Max Stassi gives White Sox a veteran catcher without expectations

Max Stassi wasn't officially a free agent, but with the White Sox acquiring him from the Atlanta Braves on Saturday for a player to be named later -- and with the Braves paying for most of $7 million salary for 2024 -- it's a distinction without a difference on the team's side.*

(*Unless the White Sox send the Braves the equivalent of Fernando Tatis Jr., that is.)

The White Sox chose the slightly more laborious route in finding a catcher to run alongside Korey Lee or Carlos Pérez, because there are a bunch of similarly iffy catchers on the open market. Stassi didn't play in 2023 because he opened the season recovering from a hip injury, and he spent the rest of the year on family leave due to his son being born more than three months early. His 2022 line would blend right in with the 2023 seasons below him, though.

What separates Stassi from that group is what he'd accomplished over the previous two seasons. He hit .250/.333/.452 with 20 homers over 118 games, and his defense graded out well. Then came 2022, and even though he'd never been more durable, his bat didn't reflect his health, especially over the final two months of the season.

You can't count on Stassi fully rebounding to better forms considering he'll be a 34-year-old catcher with a fairly voluminous injury history, so his $7 million club option for 2025 doesn't figure to hold a lot of value. But the advantage of trading for a guy like Stassi instead of signing one of the other listed catchers is that you don't have to sell him an opportunity or keep a promise about playing time. He'll be in Chicago, getting paid mostly by Atlanta, whether he likes it or not.

He might like it. The White Sox could be a great opportunity due to the lack of proven options up top, and he'll be familiar with a couple of the team's new coaches, bullpen coach Matt Wise and catching coach Drew Butera. The Sox could also be a fraught opportunity because there are two potentially rosterable catchers now, with two others -- Edgar Quero and Adam Hackenberg -- looming in the high minors.

The feelings are mutual for those watching Chris Getz resolve the catcher situation. Stassi might be a perfectly credible catcher that buys a transition year for Quero, or he might not be able to cover the top half of the strike zone and he gets DFA'd after two months. My guess is that he's closer to the latter than former, but the lack of a 2023 MLB performance invites some mystery a la Erick Fedde, although Stassi's reason for his absence has far more gravity.

(It's reminiscent of the White Sox acquiring James McCann, whose twins boys required seven weeks in the NICU after they were born 10 weeks prematurely over the holidays in 2017. His subsequent season was miserable and the Tigers DFA'd him afterward, only for the Sox to benefit from his return to normalcy, so maybe they see upside in dads who have been through hell.)

With Stassi in the fold, the White Sox have turned over three of the four positions up the middle, with Gold Glove finalist Luis Robert Jr. the only holdover. It figures to be a far more effective defensive setup, and after looking at what he, Nicky Lopez and Paul DeJong are expected to bring to the plate, it better be. In the meantime, I'm guessing this means the Martín Maldonado and Salvador Perez rumors can be put to rest.

Postscripts

No. 1: Did you know Stassi's great uncle played for the White Sox? Myril Hoag spent three seasons on the South Side from 1941 through 1944, with military service in the middle of it. He was discharged because of dizziness and headaches that stemmed from a collision with Joe DiMaggio in 1936 that required brain surgery.

No. 2: Did you know Hoag had some of the smallest -- if not the smallest -- feet in MLB history? He wore a size 4 shoe on his right foot, and size 4½ on his left.