James McCann had a very good year. McCann built on his 2019 excellence at the plate while, most critically, earning great marks on pitch framing, a +2 according to Statcast.
McCann’s “year” — insert back page headline-sized asterisk — was like, a month, though. (Thirty-one games to be exact).
His worst-in-baseball framing stats from 2019, a -15, were so egregious, the White Sox signed Yasmani Grandal and gave him McCann’s starting job even though he made the All-Star team. Instead of hiring J.T. Realmuto, the Mets inked the consensus number-two catcher in free agency as their number-one backstop.
So, why commit to McCann and his brief track record as a complete player when the interest in Steve Cohen’s savings account would probably cover the difference between a sometimes starter and star-level stud? McCann’s defensive gains weren’t proof of small sample size quirks, but the first sign of a skill change.
“He deserves every bit of credit for all the improvement he made over the past year,” former catcher Jerry Narron said. Narron, a baseball lifer, coached McCann the previous offseason to help him make a full about-face from his defensively dismal 2019. “It’s rare to see somebody make that kind of improvement.”
Narron is, by far, the most qualified person in baseball to make that claim. Not only did he overhaul McCann’s approach ahead of his defensive breakout, he’s witnessed the best his entire career.
A former catcher himself, Narron studied under Yogi Berra and Elston Howard while coming up through the Yankees organization, then as a rookie, briefly and tragically backed up the late Thurmon Munson. While catching for the Anaheim Angels, he played alongside Gold Glover and All-Star Bob Boone — yes, Aaron’s dad — then as a coach and manager, oversaw the greatest catcher in modern baseball history, Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez.
As knowledgeable as he was about great catchers of the past, Narron is a self-described “stat-nerd,” following trends and data to improve technique. “People think you know, ‘This guy has been in the game forever, he could care less about the analytics.’ I’m blessed with the experience I have… about the older ways of doing it, but I love to newer ways also.”
Narron’s “back in my day” anecdotes aren’t blinkered by nostalgia. “At that time it was bring everything in (toward your body). Catch everything like it’s an egg… with two hands or a lot of times,” Narron told the Daily News of his playing days. That’s an approach he admits doesn’t work as well, because it doesn’t emphasize the importance of a catcher angling their body so that the umpire can see the glove in the strike zone.
“Now, to give the umpire a better look, (catchers) get around and come through the ball, back onto the plate,” Narron said. “I think a lot of people just think you get down on a knee and you get your drop-down and you just smash it up into the zone. That is really the furthest thing from the truth. You got to have a pretty good idea of how to make those angles work for you.”
Narron believed McCann had never had intensive instruction on the modern framing techniques he needed to improve his game, which The Athletic’s James Fegan detailed back in January. The White Sox didn’t have a major-league level catching coach, and even though McCann was working hard on framing since his early big league days with the Detroit Tigers, Narron believed the flaws in his method implied a real opportunity to level up with focused training.
“(James) was pretty much a blank canvas because he didn’t have — no one had really taught him a great deal about how to get the angles,” Narron said. “After looking at video on him, it was pretty easy to see how he could improve some things.”
So, Narron made crucial changes to McCann’s approach that are visible on the field and manifest in his numbers.
McCann spots his glove down low — “almost into the dirt,” Narron said — before receiving a pitch. “His set-up was high and looking at his numbers in the past… he’s much better than balls up in the zone than he was on the low pitches.”
You can see Narron’s critique of McCann’s old setup yourself comes from — his glove is much higher than the ball even when he’s expecting a breaking pitch below the zone.
Now, McCann frequently buries his glove before raising it up, an intentional adjustment from his work with Narron.
This is ultimately nested under Narron’s emphasis on a stance that makes sure the catcher can control the ball, and thus, their body, instead of the other way around.
“If you don’t control the ball you have no chance of getting strikes,” Narron said. “If the ball’s controlling you, you’re going to push it right out of the zone, or the ball’s gonna push your glove out of the zone.”
So, while McCann’s record as a all-around excellent catcher is brief, and it occurred under league-wide circumstances we hope (we pray) won’t bleed into 2021, the man closest to the situation believes the change is real. McCann may not be Realmuto — right now, no one is — so long as the gains are real. And if that’s true, he doesn’t have to be Realmuto to be a difference-maker for a team in need of a defensive boost.
“I just showed (McCann) a couple of things. He worked extremely hard at it and carried it over,” Narron said.
He’s confident the performance behind the plate can only gain so long as he keeps up with his new preparation. “I’m looking forward to him getting even better. Because, really, he’s only been doing this for one year.”
