Could Yasmani Grandal Devin Mesoraco?
The verb in the headline is a person. But once a person has broken out like Devin Mesoraco has this year, the first instinct is to look for lightning to strike again in the same fashion. Given the season Grandal just had — 15th-best in the end-of-season rankings — maybe he’s even further along than Devin Mesoraco once was. Maybe it’s still fair to wonder if he can Devin Mesoraco.
What made Mesoraco Mesoraco? A year ago, during just this same exercise, I wrote about the Reds’ catcher and pointed out my reasons for liking him as a breakout player.
1) He had pedigree as a former top prospect.
2) He had spent a couple of years honing his receiving and was finally starting.
3) His plate discipline stats were good.
4) His batted ball luck was not good to date.
5) His minor league stats suggested more power was coming.
It’s a fairly good roadmap to find any sleeper, but it’s stronger with catchers. Players at that position debut later, ostensibly because it’s tough to learn the intricacies of the position. At least, that was Devin Mesoraco’s theory for why it took him a bit longer to break out.
So does Grandal meet the requirements?
1) Yes. Grandal peaked as the #53 prospect with Baseball America in 2011. He was the Reds’ fourth-best prospect that year, and their top defensive catcher in the minors. Drafted in the first round, he was always on the good side of bust rates.
2) Grandal may have needed the defensive tutelage less than Mesoraco, given his reputation behind the plate. His defensive metrics are skewed by less than stellar work at first base due to some injury and poor play from the Padres’ incumbent first baseman. He’s mostly been a scratch defender so far, and you might get nervous about him playing at first base in a keeper league, but the fact that he’s a top-ten framer and that the 31-year-old Rene Rivera is sure to regress says to me that he’s a catcher long term. And pretty decent at catching.
3) Mesoraco had a 7.7% walk rate and a 17.7% strikeout rate in 589 plate appearances before this season. Grandal has a 13.8% walk rate and a 22.2% strikeout rate in 777 plate apearances so far. A second bullet point that favors Grandal over Mesoraco.
4) Mesoraco had a .248 career batting average on balls in play going into this season. Grandal has a .291 career BABIP but numbers of .257 and .277 in the last two seasons. In terms of popular appeal, recency bias may put Grandal in a similar bucket to Mesoraco going into last season.
5) This one was more obvious for Mesoraco. His career isolated slugging percentage in the winter of 2013 was .134 while his minor league ISO was .185. Grandal’s career ISO is .167 and his minor league ISO was .177. But there’s still the suggestion of possible power coming for Grandal, especially given his age. At 25 he’s either at or right before his power peak. (Yes his stadium is not as favorable as the one the Reds play in, but at least Grandal is a switch-hitter and can sometimes get the benefit of a homer park that plays almost neutrally for right-handers.)
The easy answer is, yes, of course Yasmani Grandal could Devin Mesoraco. As a post-hype guy with decent plate discipline, power upside, and a full-time role backed by improving defense, he checks all the boxes.
The only problem with this equation is that Grandal has already done better than pre-2014 Mesoraco ever did. So he’ll cost you a few bucks more, and you’ll have to assume more risk than you did with The Devin Mesoraco Plan, part one.
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
Travis D’Arnaud seems to meet the requirements to mesoraco as well.
I dont think d’Arnaud meets #2 and #5
If there was a sixth box denoting “Is not always broken” d’Arnaud would match up less favorably.
Re: #5, TDA’s production was almost exactly the same as DM’s at each age/level.
How does Grandal’s history of IPED usage factor into the equation? I would think it has to reduce the chances of a breakout.
Will Bud Black play Grandal at catcher next season? Given that either Tyson Ross or Andrew Cashner will be the opening day starter, therefore Rene Rivera the opening day catcher, you could see where Grandal might not be too happy in San Diego. That unhappiness could lead to lower than expected results.
He’s played quite a bit of 1B this year, too, so they seemingly want to get his bat in the lineup. You could arguably even chalk him up for more PT than the average C due to positional flexibility.
Black and Grandal have both said that his future should be behind the plate. I think he came back a little too quickly from his knee injury and wasn’t near 100% until late in the season. I’m glad that he got some reps at 1B, but next year I see him platooning with Rivera behind the plate and Alonso at 1B. Rivera is bound to regress and Grandal should be on the way up.
Your mom could Devin Mesoraco.
No, your “old joke” could devin mesoraco.
Still plays in SD so no
Does he?
Spoke a couple months too soon.
I think he does have a power surge coming. Check out these near home runs, a long strike and a long single, from a game at Coors:
http://m.mlb.com/video/v34434551/sdcol-foul-call-stands-after-a-review-in-the-5th
http://sandiego.padres.mlb.com/news/article/sd/rockies-split-challenges-padres-review-stands?ymd=20140709&content_id=83874898&vkey=news_sd
Something that was surprisingly left out, Grandal was 8th in MLB in flyball distance this year at 304.13 ft (Mesoraco, FYI was 25th at 297.50). I kind of like his chances to Mesoraco better than I like Mesoraco to re-Mesoraco.
I demand to know how you got inside my head
Grandal ranked 8th in fly ball distance this year– I could see it
OBP comes back to 2011-2013 levels and he could go Chris Carter on us while catching AND playing 1B
(in other words, playing EVERY day) instead of a Montero-like 4 games per week.
I enjoyed the headline
I must admit that I had my eye on Grandal in the last couple of months in a couple of my leagues. I picked him up in one league only to discover that he was carrying an injury, which would limit his effectiveness. I dropped him straight after.
I think that if you did an analyis of the games where he did not start against lefties, you would find that his stats are much better. Also ,once he made adjustments, his performance improved dramatically.
He isn’t a player whom you would have as a solo catcher in a one catcher league; you would need another for when he plays against a lefty or tough righty.
I heart verbing names.