After the White Sox traded for AJ Pollock to shore up their outfield, the only thing they lacked was a defined backup catcher behind Yasmani Grandal.
After acquiring Reese McGuire from Toronto this afternoon, Rick Hahn has checked all the boxes on the position-player side of the ball.
The White Sox acquired the defense-first McGuire from the Blue Jays in exchange for Zack Collins, which gives Tony La Russa a comfortable everyday option in the event of a Grandal injury.
McGuire, a first-round pick from the 2013 draft, took a circuitous route to the majors. His career got a boost after the Pirates traded him to the Blue Jays, with whom he settled into a backup role starting in the second half of the 2019 season.
He had a chance to win the starting job, but an awful 2020 and a slow start to 2021 put him in time-sharing situation with Danny Jansen, who ended up being the preferred choice. Later in the year, the amusingly shaped Alejandro Kirk provided a louder bat. That had McGuire caught in between as he entered the spring without options, so by trading him for Zack Collins, the Blue Jays picked up a catcher they could send to Triple-A.
McGuire is a career .248/.297/.390 hitter, although the lefty is .278/.329/.431 against righties. More importantly, he's a plus defender behind the plate, with above-average framing and throwing numbers in the two seasons where he's had any kind of significant sample.
That solves what had been a murky mess in the catching ranks. Collins would've been playable behind the plate if his power-and-patience profile translated to the big leagues, but after hitting .195/.315/.330 with just seven homers over 114 MLB games, it made the all-around below-averageness behind the plate much more glaring. Seby Zavala stepped in and provided a more praiseworthy receiver and game-caller, but his issue with passed pitches and holes in the strike zone created plenty of problems of their own.
Zavala is out of options, so the White Sox might have to try to pass him through waivers by the end of spring. They have a decent catching tandem of Carlos Pérez and Nick Ciuffo penciled in for Charlotte, so unlike Micker Adolfo's unfavorable numbers situation, Zavala's doesn't resonate as much.
