Yasmani Grandal hopes his bat erases a blot on his career

GLENDALE, Ariz. – Yasmani Grandal knows he has to live with the stigma attached to having served a 50-game suspension for violating Major League Baseball’s ban on performance-enhancing drugs.

“The way I see it, we make mistakes and we learn from them,” Grandal said before the start of spring training. “It’s just like the game of baseball – you make a mistake in one at-bat, you come back and learn from it.”

But the Dodgers catcher is not willing to tolerate any suggestions that the sharp dropoff in his offensive production since the suspension is an indication he cannot be the same hitter without the extra advantage he was caught seeking.

“If you look at my numbers coming up, there’s a reason why I have the second-highest average in the history of the University of Miami,” Grandal said. “There’s a reason I hit .300 with 15-plus (home runs) and 80 (RBI) my first year in the minors. There’s a reason for that.

“I don’t want to say I’m defensive. But people should do their homework.”

That homework shows Grandal hit .297 with an .863 OPS and eight home runs in just 60 games as a rookie with the San Diego Padres in 2012. Suspended for the first 50 games of the 2013 season after he tested positive for excessive levels of testosterone, Grandal has hit .224 with a .721 OPS and 16 home runs total in parts of two seasons since.

But the homework assignment Grandal has in mind goes deeper than that. He played just 28 games after returning from his suspension before suffering a torn ACL in his right knee during a play at home plate against the Washington Nationals in July of 2013. Grandal underwent reconstructive surgery on his right knee and vowed to “be Adrian Peterson.” The prognosis was for a nine- to 12-month rehab process, but Grandal pushed it and opened the 2014 season on the Padres’ active roster.

In retrospect, that might not have been the best thing to do. Grandal’s right knee was not back to full strength and the switch-hitter’s production at the plate – particularly from the right side – suffered. He finished last season with a .225 average, having struck out once every three at-bats.

“I’m a firm believer that if you don’t have your lower half, you can’t hit,” said Dodgers hitting coach Mark McGwire, a man familiar with how PED use can stigmatize and color the perception of a player. “I would tend to go towards the legs side (to explain his offensive dropoff) than the other side.”

Grandal’s numbers improved in the second half and he finished strong, batting .291 with four home runs and 14 RBI in September. He carried that into winter ball, heading to the Dominican Republic for a time to satisfy himself – if no one else – that “I was right.” He hit .328 in 19 games with two home runs, including one while batting right-handed that Grandal boasts was one of the longest home runs he has ever hit right-handed.

“To tell you the truth, we didn’t even talk about last year. We talked about what he did in the winter,” McGwire said. “He went down and played winter ball to prove to himself that he was healthy and that he had that good feeling from the right side. And then he called it quits and came home. That’s really cool that he did that. A lot of guys wouldn’t have done that.”

Grandal went to the Dominican a Padre and came back a Dodger, having been acquired in the trade that sent Matt Kemp south. His knee now is “110 percent,” Grandal said, and the Dodgers clearly think they acquired an undervalued asset about to become a very valued one – a catcher who can be a vital part of what they hope is a deep lineup. Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman called Grandal’s offensive numbers last season “an outlier” because he came back so quickly from knee surgery and “didn’t have his legs under him” until the second half of the season.

“He’s got pop from both sides. He’s a dangerous cat,” Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said. “You can tell the way he swings, he’s on pitches. At the end of the year last year, we had trouble getting him out. We didn’t really know where to go. We kept trying different things. He always seemed to square it up somewhere.”


(ocregister.com)