Chicago White Sox: Who would make an all-Chicago team?
Catcher
Yasmani Grandal vs Willson Contreras
The Chicago White Sox and Chicago Cubs both have really good position players at multiple positions. It is definitely not easy to pick certain positions and the catcher position would have been one of those difficult decisions until November. If it was James McCann vs Willson Contreras, the nod would have to go to the Cubs backstop. McCann is a great player but he is the third-best catcher in Chicago now.
The White Sox added Yasmani Grandal to the organization on a four-year deal in November which might or might not swing the arrow back in the White Sox favor. Grandal played with the Milwaukee Brewers over the past few seasons. Grandal is one of the better defensive catchers in baseball. He also produces more in terms of power numbers. In 2019, he had 28 home runs, 77 RBIs, and 79 runs scored. Contreras had slightly lesser numbers as he had 24 home runs, 64 RBIs, and 57 runs scored.
Where Contreras wins is batting average. He had a .272 batting average while Grandal had a .246 average. Contreras also had a higher WAR with a 3.1 while Grandal hit 2.4. This all came with Contreras having 153 fewer at-bats and 223 fewer plate appearances. Grandal, however, had a higher on-base percentage (.380) than Contreras (.355). That is mainly because Grandal had 109 walks to Contreras’ 38. With all of that said, Yasmani Grandal is known to be one of the better catchers in all of baseball.