How Yasmani Grandal landed with the Red Sox
Last week, Yasmani Grandal was getting to take on a challenge he had never experienced in all his baseball life: Coaching his 7-year-old son's baseball team.
"I think I was a little bit more nervous than he was," the 36-year-old two-time All-Star told WEEI.com.
Then life threw him a curveball. It was a call from his agent.
The Red Sox, the team he had grown up idolizing, wanted him to join their organization. Starting catcher Connor Wong was going to miss a significant amount of time due to a fractured pinky and they needed a veteran complement to Carlos Narvaez.
An offer was made ... and then the real negotiations began.
"They called in and I didn't even know Connor had gotten hurt. I don't read the media or keep up with baseball as much as I should. So my agent called and I was working out at the time and he was like, 'Hey, the Red Sox called and they are going to put an offer on the table. Think about it. Talk to your wife. See what you guys think.' We went from there," Grandal said. "It took about until 9 p.m. on Wednesday to say, 'Let's go ahead.' I had to make a deal with the boys. I had to get them a PS5 (video game system) and a dog by the time I got back."
He had to get what?!
"Yup," he said. "A PS5 and a dog."
A deal was struck. Grandal would be signing a minor-league deal with the Red Sox with an opportunity to opt-out on May 1, and upon his return home to Chicago, the kids were going to be getting their new pet and video game console.
"It pretty much came down to talking it through with my wife and figuring out whether we wanted to do this or not," explained Grandal, who spent last season with the Pirates. "We had spoken with the Red Sox in the offseason. An organization I would love to come back and play for it would have been this one. To hopefully get a chance to hear out (Jason) Varitek, pretty much. I have heard a bunch of things about him. How smart he is and how he thinks about the game. To get a chance to be around that, that would be great. Obviously, he was my favorite player growing up. Just to get a chance to be back on the field ... I'm pretty competetitive. When I was home I was trying to figure out ways I could compete with different things."
The catcher added, "I had a few other teams. It wasn't something I could just leave the house for. It took this long to make the decision and (the family) said, 'Go ahead and do it.'"
This landing spot for Grandal felt like a perfect way to potentially highlight the twilight of what has been a 13-year big league career. He first fell in love with the Red Sox as a teenager in South Florida, pushing back on his family's MLB following.
"I always picked what I felt was the underdog," he remembered. "At the time my whole family were either for the Marlins or Yankees. I was always kind of like the rebel. So I was like, 'If you are going to go with the Yankees, I'm going to go with Boston.'"
Then there was Varitek.
Grandal's admiration for the Red Sox was officially cemented thanks to the presence of the former catcher, who became the be-all, end-all when envisioning what the aspiring big leaguer wanted to be.
"I remember being in the Cape Cod League and going and watch the Red Sox and I could pretty much tell you (Varitek's) whole warmup routine because that's all I was looking at," said Grandal, who asked for his idol's autograph while competing against the Red Sox as a member of the Dodgers in the 2018 World Series, with the two finally meeting each other in 2021.
In 2007, the Red Sox tried to play on Grandal's love for the Red Sox by drafting the Miami Springs (FL) High product in the 27th round despite his insistence he would not turning his back on a commitment to the University of Miami. What the Sox didn't know what that Hurricanes had also leveraged Varitek in getting Grandal to Coral Gables, with the school's head baseball coach, Jim Morris, making it clear to his recruit that he also had a relationship with Varitek, having coached him at Georgia Tech.
It worked out for Grandal. Three years later he was taken by the Reds with the 12th overall pick in the MLB Draft, launching a career that has 1,307 regular season MLB games and 40 more in the postseason.
It's why he wasn't going to project a hint of desperation as a free agent this past offseason.
"There was no frustration for me," he said. "I went into the offseason with the mentality that if it happens, great, and if doesn't I can always call it. I have had a pretty long career. Not too many guys get to the point where I was. There was no regrets or anything like that. If somebody wanted to give me a chance to be part of 13, great. If not, like I said, I have two boys at home. I can definitely work with them. For me family is obviously No. 1. So I was excited about that, being able to spend more time with them.
"After a while I just kind of got into this mindset that it is what it is and if it happens, and if not, great, too."
Now, Grandal finds himself wearing No. 13 with the Triple-A WooSox, diving into the deep end when it comes to playing in games. For the veteran backstop, it's worth putting the pedal to the metal for maybe one last time.
"It is all going to come down to how the body is feeling," he explained. "That's just plain and simple. I can't get old and not be able to play with my kids. I'm going to give this a true shot, push myself to the limit and see how it goes. If it ends up happening where I can somewhat contribute to the major league team, obviously that's the goal.
"It's going to be nonstop. Obviously, you have some guys here who have some bright futures. If I can make an impact on them and have them be able to help the big league team, that's also a win. So there is a lot of good that can come of this."