When reports emerged that Yasmani Grandal had turned down an offer from the Atlanta Braves this past offseason, it didn't really move the needle much for fans. Braves Country was firmly in the middle of the hype around Drake Baldwin's emergence after Sean Murphy got hurt and the team already had a bunch of veteran backups in camp.
However, Grandal probably deserved a little more credit and attention than that. He certainly isn't the player he once was and his numbers in 2022 and 2023 were terrible, but Grandal remains one of the better framers in baseball and he put together a pretty good season with the Pirates last year.
Complicating the picture is that with how much Sean Murphy is playing now upon his return from the IL, having Grandal around as a backup catcher would have been really helpful. Unfortunately, Grandal instead surprisingly took a minor league deal from the Red Sox.
Yasmani Grandal spurning the Braves for the Red Sox hurts a bit more these days
This is a weird one because the initial narrative around Grandal's decision was that he was looking for a major league deal and that is why he turned Atlanta down. To then turn around and sign a MiLB deal with Boston raised some eyebrows, but there is probably a method to Grandal's madness here.
What Grandal probably thought at the time is that between Murphy, Baldwin, and the slew of veteran catchers the Braves brought into camp, his path to meaningful playing time in the majors with Atlanta was very narrow. As time progressed, Grandal just didn't find takers for his services on a major league deal and probably just took the best remaining deal on the table.
Sadly, this development did hurt the Braves a bit. Murphy is playing so much now that he is healthy that it feels pretty likely that the Braves might use Baldwin to give him a day off very soon and then send him back to the minors for regular playing time again. In that world, having a proven veteran that can call a good game like Grandal as Murphy's backup would be pretty valuable.
Will Grandal's decision move the needle much for the Braves in the grand scheme of things? Probably not as backup catchers don't generally matter all that much. However, it still would have been nice to have him around right now.