote Grandal received, and the only vote he has received to date. Whatever happens going forward, he will always have a 22nd-place finish NL MVP voting on his resume.

Was I trying to make a point? I do have a soft spot for framers and two-way catchers, and I do believe framing produces significant value. While the skill is a sleight of hand, it provides real value on the field until — and if — robot umps arrive. Grandal did finish eighth among NL players by Baseball Prospectus’s WARP metric last season (6.74), a version of wins above replacement that accounts for framing skills. And if you divide his WARP value by playing time, he was the most valuable position player in baseball per game among players who recorded least 400 plate appearances. For instance, if he’d tallied as many plate appearances as Kris Bryant, and sustained his performance, he would have produced 10.3 WARP.

He posted an elite walk rate (14%), elite power (.246 ISO) for the position, and he was the game’s second-best receiver after Buster Posey, who was one slot ahead of Grandal on my ballot. It’s possible we’re still undervaluing catchers. Consider: we don’t yet have a great handle on the value of pitch-sequencing or the other intangibles that come with the position, from game-planning to handling pitchers.

After two questions, I revealed to Grandal that the stranger speaking to him was the person, perhaps the misguided one, who’d voted for him.

Grandal was quiet for a moment, seemingly caught off guard. He then seemed amused, breaking into a smile. He then related some unsolicited, but not unwelcome, thoughts on the topic of his candidacy.

“Posey was pretty high up there and he had better numbers. Obviously his power numbers were not to his standards for that year, I just thought he contributed a little bit more. So if there was any talk [about a catcher being voted for] it should have been him getting the votes, not me,” Grandal said. “But I look back to the amount of ABs I had, versus the production I had, versus the production he had and that’s where I can see someone making a case.”

So maybe Grandal is warming to the idea that he’s pretty valuable. And what’s disconcerting for the opposition is not only are the Dodgers perhaps historically good, but Grandal feels like he’s had his worst framing season to date.

Grandal does know he rates highly in framing — ranking second at Baseball Prospectus in framing runs saved (18.8) behind only Tyler Flowers (22.8) and second at StatCorner (23.6 to 14.8) to Flowers — but he feels he’s been off. Grandal saved 25.6 runs via framing last year, according to BP.

“It just blows my mind, because I feel like I’ve been doing shitty,” Grandal said of his framing rankings. “It’s crazy to me that I’ve stayed on top of the list this year, because I don’t think I’ve been doing that good. I feel like this year has been the worst year I’ve had. For some reason not being able to recognize certain pitchers earlier, I’ve battled through timing issues. I’ve gone through a lot of ups and downs when it comes to getting better at [receiving]. The good thing for me is I know how to make corrections pretty easy, so I’ve just been correcting myself.”

What do timing issues look like in receiving?

“If you’re having timing issues with certain guys, pretty much what happens is you don’t beat the ball to the spot, you don’t get your mitt ready to make a move, or stick a pitch, or whatever it is,” Grandal said. “All of the sudden, your mitt starts falling off the strike zone or missing pitches.”

Grandal noted he has also dealt with an injury to his left hand, forcing him to alter the point at which he catches pitches.

“I’ve gone through lots of ups and downs, and on top of it I had to switch the spot where I wanted to catch the ball because I blew up my hand,” Grandal said. “So that was another adjustment.”

There might be something to this: of pitches in the 50-50 borderline area around the zone, according to Baseball Savant’s detailed zones, Grandal has received 1,025 balls this season and 1,088 called strikes. Last season, he received pitches called as 1,258 balls in the region versus 1,475 strikes.

The following is a heat map of pitches Grandal has received as balls around the 50-50 zone in 2016, according to Baseball Savant:

And in 2017:

Going across the plate to catch a Kenley Jansen cutter with a bum hand cannot be enjoyable:

But Grandal is getting healthier, more comfortable. He’s also become more of a student to the game.

The Dodgers grade catchers receiving on a 20-to-80 scale each game, and this is the first season when Grandal has asked to see the reports. He then goes back and looks at the calls that were missed to evaluate if he was at fault, if the pitcher missed location, or if the umpire blew the call.

So, if Grandal returns to his personal standards of receiving, the Dodgers might have even more value to extract. Grandal ranks “only” 29th in WARP (4.1) this year.

He doesn’t warrant MVP consideration this season, even by an outlier voter — and I don’t have an NL MVP ballot this year, as I informed Grandal. But the Dodgers catcher might be saving his best for September and beyond, and he might give his club a little extra value going forward. The Dodgers have four position players who rank in the top 29 of WAR and Grandal, at 100%, gives the team another potentially elite position player down he stretch.