The Detroit Tigers should retain James McCann for 2019
By Ash Thompson
The Detroit Tigers James McCann is not having a great season. He is still the best option for the team in 2019.
The Detroit Tigers have so many question marks that it is difficult to imagine them adding more intentionally. The team is not going to be able to win games with their bats in 2019, but many seem eager to run one of the team’s best defensive assets, James McCann, out of town.
The Tigers are a team that will likely be trying out a pack of young pitchers. Having a veteran catcher they can trust to take care of them should be mandatory. That is just player development 101.
The primary reasons for going another direction from McCann are offensive production and money. McCann is hitting .223 in the year. While that is a down season for him, he is only a career .242 hitter. In his four seasons in the majors, he has hit as high as .264 in a season, and the team had hoped to see more of that. If they had, this would not even be an issue.
McCann is under team control during the offseason, He has arbitration rights, and the concern is that an arbitrator will grant him upwards of $4 million per season. The Tigers have cheaper and younger options. Grayson Greiner is a 25-year-old taking his first steps in the majors. The Tigers also have two promising minor leaguers, Jake Rogers and Joey Morgan, in the pipeline.
The Tigers will also consider John Hicks, who split his time between first base and catching this season, with a heavy leaning toward first base. He is a better offensive player than McCann, but not on the same level defensively. He is undergoing surgery that will likely end his season.
McCann is still the best option for next season, though. A couple million in salary savings will not be worth short-circuiting the development of the pitching staff or rushing prospects into the big leagues that are not ready.
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McCann is likely not the long-term answer for the Tigers, but he buys Greiner another season if he needs it. The worst case scenario is that Greiner takes the job in spring training, and McCann spends a season as an overpaid backup.