James McCann joined the Diamondbacks later in the seasons, on June 25th. Gabi Moreno was out with a broken finger, and a battery of Herrera and ADC was a terrifying proposition. On the other hand, McCann had just left the Braves after originally signing with them on a minor league deal but had been unable to crack the MLB roster; it was a good match for both sides.<\/p>\n
The twelve year veteran did not waste time making an impact on the team when he was signed, and in ways was a key part of the Diamondbacks\u2019 second half resurgence. Offensively, he was serviceable. He hit five home runs and six doubles in 42 games, while knocking in 17 runs. His OPS+ of 107 was the best he\u2019s had since he put up 143 in 2020, or perhaps more realistically, since he recorded 108 in 2019. Especially when you compare him to the other options the Diamondbacks had, he was practically a godsend for the position, and it\u2019s easy to see why he was rated so highly in our poll.<\/p>\n
But even those offensive numbers didn\u2019t lead to anything flashy. Looking at his game log it\u2019s hard to point to any sort of real high water mark for his season. There\u2019s no standout game that screams The James McCann game. That said, there\u2019s definitely value in the steady offensive performance he brought to the table most games.<\/p>\n
The biggest impact he had on the team, however, was his presence behind the plate. He provided literal stability for a position that had been wracked with injuries and underperformance, ultimately replacing Herrera, who had long since outstayed his welcome, as the back up catcher and keeping ADC as the third string\/emergency catcher as much as possible.<\/p>\n
He also was a positive impact on the pitching staff. His Catcher\u2019s ERA of 4.07 was lower than either of the other two regular options, Moreno and Herrera, and the pitchers and coaching staff all gave him rave reviews. Gallen especially credited him with restoring his confidence in his fastball, which directly correlated to Gallen\u2019s improvements in the second half. Lovullo described his conversations with the pitchers on the team as being \u201cPhD level stuff\u2019 improving all of the staff with those interactions.<\/p>\n
Shortly after the season ended, McCann signed a one year, $2.75 million contract to remain with the Diamondbacks in a backup role behind Gabi Moreno. This has to be seen as nothing but a positive for the Diamondbacks, as he compliments Gabi\u2019s weakness with game calling and pitcher handling with his own strengths of doing just that. He also represents a decent replacement starter for if and when Moreno gets injured again. Hopefully McCann going forward can get more time with some of the younger pitchers and give them the improved results that he was able to find for Zac Gallen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"James McCann joined the Diamondbacks later in the seasons, on June 25th. Gabi Moreno was out with a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[148796,363,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-378881","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-arizona-diamondbacks-analysis-commentary","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}