How Martin Maldonado Can Help the Chicago White Sox

The Chicago White Sox have a little bit of a positive dilemma at the catching position.

They have two aged prospects who have a lot of experience but are at the end of the line in terms of their ability. Max Stassi is 33 years old while Martin Maldonado is 37 years old. Stassi and Maldonado are stop gaps until the team can develop some younger catchers and get them up to speed.

The nice thing about these guys is the experience they bring, particularly Maldonado.

Having played for the Houston Astros for the last five years, he has seen a lot of success. He’s caught for some of the best pitchers in baseball, including Framber Valdez and Justin Verlander.

He’s seen a lot of pitchers, a lot of batters, and many different pitches. Maldonado is going to be a huge asset to the young and somewhat inexperienced group of pitchers that the White Sox have.

So how can Maldonado help the White Sox?

Well, we mentioned his experience. That experience is going to go a long way toward helping the pitchers on the team acclimate to the rigors of pitching. Maldonado has likely seen several of the batters that the White Sox will face this year so he can provide some tips and tricks on how to pitch to them.

Another way that Maldonado can help the team is by helping call a great game for pitchers coming to the plate to face the batter. Maldonado has proven that he’s done well at calling games in the past and should be able to continue that with the White Sox. It’s going to be interesting to see just how well he does at that.

Still, another thing that Maldonado can do to help the Sox is by doing his job catching the ball. A good catcher behind the plate can equal wins for their team. A catcher that doesn’t perform well can cost the team games. Maldonado might be getting rusty, but he still has something left in the tank. Hopefully, he doesn’t digress quickly and has a bad season.

Finally, when Maldonado steps up to the plate the White Sox will hope that they get a little bit of something out of his bat. Throughout his career, Maldonado has been known as a lower-end hitter who isn’t going to do a whole lot at the plate. He’s there for catching more than the hitting. If you want to see how Maldonado has fared over the years, Baseball-Reference has a great deal of information on his past hitting prowess.

The White Sox are going to try to get a lot of mileage out of Maldonado and Stassi this season. While they aren’t going to get much production from their bats, the Sox should get plenty of solid play behind the plate because of the two of them being there. I would look for the pitchers to do a little bit better with Maldonado and Stassi. They can both call a good game. Maldonado is a little better, perhaps because of his experience.

This should be a good year for catchers in Chicago and may continue, with the younger group that’s coming up, in the future.